Exodus 6:13-19

13-19. Since Israel is now to be led forth as a nation, Moses and Aaron, their leaders, are fully set before us according to their genealogy . The tribe of Levi now, therefore, comes before us, with its three tribal families and their subdivisions, while the elder tribes, Reuben and Simeon, are mentioned with their general family divisions, in order to show the relative position of Levi . (Knobel here clearly shows the connexion against the documentists . ) The fathers’ houses are usually considered as divisions of the tribal families, subdivisions of the tribe, (Geseuius, Furst, Ewald,) but the phrase is considered by Kurtz to be simply another designation for the tribe, the word “fathers” meaning ancestors. But the first view is favoured by the systematic classification in passages like Joshua 7:14, and Numbers 1:20; Numbers 1:22, etc . , where the phrase should be translated, as here, “houses of their fathers,” (not house; see Gesen., Gram., § 108, 3; Ewald, Gram., § 270, c.) The twelve tribes were regularly divided and subdivided, according to lineage, with princes or heads over each section or grade, who took their rank by primogeniture. Besides this hereditary nobility there were elders, who appear to have held their position from age and experience, probably owing their rank to popular election, and who always appear as the representatives of the people, and constitute a democratic element in the state. There were, finally, the scribes, or shoterim officers who may have arisen under Egyptian influences, as already noticed, who exercised a subordinate overseership over government labourers, and probably had charge of the genealogical tables and public writings. Thus the patriarchal and Egyptian governments furnished the groundwork for the elaborate Mosaic system perfected at Sinai.