📖WEB · 1 Chronicles 7:2
What does 1 Chronicles 7:2 mean?
"The sons of Tola: Uzzi, Rephaiah, Jeriel, Jahmai, Ibsam, and Shemuel, heads of their fathers’ houses, of Tola; mighty men of valor in their generations. Their number in the days of David was twenty-two thousand six hundred."
— 1 Chronicles 7:2 (World English Bible)
Surrounding context
Of the sons of Issachar: Tola, and Puah, Jashub, and Shimron, four.
The sons of Tola: Uzzi, Rephaiah, Jeriel, Jahmai, Ibsam, and Shemuel, heads of their fathers’ houses, of Tola; mighty men of valor in their generations. Their number in the days of David was twenty-two thousand six hundred.
The son of Uzzi: Izrahiah. The sons of Izrahiah: Michael, Obadiah, Joel, and Isshiah, five; all of them chief men.
With them, by their generations, after their fathers’ houses, were bands of the army for war, thirty-six thousand; for they had many wives and sons.
Their brothers among all the families of Issachar, mighty men of valor, listed in all by genealogy, were eighty-seven thousand.
Explanation
1 Chronicles 7:2 lists the sons of Tola, who was a grandson of Issachar (one of the twelve sons of Jacob/Israel). The verse names six men — Uzzi, Rephaiah, Jeriel, Jahmai, Ibsam, and Shemuel — identifying them as heads of their ancestral households within the clan of Tola. It also notes that these family lines produced "mighty men of valor," that is, capable warriors or leaders, and that by the time of King David, this branch of the tribe of Issachar numbered 22,600 men.
The book of 1 Chronicles was likely compiled after the Babylonian exile, traditionally attributed to Ezra or a scribe working in that tradition, for the returning Jewish community. Its opening nine chapters consist almost entirely of genealogies tracing Israel's tribes from Adam through the post-exilic period. The purpose was to help the restored community reestablish its identity, its tribal land claims, its priestly and Levitical lines, and its connection to the covenant promises of God despite the disruption of exile. Issachar's genealogy, including Tola's descendants, fits into this larger project of reconnecting a scattered people to their ancestral roots and to the reign of David, who represented the high point of a unified, faithful kingdom.
Theologically, this verse reflects the biblical conviction that God is attentive to real families, names, and generations — history matters to
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