In the days of Saul, they made war with the Hagrites, who fell by their hand; and they lived in their tents throughout all the [land] east of Gilead.
      II. Of the tribe of Gad. Some great families of that tribe are here named (1 Chronicles 5:12; 1 Chronicles 5:12), seven that were the children of Abihail, whose pedigree is carried upwards from the son to the father (1 Chronicles 5:14; 1 Chronicles 5:15), as that 1 Chronicles 5:4; 1 Chronicles 5:5, is brought downwards from father to son. These genealogies were perfected in the days of Jotham king of Judah, but were begun some years before, in the reign of Jeroboam II, king of Israel. What particular reason there was for taking these accounts then does not appear; but it was just before they were carried away captive by the Assyrians, as appears 2 Kings 15:29; 2 Kings 15:31. When the judgments of God were ready to break out against them for their wretched degeneracy and apostasy then were they priding themselves in their genealogies, that they were the children of the covenant; as the Jews, in our Saviour's time, who, when they were ripe for ruin, boasted, We have Abraham to our father. Or there might be a special providence in it, and a favourable intimation that though they were, for the present, cast out, they were not cast off for ever. What we design to call for hereafter we keep an inventory of.