1 Chronicles 2:21-24 -

The first interruption to the record of Caleb's posterity is now occasioned by a resumed reference to Hezron , who at the age of threescore took to wife (as it seems from 1 Chronicles 2:24 ) Abiah , sister to Gilead, daughter of the eminent man Machir , who was Manasseh's oldest son by an Aramitess concubine ( 1 Chronicles 7:14 ). Two sons of Hezron by Abiah are given (the latter of them a posthumous child), but the elder having a son called Jair tracked, no doubt as one who became famous by the number of cities he took. He was thus connected on the father's side with a great family of Judah, and on the mother's with a great family of Manasseh. He is probably not the Jair of 10:3 , with his "thirty sons, thirty ass colts, and thirty cities." And יָאִיר is not יָעִיד of 2 Samuel 21:19 ; 1 Chronicles 20:5 . Evident stress is laid on his maternal descent. Thus ( Numbers 32:41 ) he is styled son of Manasseh, and hence also the explanation of the last clause of verse 23, infra , all these belonged to the sons of Machir the father of Gilead . Some of the cities alluded to are the Havoth-Jair ( Numbers 32:41 ; Deuteronomy 3:14 ; Joshua 13:30 ), Englished as the "groups of dwellings of Jair," on which see interesting note in Stanley's 'Sinai and Palestine', vocabulary, pp. 526, 527. They lay in the trans-Jordanic district Trachonitis, the modern El-leyah and Jebel-Hauran. It is not possible to harmonize exactly the numbers of the cities given here with those in passages quoted above; nor is the translation of verse 23, Authorized Version, very certainly the correct one. E. Bertheau, in his 'Die Bucher der Chronik erklart; 15. Kurzgef. exegetisches Handbuch. z. A.T.,' translates, "And Geshur and Aram took the Havvoth-Jair from them with Kenath and her daughter-towns, sixty cities." "Took" is supposed to mean here "retook," or "recovered." Though this suits the Hebrew syntax better, it does not suit so well our immediate context; nor have we any other information of such re, covering of them.