What Does 1 Chronicles 26:16 Mean?

(16) **To Shuppim and Hosah.**—No such name as Shuppim (1Chronicles 7:12) occurs among those of the Levitical warders as given above in 1Chronicles 26:1-11. It is almost certainly a mistaken repetition of the last two syllables of Asuppim, which immediately precedes it. (The mistake is as old as the Vulgate; the LXX. has εἰς δεύτερον*,* perhaps reading *lishnàyîm* instead of *le Shuppîm.*) Read: *And to Hosah* (the lot fell) *to the west, with the gate Shallèketh on the highway that goeth up.* **The gate Shalleketh,** mentioned here only. The name means *casting down* (in Isaiah 6:13, it denotes *felling* a tree); and hence this gate has been identified with the “Rubbish” or “Refuse Gate.” (Comp. Nehemiah 3:13.) It seems an objection to this, that the gate faced *the highway that goeth up* from the lower city to the Temple. Perhaps the name alludes to the drop, or steep descent, from the Sanctuary to the city. **Ward against ward.**—Heb., *mishmār lĕ*‘*ummath mishmār.* Compare the use of the same preposition in 1Chronicles 26:12 and 1Chronicles 25:8; 1Chronicles 24:31. Here the meaning seems to be that Hosah had to guard two posts, viz., the western gate of the Temple, and the gate Shalleketh which lay opposite, in the western wall of the Temple area. (The LXX. has φυλακὴ κατέναντι φυλακῆς; the Vulgate *custodia contra custodiam;* implying that Hosah’s warders were stationed opposite to each other.) But perhaps these concluding words refer to all four stations, and should be rendered, *ward like ward,* or *ward and ward alike,* or *post over against post.*