After he had sent them away - Translate it: "after he had divorced his wives, Hushim and Baara."

And Shaharaim,.... Who was either a son of Ahihud, or rather a brother of his, another son of Ehud:

begat children in the country of Moab; whither he might go on account of the famine, as Elimelech did, Ruth 1:1, after he had sent them away; which some understand of those that were removed from Geba to Manahath, 1 Chronicles 8:6, but a different word is here used; and besides Shaharaim seems to be one of those that were removed. Kimchi takes Shilhootham, we render "had sent them away", to be the name of his first wife, of whom he begat children in Moab; but it seems best to render and interpret the words in connection with what follows: he begat children in Moab:

after he had sent them away; even Hushim and Baara his wives; after he had divorced them, for some reasons he had, he begat children of another wife, later mentioned.

The descendants of Shaharaim. - The descent of Shaharaim from the sons and grandsons named in 1 Chronicles 8:1-3 is obscure, and the conjecture which connects him with Ahishahar of 1 Chronicles 7:10 is unsupported. He was the father of a considerable number of heads of fathers'-houses, whom his two or three wives bore to him. According to 1 Chronicles 8:8, he begat "in the country of Moab after he had sent them, Hushim and Baara his wives, away; (1 Chronicles 8:9) there begat he with Hodesh his wife, Jobab," etc. When and how Shaharaim, a Benjamite, came into the country of Moab, is not known; all that can be gathered from our verse is that he must have lived there for a considerable time. שׁלחו is infin. Pi., the "i" being retained, and the Daghesh forte omitted with Sheva (cf. as to this formation, Ew. 238, d.). אתם, accus. of the pronoun, which, as it precedes its noun, is in gen. masc., although the names of women follow (cf. for this use of the pronoun, Ew. 309, c.). חוּשׁים and בּערה are women, as we learn from the following נשׁיו. By this parenthesis, the beginning of the main sentence has been lost sight of, and the הוליד is taken up again in ויּולד. As to הוליד with מן, cf. the remark on 1 Chronicles 2:8. חדשׁ is the third wife, which he took instead of those he had sent away. The seven names in 1 Chronicles 8:9, 1 Chronicles 8:10 are grouped together as sons or descendants of the last-named wife, by the concluding remark, "These his sons are heads of fathers'-houses." Then, further, in 1 Chronicles 8:11, 1 Chronicles 8:12, the sons and grandsons of the first (divorced) wives, one of whom built the cities Ono and Lydda, are enumerated; but we have no means of determining whether the בּנה הוּא refers to Shemer, the last mentioned, or to Elpaal the father of the three sons, Eber, and Misham, and Shemer. It would, however, naturally suggest itself, that the words referred to the first. לד (Lod) is without doubt the city Lydda, where Peter healed the paralytic (Acts 9:32.). It belonged in the Syrian age to Samaria, but it was added to Judea by the King Demetrius Soter, and given to Jonathan for a possession (1 Macc. 11:34, cf. with 10:30, 38). In the Jewish was it was destroyed by the Roman general Cestius (Joseph. de Bell. Jud. ii. 19. 1), but was rebuilt at a later time, and became the site of a toparchy of Judea. In still later times it was called Diospolis, but is now a considerable Mohammedan village, lying between Jafa and Jerusalem to the north of Ramleh, which bears the old name Ludd, by the Arabs pronounced also Lidd. See v. Raumer, Pal. S. 10; Robins. Pal. sub voce; and Tobler, Dritte Wanderung, S. 69f. Ono is mentioned elsewhere only in Ezra 2:33; Nehemiah 7:37 and Nehemiah 11:35, along with Lod, and must have been a place in the neighbourhood of Lydda.

And Shaharaim begat children in the country of Moab, after he had sent them {d} away; Hushim and Baara were his wives.

(d) After he had put away his two wives.

8. Shaharaim begat children in the country of Moab-He had probably been driven to take refuge in that foreign land on the same calamitous occasion that forced Elimelech to emigrate thither (Ru 1:1). But, destitute of natural affection, he forsook or divorced his two wives, and in the land of his sojourn married a third, by whom he had several sons. But there is another explanation given of the conduct of this Benjamite polygamist. His children by Hushim are mentioned (1Ch 8:11), while his other wife is unnoticed. Hence it has been thought probable that it is Baara who is mentioned under the name of Hodesh, so called because her husband, after long desertion, returned and cohabited with her as before.

8:1-40 Genealogies. - Here is a larger list of Benjamin's tribe. We may suppose that many things in these genealogies, which to us seem difficult, abrupt, and perplexed, were plain and easy at that time, and fully answered the intention for which they were published. Many great and mighty nations then were in being upon earth, and many illustrious men, whose names are now wholly forgotten; while the names of multitudes of the Israel of God are here kept in everlasting remembrance. The memory of the just is blessed.