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New Defender's Study Bible Notes
9:1 away to Babylon. This verse, among others, confirms that Israel’s leaders placed great importance on keeping genealogies, for reasons of maintaining definitive records of the respective inheritances given to the various families when they conquered the land. It also shows that the two books of Chronicles (originally one book) were written after the tribes had been carried away into their Assyrian and Babylonian captivities. See also II Chronicles 36:20-23, which shows they were completed during or after the return from the Babylonian exile. Comparison of the latter with Ezra 1:1-4 indicates that the compiler and writer of Chronicles may well have been Ezra.
9:2 the Nethinims. See note on Nehemiah 11:21. These “first inhabitants” apparently were the Israelites, including men from Ephraim and Manasseh (see I Chronicles 8:3) as well as Judah and Benjamin, who first returned from Babylon to restore Jerusalem and the temple. With the division of the kingdom under Rehoboam and Jeroboam, many from the ten rebelling tribes migrated south and west to Judah in order to be near the temple. Some of their descendants went with the exiles to Babylon and some returned after the exile.
9:3 And in Jerusalem. I Chronicles 9:3-9 gives the names of the first Israelites who came back to Jerusalem, I Chronicles 9:10-13 the priests, and I Chronicles 9:14-34 the Levites.
9:22 David and Samuel. Samuel had evidently advised David about his future plans for the service of the tabernacle. He died, of course, before David became king and could implement his advice.
9:39 Kish begat Saul. I Chronicles 9:35-44 goes back and repeats the genealogy and background of Saul, evidently in preparation for the historical survey of David’s life and then the history of the kingdom of Judah.