The family of Judah. The expression מִשְׁפַתַת is remarkable. Many commentators would read מִשְׁפְחֹת, not without some MSS. authority. Keil objects that the Chaldee and Syriac have the singular. But the LXX.
has κατὰ δήμους, and the Vulgate juxta familias. On the whole it seems more probable that as מִשְׁפַחַת occurs twice in this passage, it has been so pointed where the same letters occur for the third time, than that, with Peele, it means tribe (so also Gesenius and Winer); or that, as others suggest, it is used for omnes or singulas genres.
See, however, 13:2, where it is unquestionably used in the sense of tribe.