And they dwelt in Gilead, in Bashan and in its towns: The pronoun they refers to the clans of Gad mentioned in the previous verses. If this will be unclear in the receptor language, this pronoun is better rendered “These clans,” “The Gadites” (New Living Translation), “The descendants of Gad” (Parola Del Signore: La Bibbia in Lingua Corrente), or “The Gadite people” (International Children’s Bible). Interpreters have noted that the phrase in Gilead, in Bashan seems odd since Gilead refers to the southern territory and Bashan refers to the northern territory east of the Jordan River. Gilead was not in Bashan. Furthermore, the pronoun its in Hebrew is feminine. Cities in Hebrew are grammatically feminine but regions are not. Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia suggests that the Hebrew word translated in Bashan should be corrected to read “in Jabesh.” Knoppers has accepted this correction of the Masoretic Text and translates the beginning of this verse as “They lived in Gilead, in Jabesh and its dependencies.” This is an appealing conjecture, but it has no basis in the manuscripts, so should not be accepted. The Hebrew for in Gilead, in Bashan should be understood to mean “in Gilead and in Bashan.” Towns is literally “daughters.” The Hebrew term here indicates a relationship of dependency on a larger or more important unit, in this case Bashan and Gilead (see the comments on 1 Chr 2.23). “Daughters” has been translated “towns,” “villages” (Revised English Bible), “surrounding settlements” ( NET Bible), “outlying villages” (New International Version), and “dependencies” (New Jerusalem Bible, New Jewish Publication Society’s Tanakh, Traduction œcuménique de la Bible). Another possible rendering for “its daughters” is “regions that depended on them [Bashan and Gilead].”

And in all the pasture lands of Sharon to their limits: The Hebrew word for pasture lands refers to open land normally used as places where cattle and flocks of sheep and goats could feed on the grass. Sharon is not the better-known plain on the Mediterranean coast south of Mount Carmel, but some place east of the Jordan River. The Mesha Inscription (also called the Moabite Stone) shows that a region or city named Sharon existed east of the Jordan River. But there is another way of interpreting the text here. Some interpreters change a letter in the Hebrew name Sharon and read “Sirion” (so New American Bible), since “Sirion” is another name for Mount Hermon in Deut 3.9 and 4.48. Menge provides a possible model for this interpretation by translating “Sharon” in the text and then stating in a footnote, “Probably should read ‘Sirion,’ that is, Hermon.” Hebrew Old Testament Text Project gives a {B} rating to the text of the Masoretic Text. But since there is no manuscript evidence for “Sirion,” Critique Textuelle de l’Ancien Testament, which is the final report of Hebrew Old Testament Text Project, does not discuss the problem because it is considered a historical problem and not a textual problem.

Quoted with permission from Omanson, Roger L. and Ellington, John E. A Handbook on 1-2 Chronicles, Volume 1. (UBS Helps for Translators). Miami: UBS, 2014. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .