The order of the tribes in 1Chron 2-8 according to the commentary on Chronicles attributed to Sa'adia Gaon's student

While the list of the Israelite tribes is mentioned a few times in the Bible, the order of the tribes, as they appear in 1Chron 2-8, is unique. Modern scholars, who have tried to explain this unusual arrangement, have suggested that the author placed those tribes that he perceived as being the most important at the list’s top, middle, and bottom while other tribes were placed according to their geographic locations (this suggestion requires further clarification and conjectural emendations). Among the entire corpus of medieval Bible commentators, only the author of the anonymous commentary on Chronicles attributed to Sa’adia Gaon’s student (early 11th, Provence?) offers a systematic rationale for the arrangement of the genealogic lists. He presumed that the author composed the lists according to a number of structural principles: topical, geographic and chronological. This appears to be the earliest attempt in the history of the study of the Book of Chronicles to offer a solution to the question of the arrangement of the tribes.