1 Kings 4:8

The son of Hur Better Ben-Hur. So the Vulgate and similarly in 1 Kings 4:9-11; 1 Kings 4:13. The name is a patronymic, and five out of these twelve officers are thus designated by their fathers" names rather than by their own. Perhaps at the time the father in each case was more distinguished than the son. The place of commissariatofficer is one which might well be given to a younger man of some well-known family. Two of the men were Solomon's sons-in-law.

in mount Ephraim -Mount" conveys a mistaken idea of the rich country of Ephraim. It was a hilly but very fertile region which stretched northwards from the tribe of Benjamin until the land sinks into the plain of Jezreel. It is separated from the Jordan valley by a plain on the east, and by another plain on the west from the Mediterranean sea. It would be more suitably called hill country than mountain.