¹ tn Heb “and the second lot came out for Simeon, for the tribe of the sons of Simeon by their clans.”

¹ tn Heb “there was no one [following] after the house of David except the tribe of Judah, it alone.”

³ sn The Girgashites are an otherwise unknown Canaanite tribe, though the name is possibly mentioned in Ugaritic texts (see G. J. Wenham, Genesis [WBC], 1:226).

¹ sn Before entering Sinai the tribe numbered 59,300, the third largest. Now it was about one-third its original size.

³ sn The following blessing is given to the tribes in order, although the tribe of Simeon is curiously missing from the list.

¹ tn Heb “By lot was their inheritance, as the Lord had commanded by Moses, to the nine tribes and the half-tribe.”

¹ tn Heb “The lot was to the tribe of the sons of Judah by their clans to the border of Edom, the wilderness of Zin toward the south, southward.”

¹ tn Heb “and the cities were at the end of the tribe of the sons of Judah, at the border of Edom, to the south.”

² tn Heb “There was a young man from Bethlehem of Judah, from the tribe of Judah, and he was a Levite, and he was temporarily residing there.”

¹ tn Heb “They journeyed from there, from the tribe of the Danites, from Zorah and from Eshtaol, six hundred men, equipped with weapons of war.”

¹ sn As the lot dictates. The Israelite soldiers intended to cast lots to determine which tribe would lead the battle charge (see v. 18).

¹ tn Heb “he summoned all the house of Judah and the tribe of Benjamin, one hundred eighty thousand chosen men, accomplished in war.”

¹ sn Gilead was located east of the Jordan. Half of the tribe of Manasseh lived east of the Jordan in the region of Bashan.

¹ sn Little Benjamin, their ruler. This may allude to the fact that Israel’s first king, Saul, was from the tribe of Benjamin.

¹ tn Gilead was located east of the Jordan River. Half of the tribe of Manasseh lived east of the Jordan in the region of Bashan.

¹ sn Pekod was the name of an Aramean tribe (known as Puqudu in Mesopotamian texts) that lived in the region of the Tigris River.

¹ sn The tribe from which the Davidic prince would come is given the most prestigious allotment (see Gen 49:8-12).

¹ sn The comparison of the tribe of Dan to a venomous serpent is meant to say that Dan, though small, would be potent, gaining victory through its skill and shrewdness. Jewish commentators have linked the image in part with Samson. That link at least illustrates the point: Though a minority tribe, Dan would gain the upper hand over others.

⁴ tn The tribe (מַטֶּה, matteh or שֵׁבֶט, shevet) is the main category. The family groups or clans (מִשְׁפְּחֹת, mishpÿkhot) and the households or families (בֵּית אֲבֹת, bet ’avot) were sub-divisions of the tribe.

² tn The construction is unexpected, for Levites would be from the tribe of Levi. The note seems more likely to express that all these people were organized by tribal lineage, and so too the Levites, according to the tribe of their fathers – individual families of Levites.