449. The Negeb or ‘South’ was divided at the time into the Negeb of the Cherethites or Philistines, of the Jews, and of the Calebites (1 Sam. xxx. 14, 16.) Up to the end of Saul’s reign, therefore, Caleb and Judah had not been as yet amalgamated into a single tribe.
451. Aroer had belonged to Reuben (Josh. xiii. 16), Hormah, Ziklag, Chor-ashan, and Ramoth of the south to Simeon (Josh. xix. 4-8.) It is curious that no mention should be made of Beth-lehem, and it is therefore possible that ‘Beth-lehem’ should be read in place of ‘Beth-el’ in 1 Sam. xxx. 27. The Septuagint has Baith-Sour.
452. Boaz, the grandfather of Jesse, is said to have been the son of Salmon or Salma, who, according to 1 Chron. ii. 50, 51, was the founder of Bethlehem, and the son of Caleb.
453. Criticism has seen in the story told by the Amalekite a second version of the death of Saul inconsistent with that which precedes it. The inconsistency certainly exists, but that is because the Amalekite’s story was a fabrication, the object of which was to gain a reward from David. There was this much truth in it, that Saul had been wounded and had desired death; the Amalekite could easily have learned this from those who had witnessed the last scene of Saul’s life. But the fact that he had robbed Saul’s corpse shows that he must have come to the ground after the flight of the Israelitish soldiers; he was, in fact, one of those Bedâwin thieves who, in Oriental warfare, still hang on the skirts of the battle in the hope of murdering the wounded and plundering the dead when it is over and the victors are pursuing the vanquished.
454. The translation is that of the Revised Version, with a slight change in the 21st verse. The contrast between the preservation of the text in this Song and in that of the Song of Deborah is great, no passage in it being corrupt, and points to the more archaic character of the latter, as well as to a confirmation of the fact that the Song of the Bow was learnt in the schools from the time of its composition.
455. Ish-Baal or Esh-Baal, ‘the man of Baal,’ is called Ishui in 1 Sam. xiv. 49 (where the name of Abinadab is omitted; see 1 Chron. viii. 33). Later writers changed Baal into Bosheth, ‘Shame,’ in accordance with the custom which grew up when the title of Baal came to signify the god of Phœnicia, rather than Yahveh of Israel.
456. That the reign of David ‘in Hebron’ continued for five years after the death of Esh-Baal seems the most probable way of explaining the statement in 2 Sam. ii. 10, that the reign of Saul’s son lasted only two years. It is certainly preferable to the usual supposition that ‘two’ is a mistake for ‘seven.’
457. The author of the books of Samuel did not know his age (2 Sam. ii. 10). In 1 Sam. xiv. 49 Ishui is named before Melchi-shua, but in 1 Chron. viii. 33 Esh-Baal is the youngest of Saul’s children. That Esh-Baal did not take part in the battle of Gilboa would suit equally well with either hypothesis. Abner, the son of Ner, the son of Abiel, was the great-uncle of Esh-Baal (1 Sam. xiv. 50, 51). As he was still in the prime of life when he was murdered, it is reasonable to suppose that his great-nephew was very young.
458. 1 Chron. ii. 16.
459. If, as is probable, we should read ‘Geshurites’ for ‘Ashurites’ in 2 Sam. ii. 9, Esh-Baal would have claimed rule over Geshur, and consequently would have been as much involved in war with the king of that country as he was with David. We subsequently find the Aramæans in alliance with the Ammonites (2 Sam. x. 6, etc.), and the king of Ammon was the ally of David against Esh-Baal (2 Sam. xi. 2). It is probable that in 1 Sam. xiv. 47, ‘Aram’ must be read for ‘Edom,’ the geographical position of which was not between Ammon and Zobah (see above, p. 368); if so, Esh-Baal, in asserting his authority over Geshur, would only have succeeded to his father’s conquests.
460. Absalom, as the son of a princess, would claim precedence of his two elder brothers, who, although born after David’s coronation, were nevertheless not of royal descent on their mother’s side. The name of the eldest, the son of Ahinoam, was Amnon, that of the second, the son of Abigail, is given as Chileab in the Hebrew text of Samuel, Daniel in that of 1 Chron. iii. 1, the Septuagint reading Daluia (Dalbia) and Damniêl in the two passages. He seems to have died young. The fourth son of David was Adonijah, the son of Haggith, who, by the death of his three elder brothers, became the eldest son before his father’s death, while the fifth and sixth sons were Shephatiah, the son of Abital, and Ithream, the son of Eglah. All were born in Hebron.
461. 2 Sam. iii. 17. This goes to show that Saul’s suspicions of David were founded on fact.
462. The name of the Babylonian god Rimmon or Ramman implies that the family of the murderers were idolaters. They are said to have been originally from Beeroth, the inhabitants of which had fled to Gittaim (2 Sam. iv. 3). If the flight had been due to Saul, the hostility of the sons of Rimmon to the son of Saul would be explained. Beeroth was one of the cities of the Gibeonites (Josh. ix. 17), and Saul, we learn from 2 Sam. xxi. 1, had slain the Gibeonites.
463. The name Merib-Baal, given by the Chronicler (1 Chron. viii. 34, ix. 40), is doubtless correct. In the books of Samuel Baal has, as usual, been changed into Bosheth, and Merib corrupted into the senseless Mephi.
464. See 1 Chron. xi. 2, and xii. 38-40, where it is added that the coronation-feast lasted for three days.
465. See 2 Sam. xiii. 13-17.
466. It is difficult to say whether the number of the gibbôrîm or ‘heroes’ was actually restricted to thirty, or whether thirty was an ideal number which was elastic in practice. In 2 Sam. xxiii. thirty-seven ‘heroes’ are named, but some of these may have been appointed to supply the place of others who had died or fallen in war. To be included among the thirty was equivalent to receiving a Victoria Cross.
467. 2 Sam. xxiii. 8, but the text is corrupt, and reads literally: ‘He that sitteth on the seat, a Takmonite, chief of the third (?); he is Adino the Eznite, over eight hundred slain at one time.’ The Septuagint has: ‘Yebosthe the Canaanite is chief of the third; Adino the Asônæan is he who drew his sword against eight hundred warriors at once’; while the Chronicler (1 Chron. xi. 11) omitted the name of Adino, and read: ‘Jashobeam, a Khakmonite, chief of the captains; he lifted up his spear against three hundred slain at one time.’ For Jashobeam the Septuagint gives Yesebada. Adino seems to be the Adnah of 1 Chron. xii. 20, a Manassite who deserted to David when he was at Ziklag. Jashobeam is the most probable form of the name, and there must be some confusion between Jashobeam, who brandished his spear over three hundred enemies, and an unknown Adino, who did the same over eight hundred enemies.
468. G. A. Smith, The Historical Geography of the Holy Land, p. 218.
469. See 2 Sam. xxi. 15-22, xxiii. 8-17.
470. If the name of Ishbi-benob, ‘my seat is in Nob,’ is correct, ‘Gob’ must be corrected into ‘Nob.’ But perhaps it is the name of the giant which needs correction.
471. See the map given by Stade, Geschichte des Volkes Israel, p. 268, and my ‘Topography of Præ-exilic Jerusalem’ in the Quarterly Statement of the Palestine Exploration Fund, Oct. 1883, pp. 215 sqq.
472. Bliss, ‘Excavations at Jerusalem’ in the Quarterly Statement of the Palestine Exploration Fund, Oct. 1896 and Jan. 1897.
473. Antiq. viii. 5, 3; C. Ap. i. 18.
474. It is, of course, possible that Abibal had been preceded by an earlier Hiram of whom we otherwise know nothing, and who is meant in 2 Sam. v. 11. It is also possible that the use of Hiram’s name in this passage is proleptic, derived from the fact that it was he who subsequently sent materials to David for the construction of the temple.
475. 1 Chron. xxii. 8.
476. 1 Kings v. 3.
477. 2 Sam. vi. 3. In Josh. xviii. 18 ‘Gibeah of Kirjath’ is given as one of the cities of Benjamin. Like most of the Egyptian and Babylonian cities it had a second and sacred name, Baalê-Judah, the city of ‘Baal of Judah’ (2 Sam. vi. 2).
478. The name of Obed-Edom, ‘the servant of Edom,’ shows that Edom was the name of a deity as well as of a country, like Ammi, the patron-god of Ammon, and it is met with in the monuments of Egypt. A papyrus (Pap. Leydens. i. 343. 7) states that Atum or Edom was the wife of the Canaanitish fire-god Reshpu, and one of the places in Palestine captured by Thothmes III. was Shemesh-Edom (No. 51), ‘the Sun-god is Edom’ (Records of the Past, new ser., v. p. 47).
480. This must be the general signification of the Hebrew expression Metheg-ammah in 2 Sam. viii. i., which the Septuagint translates τὴν ἀφωρισμένην, ‘the tribute.’ The Chronicler read Gath for Metheg (1 Chron. xviii. 1), and consequently understood ammah in the sense of ‘mother-city.’ My own belief is that we have in the phrase a Hebrew transcription of a Babylonian expression which has been derived from a cuneiform document. The Babylonian mêtêg ammati (for mêtêq ammati) would signify ‘the highroad of the mainland’ of Palestine, and would refer to the command of the highroad of trade which passed through Canaan from Asia to Egypt and Arabia. Ammati is the Semitic equivalent of the Sumerian Sarsar (W. A. I. v. 18, 32 c.), which was an early Babylonian name of the land of the Amorites or Syria (W. A. I. ii. 51, 19; see Records of the Past, new ser., v. p. 107); and mêtêq is given as a rendering of kharran, ‘a highroad’ (W. A. I. ii. 38, 26).
481. 2 Sam. xxiii. 20.
482. See my Higher Criticism and the Verdict of the Monuments, p. 367.
483. Ibid. pp. 349, 350.
484. The Septuagint has misread ‘Amalek’ for ‘Maacah.’
485. El-Hîba probably stands on the site of the Egyptian town of Hâ-Bennu, the Greek Hipponon, the capital of the eighteenth nome of Upper Egypt, and its fortifications were built by the high priest Men-kheper-Ra and his wife Isis-em-Kheb. The Tanite Pharaohs formed the twenty-first dynasty.
486. See Delitzsch, Wo lag das Paradies, pp. 279-280. Assur-bani-pal states that he sent his troops against the cities of Azar-el, the Khiratâqazians, Edom, Yabrudu, Bit-Ammani or Ammon, ‘the district of the city of the Haurân’ (Khaurina), Moab, Sakharri, Khargê, and ‘the district of the city of Tsubitê, or Zobah.’ Delitzsch identifies Yabrudu with the Yabruda of Ptolemy, the modern Yabrûd, north-east of Damascus. In the tribute-lists of the Second Assyrian Empire, Tsubitê or Tsubutu comes between Dûru (Tantûra) and Hamath, Samalla (Sinjerli) and Khatarikka or Hadrach (Zech. ix. 1.), and Zemar (Sumra), and the Quê on the coast of the Gulf of Antioch.
487. The fact that the Assyrian king Shalmaneser II. calls Baasha, the contemporary king of Ammon, ‘the son of Rukhubi’ or Rehob, just as he calls Jehu ‘the son of Omri,’ shows that Rehob was a personal name. The Biblical Beth-Rehob is parallel to Bit-Omri, a designation of Samaria in the Assyrian texts. Beth-Rehob is placed near Dan in Judg. xviii. 28. In 1 Chron. xix. 6, Aram-Naharaim is apparently substituted for Aram-Beth-Rehob, though, as the dominions of Hadad-ezer extended to the Euphrates, soldiers may have come to the help of the Ammonites from Mesopotamia, as well as from Beth-Rehob. The name of Hadad-ezer is incorrectly given as Hadar-ezer in 2 Sam. x. 16. It appears as Hadad-idri in the Assyrian inscriptions (with the Aramaic change of z to d), where it is the name of the king of Damascus, called Ben-Hadad II. in the Old Testament.
488. So, according to the Septuagint and 1 Chron. xviii. 4. The Hebrew text of 2 Sam. viii. 4 has ‘700 horsemen.’ But it is possible that we ought to read ‘1700 horsemen.’
489. Nicolaus Damascenus, as quoted by Josephus, makes Hadad the king of Damascus, who thus vainly endeavoured to check the torrent of Israelitish success. Hadad, however, must be merely Hadad-ezer in an abbreviated form, Perhaps we may gather from 1 Kings xi. 23, that the ruling prince in Damascus at the time of David’s conquests was Rezon, the son of Eliadah.
490. 1 Chron. xix. 18. In 2 Sam. x. 18, the numbers are 700 charioteers and 40,000 horsemen, which are clearly wrong.
491. The account of the war with Zobah given above is the most probable that can be gleaned from the scanty and fragmentary notices that have been preserved to us. But it must be remembered that it is probable only. It is not even certain that ‘the Syrians that were beyond the river’ (2 Sam. x. 16) were not the Aramæans of Damascus rather than those of Mesopotamia, since, as Professor Hommel has shown (Ancient Hebrew Tradition as illustrated by the Monuments, pp. 195 sqq.) the term Ebir Nâri, ‘Beyond the river,’ is already used in an Assyrian poem (K. 3500, l. 9) of the age of David, in the Assyro-Babylonian sense of the country westward of the Euphrates. Indeed, Professor Hommel suggests that it already denoted the country westward of the Jordan. This, however, is inconsistent with 2 Sam. x. 17; and west of the Jordan, moreover, there were no Aramæan kingdoms.
492. The Chronicler (1 Chron. xviii. 8) has preserved the true form of the name of Tibhath, which has been corrupted into Betah in 2 Sam. viii. 8. It is the Tubikhi of the Tel el-Amarna tablets, the Dbkhu of the geographical list of Thothmes III. (No. 6). Instead of Berothai the Chronicler has Chun.
493. 1 Chron. xviii. 8.
494. Hadoram, the older form of the name, is found only in 1 Chron. xviii. 10. The text of the books of Samuel has the Hebraised Joram.
495. Salamanu appears as Shalman in Hos. x. 14, as Sulmanu in Assyro-Babylonian. Sulmanu was the god of Peace, like Selamanês in a Greek inscription from Shêkh Barakât in northern Syria, whose name is also found in a Phœnician inscription from Sidon (Clermont-Ganneau, Bibliothèque de l’École des Hautes Études CXIII., vol. ii. pp. 40, 48).
496. This is usually supposed to mean that they were tortured in various ways, but more probably it means only that they were made public slaves and compelled to cut and saw wood, harrow the ground, and make bricks. At all events, if tortures are referred to, no parallel to them can be found elsewhere. As the crown is said to have weighed ‘a talent’ it can hardly have been worn by an earthly king.
497. 2 Sam. viii. 13. In 1 Chron. xviii. 12, however, the victory is ascribed to Abishai, the brother of Joab.
498. 2 Sam. viii. 13, where the mention of ‘the valley of salt’ shows that we must read ‘Edom’ instead of ‘Aram,’ as indeed is done by the Chronicler as well as in the superscription of Ps. lx. and in the Septuagint. The ‘valley of salt’ was part of the Melukhkha or ‘Saltland’ of the cuneiform inscriptions.
499. 2 Sam. xxiii. 37, 36, 34.
500. 1 Kings xi. 21.
501. This was Ithra who ‘went in’ to Abigail, the daughter of Nahash, the sister of Zeruiah, Joab’s mother (2 Sam. xvii. 25). The form of expression may imply that Abigail was seduced. If so, the hostility of Joab would be easily accounted for.
502. It is probable that ‘Shobi the son of Nahash of Rabbah of the children of Ammon’ (2 Sam. xvii. 27) was a brother of the last king of Ammon, and it is even possible that he may have been the cause of the Ammonite war. If he had been a rival of his brother Khanun, and had received shelter and protection from David, we should have an explanation of the otherwise gratuitous insult offered by Khanun to the ambassadors of the Israelitish king.
503. That the forest was on the eastern bank of the Jordan is plain from Josh. xvii. 15-18 and 2 Sam. xix. 31.
504. It is called Abel-Maim, ‘Abel of the Waters,’ in 2 Chron. xvi. 4, compared with 1 Kings xv. 20. In 2 Sam. xx. 14, we should perhaps read, ‘And all the young warriors’ (bakhûrîm for bêrîm) ‘were gathered together,’ as the Septuagint has ‘all in Kharri,’ and the Vulgate ‘viri electi.’
505. 2 Sam. xxiv. 6, according to Lucian’s recension of the Greek translation (‘Khettieim Kadês’). See Field, Origenis Hexaplorum quæ supersunt, i. p. 587.
506. 2 Sam. xix. 29. Ziba, the steward of Mephibosheth, who was lame, had accused his master of aiming at the kingdom, and David had accordingly given him all Mephibosheth’s property. David not only had believed the accusation, but in spite of Mephibosheth’s protests and excuses, must have continued to do so, since Ziba, so far from being punished, was allowed to retain half his master’s possessions. The Jewish historian evidently takes a different view from that of David, and regards the accusation as false. Mephibosheth is more correctly written Merib-Baal in 1 Chron. viii. 34; ix. 40.
507. ‘Adriel, the son of Barzillai the Meholathite’ (2 Sam. xxi. 8), cannot be the same as Phaltiel or ‘Phalti the son of Laish of Gallim’ (1 Sam. xxv. 44), to whom Saul had given Michal after David’s flight, and from whom David afterwards took her (2 Sam. iii. 16). As Michal never seems to have subsequently left the harîm of David (2 Sam. vi. 23), it would appear that the name of Michal in 2 Sam. xxi. 8 must be a mistake for that of some other daughter of Saul.
508. See 2 Sam. xxiv. 23, where the Septuagint has ‘Orna(n) the king.’ The various spellings of the name Araunah, Araniah (2 Sam. xxiv. 18), and Ornan (1 Chron. xxi. 15) show that it was a foreign word, the pronunciation of which was not clear to the Israelites. Araniah is an assimilation to a Hebrew name.
509. 2 Sam. xxiv. 6.
510. In 1 Kings v. 3, 4, the reason why David could not build the temple is given a little differently. It is there stated to have been because of the constant wars in which he was engaged which prevented him from securing the needful leisure for the work. This reason, however, does not apply to the latter part of David’s reign.
511. The Chronicler (1 Chron. xviii. 16) reads Shavsha, apparently through a confusion with the later Sheva (2 Sam. xx. 25). However, the Septuagint has Sasa in 2 Sam. viii. 17, and the two scribes of Solomon at the beginning of his reign were the sons of Shisha (1 Kings iv. 3).
512. The genealogy of the high priests is involved in a confusion which with our present materials it is hopeless to unravel. In 1 Sam. xiv. 3, Ahimelech is called Ahiah, and in 2 Sam. viii. 17, as well as in the document used in 1 Chron. xxiv. (verses 3, 6, and 31), he is made the son of Abiathar instead of his father. In 1 Chron. xviii. 16, the name is transformed into Abimelech, and in 1 Chron. xxiv. Ahimelech and Abiathar are stated to have been descended from Ithamar the son of Aaron, and not from his brother Eleazar. That the genealogy in 1 Chron. vi. 4 sqq. is corrupt is evident not only from the repetition of the triplet Amariah, Ahitub, and Zadok in verses 7, 8, and 11, 12, but also from the statement that Azariah four generations after Zadok ‘executed the priest’s office’ in Solomon’s temple. In 1 Chron. ix. 11; Neh. xi. 11, again, the order is ‘Zadok the son of Meraioth the son of Ahitub,’ whereas in 1 Chron. vi. 7, 8, and 52, 53, it is Zadok the son of Ahitub the son of Amariah the son of Meraioth.
513. Hadoram (2 Chron. x. 18) is written Adoram in 2 Sam. xx. 24, and Adoniram in 1 Kings iv. 6. Adoni-ram is a Hebraised form of the original name Addu-ramu, ‘Hadad is exalted.’ His father’s name, Abda, has an Aramaic termination. An early Babylonian seal-cylinder in the collection of M. de Clercq has upon it the name of Abdu-ramu.
515. 1 Chron. xxvii. 25-32.
516. The Jewish historian includes among those who refused to go with Adonijah the otherwise unknown Shimei and Rei (1 Kings i. 8). They are referred to as well-known personages, implying that the writer must have had before him a large collection of documents relating to the history of the time, most of which have now perished.
517. As Barzillai was already eighty years of age at the time of David’s flight (2 Sam. xix. 35), the death of David could not have happened very long after that event. That Joab and Abiathar were still vigorous implies the same thing. As for the authenticity of David’s dying instructions, there is no reason to question it. A later writer is not likely to have gratuitously credited them to David; and inconsistent though they may seem to us with David’s piety, they were in full keeping with his character as well as with that of other Israelites of his age. If they had been falsely ascribed to David by Solomon’s admirers after the murder of Joab and Shimei, Adonijah also would have been included among the victims.
518. E.g. Ps. lx.
519. E.g. Ps. cviii.
520. See my Hibbert Lectures on the Religion of the Ancient Babylonians, pp. 348-356. Thus we read:—
522. Cont. Ap. i. 17, 18.
523. The single reigns are:—(1) Hiram for thirty-four years; (2) Baleazor for seven years according to the Armenian version of Eusebius and the Synkellos, seventeen years according to Niese’s text of Josephus; (3) Abdastartos nine years; (4) Methuastartos twelve years; (5) Astarymos nine years; (6) Phelles eight months; (7) Eithobalos or Eth-Baal thirty-two years (forty-eight years according to Theophilus ad Autolyc. III.); (8) Balezor six years (seven years according to Theoph., eight years according to Euseb. and the Synk.); (9) Matgenos twenty-nine years (twenty-five years according to the Arm. Vers. of Euseb.); (10) Pygmalion forty-seven years.
524. I.e. seventy-two years after the foundation of Rome; Trogus Pompeius ap. Justin. xviii. 7; Oros. iv. 6. Velleius Paterculus (i. 6) makes it seven years later.
525. See 1 Kings xii. 18. For the forced labour or corvée see 1 Kings v. 13, 14.
526. The Vatican manuscript of the Septuagint has a wholly different list from that of the Hebrew text, Baasha the son of Ahithalam taking the place of Azariah as Vizier, Abi the son of Joab being commander-in-chief, and Ahira the son of Edrei tax-master, while Benaiah remains commander of the bodyguard as in David’s reign. The list is perhaps derived from a document that belonged to the early part of Solomon’s reign. The Syriac reads Zakkur for Zabud, the royal chaplain; but Zabud is supported by the Vatican Septuagint, which makes him the chief councillor. For the reading ‘army’ or ‘bodyguard’ instead of the senseless πατριᾶς in iv. 6, see Field, Origenis Hexaplorum quæ supersunt, i. p. 598.