The gods of the people of the land - We see the reason why God delivered the Hagarites into the hands of these tribes; they were abominable idolaters, and therefore God destroyed them.

And they transgressed against the God their fathers,.... Against his law, will, word, and ordinances, not only the half tribe of Manasseh, hut the Reubenites and Gadites also:

and went a whoring after the gods of the people of the land, whom God destroyed before them; that is, committed idolatry, which is spiritual fornication or whoredom; worshipped the idols either of the Amorites, who were destroyed by the Lord to make way for their first settlement; or of the Ishmaelites, whom they conquered, and whose land they dwelt in to the captivity.

1 Chronicles 5:25 and 1 Chronicles 5:26 form the conclusion of the register of the two and a half trans-Jordanic tribes. The sons of Manasseh are not the subject to ויּמעלוּ, but the Reubenites and Manassites, as is clear from 1 Chronicles 5:26. These fell away faithlessly from the God of their fathers, and went a whoring after the gods of the people of the land, whom God had destroyed before them, i.e., the Amorites or Canaanites. "And the God of Israel stirred up the spirit of the Assyrian kings Pul and Tiglath-pilneser, and he (this latter) led them away captives to Halah and Habor," etc. את־רוּח ויּער, Lavater has rightly rendered, "in mentem illis dedit, movit eos, ut expeditionem facerent contra illos;" cf. 2 Chronicles 21:16. Pul is mentioned as being the first Assyrian king who attacked the land of Israel, cf. 2 Kings 15:19. The deportation began, however, only with Tiglath-pileser, who led the East-Jordan tribes into exile, 2 Kings 15:29. To him ויּגלם sing. refers. The suffix is defined by the following acc., וגו לרעוּבני; ל is, according to the later usage, nota acc.; cf. Ew. 277, e. So also before the name חלח, "to Halah," i.e., probably the district Καλαχήνη (in Strabo) on the east side of the Tigris near Adiabene, to the north of Nineveh, on the frontier of Armenia (cf. on 2 Kings 17:6). In the second book of Kings (1 Chronicles 15:29) the district to which the two and a half tribes were sent as exiles is not accurately determined, being only called in general Asshur (Assyria). The names in our verse are there (2 Kings 17:6) the names of the districts to which Shalmaneser sent the remainder of the ten tribes after the destruction of the kingdom of Israel. It is therefore questionable whether the author of the Chronicle took his account from an authority used by him, or if he names these districts only according to general recollection, in which the times of Shalmaneser and of Tiglath-pileser are not very accurately distinguished (Berth.). We consider the first supposition the more probable, not merely because he inverts the order of the names, but mainly because he gives the name הרא instead of "the cities of Media," as it is in Kings, and that name he could only have obtained from his authorities. חבור is not the river Chaboras in Mesopotamia, which falls into the Euphrates near Circesium, for that river is called in Ezekiel כּבר, but is a district in northern Assyria, where Jakut mentions that there is both a mountain Χαβώρας on the frontier of Assyria and Media (Ptolem. vi. 1), and a river Khabur Chasaniae, which still bears the old name Khbur, rising in the neighbourhood of the upper Zab, near Amadijeh, and falling into the Tigris below Jezirah. This Khbur is the river of Gozan (vide on 2 Kings 17:6). The word הרא appears to be the Aramaic form of the Hebrew הר, mountains, and the vernacular designation usual in the mouths of the people of the mountain land of Media, which is called also in Arabic el Jebl (the mountains). This name can therefore only have been handed down from the exiles who dwelt there.

And they transgressed against the God of their fathers, and went a whoring after the gods of the people of the land, whom God destroyed before them.

5:1-26 Genealogies. - This chapter gives some account of the two tribes and a half seated on the east side of Jordan. They were made captives by the king of Assyria, because they had forsaken the Lord. Only two things are here recorded concerning these tribes. 1. They all shared in a victory. Happy is that people who live in harmony together, who assist each other against the common enemies of their souls, trusting in the Lord, and calling upon him. 2. They shared in captivity. They would have the best land, not considering that it lay most exposed. The desire of earthly objects draws to a distance from God's ordinances, and prepares men for destruction.