2 Samuel 19:20

Thy servant doth know that I have sinned; I do not excuse my sin, but with grief and shame confess it; in which case the Lord thy God is ready to pardon offenders, and so I trust wilt thou be. I am come the first; the sense of my former sin now hath, and whilst I live will, make me the first and most forward in all acts of duty and service to thy majesty. Of all the house of Joseph. Object. He was a Benjamite, 2 Samuel 16:5. How then doth he make himself one of the house of Joseph? Answ. The house of Joseph is here put, either,

1. For the ten tribes, which are oft distinguished from Judah, and then they are called the house of Joseph, as Malachi 10:6. But this distinction was not made before the division of the people into two kingdoms; and even after that division Benjamin was constantly reckoned with Judah, and not with Joseph or Ephraim. Or,

2. For all the tribes of Israel, who are called the children of Joseph, Psalms 77:15; compare Psalms 80:1, Psalms 81:5; as well they might, not only because of Joseph's eminency, (the most eminent persons and things being oft put for the rest of the kind,) and because the rights of primogeniture were in a great part devolved upon him, 1 Chronicles 5:1; but also because Joseph had been as a father to them, and had nourished them all like children, as is expressed in the Hebrew text, Genesis 47:12. But in this sense this was not true, for the house of Judah came before him, 2 Samuel 19:15. Or rather,

3. For all the tribes except Judah, which are conveniently called the house of Joseph for the reasons now mentioned, and are fitly distinguished from Judah, because the rights of the first-born were divided between Judah and Joseph, 1 Chronicles 5:2. And though Benjamin, after the division of the kingdoms, was fitly joined with Judah, because then they adhered to that tribe; yet before that time it was more conveniently joined with Joseph, because they marched under the standard of the house of Joseph, or of Ephraim, Numbers 10:22; whence it is that Ephraim, Benjamin, and Manasseh are put together, Psalms 80:2.