Biblion Bible Commentary
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The Tribes Beyond the Jordan
1 Chronicles 5:1-26
1 The sons of Reuben the firstborn of Israel (for he was the firstborn, but because he defiled his father’s couch, his birthright was given to the sons of Joseph the son of Israel; and the genealogy is not to be listed according to the birthright. · WEB
One chapter records a victory won by trust and a deportation earned by apostasy, and credits both to the same God.
The chapter opens by explaining the order of the whole register, which is the only place in nine chapters where the writer does that.
Reuben was the firstborn, and lost the birthright for defiling his father's bed; it went to Joseph's sons. But Judah prevailed above his brothers, and from him came the prince 1 Chronicles 5:2. So two things are separated that a reader might expect to travel together. The double portion went one way and the ruling line went another, and neither went to the firstborn. That is why Judah stands at the head of the list while Reuben, named first here, is placed fifth.
The tribes east of the Jordan are then described as strong. They are herdsmen with land from the river Euphrates westward 1 Chronicles 5:9, forty-four thousand seven hundred sixty men able to bear arms 1 Chronicles 5:18, victorious over the desert clans.
And the writer says exactly why they won. They cried to God in the battle, and he answered them because they put their trust in him 1 Chronicles 5:20. The verse after it is blunter still: the war was of God 1 Chronicles 5:22. Numbers and skill are listed first and then set aside as the explanation.
Seven verses later the same tribes are gone. They trespassed against the God of their fathers, and turned to the gods of the peoples that had been driven out before them 1 Chronicles 5:25 — the particular folly of adopting the religion of the defeated. Then God stirred up the spirit of two Assyrian kings, and the eastern tribes were deported 1 Chronicles 5:26.
That phrase is the hinge, and it is used elsewhere for the opposite errand: the same stirring of a foreign king's spirit sends a later empire to release the exiles and rebuild Ezra 1:1. One vocabulary covers the deportation and the return.
So the chapter holds a rise and a fall, and refuses to explain either by the tribes' own strength. They were helped because they trusted. They were removed because they turned. Between the two, nothing changed except that.
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