And with them by their generations, according to their fathers' houses, were military bands for war, thirty-six thousand; for they had many wives and sons.
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.
And their brethren among all the families of Issachar valiant men of might, registered by genealogy, in all eighty-seven thousand.
This verse counts 87,000 fighting men in the clans of Issachar, and says each one was listed in a family register. Why does the Bible care so much about head-counts and family lists? And what did it cost a scattered people to keep them?
Issachar's numbers come quickly, without the detail the book gave to Judah and Levi. One writer explains why:
1 Chronicles 7 gives the remaining tribes with the chief men among them. The two things of divine importance are the throne and the temple. The record has given these with care and detail. The other tribes were not linked with them as closely as Judah and Levi were, so the record passes over them very briefly.
This short record credits the tribe with three things: growing numbers, careful records, and fitness for battle:
1 Chronicles 7 closes the genealogy of the tribes. The sons of Issachar come first. They "had many wives and sons" (v. 4). The numbering of the men of war begins with Issachar. In this tribe, the number of men of war kept growing from the time the kingship began. In David's time it was 22,600 men, then 36,000 men; and finally, because of their many wives, 87,000 men (v. 5). A second good trait of this tribe is that they took care of their genealogies. Verse 5 tells us that every one of these men was registered by genealogy. The chapter names a third feature only for Issachar, Benjamin, and Asher: "valiant men of might," fit to go out to war.
The phrase "enrolled by genealogy" was not about pride in ancestors. Land and priesthood both hung on it:
By the time the exiles returned, many families could no longer prove who they were. One writer sees both ruin and mercy in the broken lists that remained:
These genealogies were imperfect. Israel's condition bore the mark of the ruin that had come on them. But it also bore the mark of the goodness of God, who had brought back a remnant. He had kept safe everything needed to place the people of that remnant in the record of His people… Happy is the man who kept his own genealogy, and who thought so much of the LORD's inheritance that he held it precious! It was a proof of faith. Someone might have said, "What use are these genealogies in Babylon?"
The returning exiles needed those lists for practical reasons too:
When they returned, these genealogies would be of the greatest importance. They mattered so that the Israelites should not take what was not theirs. They mattered so that the people should not be unjust, and so that they should be content with what God had given them. They mattered so that they should link themselves with all that was great and glorious in God's sight in the past… In their weakness they would need every cheer and encouragement.
The ESV calls these men "mighty warriors"; older translations read "mighty men of valour." God hands that title to people who look nothing like it:
God's "mighty men" have always been men who were complete cowards in themselves. They distrusted their own strength and wisdom in facing the enemy. They were "made strong out of weakness." No one is a "mighty man of valour" except those who have heard the words, "The LORD is with you." When God calls a person by a name, He makes that person what the name means. But He takes the most lowly man of a lowly tribe to make him His "mighty man of valour."
Behind the human register stands a divine one. One writer reads this whole record as God's memorial of His people:
At the same time He records the names of those who went through the trials in this history and were never blotted out of the book. Here we have only the outward picture of this blessed memorial of the people of His grace. But that is in fact what we find here.
- Counted — Issachar's fighting men rose from 22,600 to 36,000 to 87,000; the tribe grew, and the record grew with it.
- Enrolled — every man was in the register. Without it a family lost its inheritance, and a priest lost his office.
- Tested — in Babylon the obvious question was, "What use are these genealogies?" Keeping them anyway was proof of faith.
- Valiant — God calls weak men "mighty men of valour," and then makes them what the name means.
- Remembered — the list is a picture of God's own memorial of His people, names kept and not blotted out.