It will be observed that five out of the twelve prefects are designated solely by their father's names, Ben-Hur, etc., while one (Ahimaaz, 1 Kings 4:15) has no such designation. Probably the document, which the author of the Book of Kings consulted, had contained originally the proper name and father's name of each prefect; but it was mutilated or illegible in places at the time when he consulted it. If it was in the shape of a list, a single mutilation at one corner might have removed four of the six wanting names.

Threescore great cities with walls and brazen bars - These were fortified cities: their gates and bars covered with plates of brass. Such were the gates in Priam's palace: -

Ipse inter primos correpta dura bipenni

Limina perrumpit, Postes que a cardine vellit

Aeratos. Virg. Aen., lib. ii. ver. 479.

Fierce Pyrrhus in the front, with forceful sway,

Plied the huge axe, and hew'd the beams away;

The solid timbers from the portal tore,

And rent from every hinge the Brazen door.

Pitt.

The son of Geber in Ramothgilead,.... A city in the tribe of Gad, and was a city of refuge, Joshua 20:8;

to him pertained the towns of Jair the son of Manasseh, which are in Gilead; of which see Numbers 32:41;

to him also pertained the region of Argob, which is in Bashan,

threescore great cities with walls, and brasen bars; called by Josephus (s) Ragaba, beyond Jordan; See Gill on Deuteronomy 3:4.

(s) Antiqu. l. 13. c. 15. sect. 5.

Bengeber was in Ramoth of Gilead in the tribe of Gad (Joshua 20:8), probably on the site of the modern Szalt (see at Deuteronomy 4:43). "To him belonged the Havvoth Jair (Jair's-lives) in Gilead, to him the region of Argob in Bashan, sixty great cities with walls and brazen bolts." If we look at this passage alone, the region of Argob in Bashan appears to be distinct from the Havvoth Jair in Gilead. But if we compare it with Numbers 32:40-41; Deuteronomy 3:4-5, and Deuteronomy 3:13, Deuteronomy 3:14, and Joshua 13:30, it is evident from these passages that the Jair's-lives are identical with the sixty large and fortified cities of the region of Argob. For, according to Deuteronomy 3:4, these sixty fortified cities, with high walls, gates, and bars, were all fortified cities of the kingdom of Og of Bashan, which the Israelites conquered under Moses, and to which, according to Numbers 32:41, Jair the Manassite, who had conquered them, gave the name of Havvoth Jair. Hence it is stated in Joshua 13:30, that the sixty Jair-towns were situated in Bashan. Consequently the אר חבל לו in our verse is to be taken as a more precise definition of וגו יאיר חוּת לו, or a clearer description of the district superintended by Bengeber, so that Gilead is used, as is frequently the case, in the broader sense of Peraea. Compare with this the Commentary on Deuteronomy 3:4, Deuteronomy 3:13, Deuteronomy 3:14, where the names ארגּב and חוּת are explained, and the imaginary discrepancy between the sixty Jair's-towns in the passages cited, and the twenty-three and thirty cities of Jair in 1 Chronicles 2:22 and Judges 10:4, is discussed and solved. And when Thenius objects to this explanation on the ground that the villages of Jair cannot be identical with the sixty fortified cities, because villages of nomads and strongly fortified cities could not be one and the same, this objection falls to the ground with the untenable interpretation of חוּת as applying to nomad villages.

The son of Geber, in Ramothgilead; to him pertained the towns of {d} Jair the son of Manasseh, which are in Gilead; to him also pertained the region of Argob, which is in Bashan, threescore great cities with walls and brasen bars:

(d) Which bore Jair's name, because he took them from the Canaanites, Nu 32:41.

The son...: or, Bengeber

4:1-19 In the choice of the great officers of Solomon's court, no doubt, his wisdom appeared. Several are the same that were in his father's time. A plan was settled by which no part of the country was exhausted to supply his court, though each sent its portion.