Matthew Poole and continuators on 2 Samuel 19:20

20 For thy servant doth know that I have sinned : therefore behold, I am come the first , this day of all the house of Joseph , to go down to meet my lord the king.

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'st thou be.

The sense of my former Sin now hath, and whilest I live will make me the first and most forward in all Acts of Duty and Service to thy Majesty.

Object. He was a Benjamite, Chap. 16. 5. How then doth he make himself one of the house of Ioseph? Answ. The house of Ioseph is here put, either, 1. For the Ten Tribes, which are oft distinguished from Iudah, and then they are called the house of Ioseph; as Zech. 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 Iudah, and not with Ioseph, or Ephraim. Or, 2. For all the Tribes of Israel, who are all called the children of Ioseph, Psal. 77. 15. Comp. Psal. 80. 1. and 81. 5. as well they might, not onely because of Ioseph'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 Chron. 5. 1. but also because Ioseph had been as a Father to them, and had nourished them all like Children; as is expressed in the Hebrew Text, Gen. 47. 12. But in this sence this was not true, for the House of Iudah came before him, ver. 15. Or rather, 3. For all the Tribes, except Iudah, which are conveniently called the house of Ioseph, for the reasons now mentioned, and are fitly distinguished from Iudah, because the Rights of the First-born were divided between Iudah and Ioseph, 1 Chron. 5. 2. And though Benjamin after the Division of the Kingdoms was fitly joyned with Iudah, because then they adhered to that Tribe; yet before that time it was more conveniently joyned with Ioseph, because they Marched under the Standard of the House of Ioseph, or of Ephraim, Numb. 10. 22, 23, 24. Whence it is, that Ephraim, Benjamin, and Manasseh, are put together, Psal. 80. 2.