Worthy.Bible » STRONG » 2 Samuel » Chapter 20 » Verse 10

2 Samuel 20:10 King James Version with Strong's Concordance (STRONG)

10 But Amasa H6021 took no heed H8104 to the sword H2719 that was in Joab's H3097 hand: H3027 so he smote H5221 him therewith in the fifth H2570 rib, and shed out H8210 his bowels H4578 to the ground, H776 and struck him not again; H8138 and he died. H4191 So Joab H3097 and Abishai H52 his brother H251 pursued H7291 after H310 Sheba H7652 the son H1121 of Bichri. H1075

Cross Reference

2 Samuel 2:23 STRONG

Howbeit he refused H3985 to turn aside: H5493 wherefore Abner H74 with the hinder end H310 of the spear H2595 smote H5221 him under H413 the fifth H2570 rib, that the spear H2595 came out H3318 behind H310 him; and he fell down H5307 there, and died H4191 in the same place: H8478 and it came to pass, that as many as came H935 to the place H4725 where Asahel H6214 fell down H5307 and died H4191 stood still. H5975

2 Samuel 3:27 STRONG

And when Abner H74 was returned H7725 to Hebron, H2275 Joab H3097 took him aside H5186 in H413 H8432 the gate H8179 to speak H1696 with him quietly, H7987 and smote H5221 him there under the fifth H2570 rib, that he died, H4191 for the blood H1818 of Asahel H6214 his brother. H251

Judges 3:21 STRONG

And Ehud H164 put forth H7971 his left H8040 hand, H3027 and took H3947 the dagger H2719 from his right H3225 thigh, H3409 and thrust H8628 it into his belly: H990

Genesis 4:8 STRONG

And Cain H7014 talked H559 with H413 Abel H1893 his brother: H251 and it came to pass, when they were in the field, H7704 that Cain H7014 rose up H6965 against H413 Abel H1893 his brother, H251 and slew him. H2026

1 Samuel 26:8 STRONG

Then said H559 Abishai H52 to David, H1732 God H430 hath delivered H5462 thine enemy H341 into thine hand H3027 this day: H3117 now therefore let me smite H5221 him, I pray thee, with the spear H2595 even to the earth H776 at once, H6471 H259 and I will not smite him the second time. H8138

2 Samuel 20:9 STRONG

And Joab H3097 said H559 to Amasa, H6021 Art thou in health, H7965 my brother? H251 And Joab H3097 took H270 Amasa H6021 by the beard H2206 with the right H3225 hand H3027 to kiss H5401 him.

1 Kings 2:5-6 STRONG

Moreover thou knowest H3045 also what Joab H3097 the son H1121 of Zeruiah H6870 did H6213 to me, and what he did H6213 to the two H8147 captains H8269 of the hosts H6635 of Israel, H3478 unto Abner H74 the son H1121 of Ner, H5369 and unto Amasa H6021 the son H1121 of Jether, H3500 whom he slew, H2026 and shed H7760 the blood H1818 of war H4421 in peace, H7965 and put H5414 the blood H1818 of war H4421 upon his girdle H2290 that was about his loins, H4975 and in his shoes H5275 that were on his feet. H7272 Do H6213 therefore according to thy wisdom, H2451 and let not his hoar head H7872 go down H3381 to the grave H7585 in peace. H7965

1 Kings 2:31-34 STRONG

And the king H4428 said H559 unto him, Do H6213 as he hath said, H1696 and fall H6293 upon him, and bury H6912 him; that thou mayest take away H5493 the innocent H2600 blood, H1818 which Joab H3097 shed, H8210 from me, and from the house H1004 of my father. H1 And the LORD H3068 shall return H7725 his blood H1818 upon his own head, H7218 who fell H6293 upon two H8147 men H582 more righteous H6662 and better H2896 than he, and slew H2026 them with the sword, H2719 my father H1 David H1732 not knowing H3045 thereof, to wit, Abner H74 the son H1121 of Ner, H5369 captain H8269 of the host H6635 of Israel, H3478 and Amasa H6021 the son H1121 of Jether, H3500 captain H8269 of the host H6635 of Judah. H3063 Their blood H1818 shall therefore return H7725 upon the head H7218 of Joab, H3097 and upon the head H7218 of his seed H2233 for ever: H5769 but upon David, H1732 and upon his seed, H2233 and upon his house, H1004 and upon his throne, H3678 shall there be peace H7965 for H5704 ever H5769 from the LORD. H3068 So Benaiah H1141 the son H1121 of Jehoiada H3077 went up, H5927 and fell H6293 upon him, and slew H4191 him: and he was buried H6912 in his own house H1004 in the wilderness. H4057

1 Chronicles 12:2 STRONG

They were armed H5401 with bows, H7198 and could use both the right hand H3231 and the left H8041 in hurling stones H68 and shooting arrows H2671 out of a bow, H7198 even of Saul's H7586 brethren H251 of Benjamin. H1144

Acts 1:18-19 STRONG

Now G3303 G3767 this man G3778 purchased G2932 a field G5564 with G1537 the reward G3408 of iniquity; G93 and G2532 falling G1096 headlong, G4248 he burst asunder G2997 in the midst, G3319 and G2532 all G3956 his G846 bowels G4698 gushed out. G1632 And G2532 it was G1096 known G1110 unto all G3956 the dwellers G2730 at Jerusalem; G2419 insomuch as G5620 that G1565 field G5564 is called G2564 in their G846 proper G2398 tongue, G1258 Aceldama, G184 that is to say, G5123 The field G5564 of blood. G129

Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Keil & Delitzsch Commentary » Commentary on 2 Samuel 20

Commentary on 2 Samuel 20 Keil & Delitzsch Commentary


Verses 1-22

Sheba's Rebellion. - 2 Samuel 20:1. There happened to be a worthless man there, named Sheba , a Benjaminite. He blew the trumpet, and said, “We have no part in David, nor inheritance in the son of Jesse. Every man to his tents, O Israel!” “To his tents,” i.e., to his home, as in 2 Samuel 19:9, etc.

2 Samuel 20:2

All the men of Israel responded to this call, and went up (to the mountains) away from David and after Sheba; but the men of Judah adhered to their king from the Jordan to Jerusalem. The construction of דּבק with ועד ... מן is a pregnant one: they adhered to and followed him. The expression “from Jordan” does not prove that Sheba's rebellion broke out at the Jordan itself, and before David's arrival in Gilgal, but may be accounted for from the fact that the men of Judah had already fetched the king back across the Jordan.

2 Samuel 20:3

As soon as David returned to his palace at Jerusalem, he brought the ten concubines whom he had left behind, and with whom Absalom had lain, into a place of safety, and took care of them, without going in unto them any more. The masculine suffixes attached to יתּגם , יכלכּלם , and אליהם are used, as they frequently are, as being the more general and indefinite, instead of the feminine, which is the more definite form. Thus were they shut up in lifelong widowhood until the day of their death. אלמנוּת is an adverbial accusative, and חיּוּת signifies “condition in life;” literally, in widowhood of life.

2 Samuel 20:4

David then ordered Amasa to call the men of Judah to pursue Sheba the rebel, and attack him within three days, and then to present himself to him again. This commission was intended as the commencement of the fulfilment of the promise which David had given to Amasa (2 Samuel 19:14). It was no doubt his intention to give him the command over the army that marched against Sheba, and after the defeat of the rebel to make him commander-in-chief. But this first step towards the fulfilment of the promise was a very imprudent act, like the promise itself, since Joab, who had been commander of the army for so many years, was grievously offended by it; and moreover, being a well-tried general, he had incomparably more distinction in the tribe of Judah than Amasa, who had taken part in Absalom's rebellion and even led the rebel army, could possibly have.

2 Samuel 20:5-6

But when Amasa stayed out beyond the time fixed for the execution of the royal commission (the Chethib וייחר is the Piel וייחר , whilst the Keri is either the Hiphil ויּוחר , or the imperfect Kal of יחר = אחר , cf. תּחז , 2 Samuel 20:9, and is quite unnecessary), probably because the men of Judah distrusted him, and were not very ready to respond to his summons, David said to Abishai, “Now will Sheba the son of Bichri be more injurious (more dangerous) to us than Absalom. Take thou the servants (soldiers) of thy lord and pursue after him, lest he reach fortified cities, and tear out our eye ,” i.e., do us a serious injury. This is the correct explanation given by Böttcher, who refers to Deuteronomy 32:10 and Zechariah 2:12, where the apple of the eye is the figure used to signify the most valuable possession; for the general explanation, “and withdraw from our eye,” cannot be grammatically sustained.

2 Samuel 20:7

Thus there went after him (Abishai) Joab's men (the corps commanded by Joab), and the Crethi and Plethi (see at 2 Samuel 8:18), out of Jerusalem, to pursue Sheba.

2 Samuel 20:8

“When they were by the great stone at Gibeon, and Amasa came to meet them (there), Joab was girded with his armour-coat as his clothing, and the girdle of the sword was bound over it upon his loins in its sheath, which came out, and it fell (i.e., the sheath came out of the sword-belt in which it was fastened, and the sword fell to the ground), Joab said to Amasa,” etc. The eighth verse contains only circumstantial clauses, the latter of which (from ויואב onwards) are subordinate to the earlier ones, so that ויּאמר (2 Samuel 20:9) is attached to the first clause, which describes the meeting between the advancing army and Amasa.

There is something striking, however, in the fact that Joab appears among them, and indeed, as we see from what follows, as the commander of the forces; for according to 2 Samuel 20:6, David had commissioned Abishai, Joab's brother, to pursue Sheba, and even in 2 Samuel 20:7 Joab's men only are mentioned. This difficulty can hardly be solved in any other manner than by the simple assumption that David had told Abishai to go out with Joab, and that this circumstance is passed over in the brief account in 2 Samuel 20:6, in which the principal facts alone are given, and consequently the name of Joab does not occur there. Clericus adopts the following explanation. “Mention,” he says, “has hitherto been made simply of the command given to Abishai, but this included an order to Joab to go as well; and there is nothing to preclude the supposition that Joab's name was mentioned by the king, although this is not distinctly stated in the brief account before us.”

(Note: This difficulty cannot be removed by emendations of the text, inasmuch as all the early translators, with the exception of the Syriac, had our Hebrew text before them. Thenius does indeed propose to alter Abishai into Joab in 2 Samuel 20:6, after the example of Josephus and the Syriac; but, as Böttcher observes, if Joab had originally formed part of the text, it could not have been altered into Abishai either accidentally or intentionally, and the Syriac translators and Josephus have inserted Joab merely from conjecture, because they inferred from what follows that Joab's name ought to be found here. But whilst this is perfectly true, there is no ground for Böttcher's own conjecture, that in the original text 2 Samuel 20:6 read as follows: “Then David said to Joab, Behold, the three days are gone: shall we wait for Amasa?” and through the copyist's carelessness a whole line was left out. For this conjecture has no tenable support in the senseless reading of the Cod. Vat ., πρὸς Ἀμεσσαΐ́ for Ἀβισαΐ́ .)

2 Samuel 20:9-10

Joab asked Amasa how he was, and laid hold of his bear with his right hand to kiss him. And as Amasa took no heed of the sword in Joab's hand, he smote him with it in the paunch (abdomen), and shed out his bowels upon the ground, “ and repeated not (the stroke) to him ” (cf. 1 Samuel 26:8). Laying hold of the beard to kiss is still customary among Arabs and Turks as a sign of friendly welcome (vid., Arvieux, Merkwürdige Nachrichten , iv. p. 182, and Harmar, Beobachtungen , ii. p. 61). The reason for this assassination was Joab's jealousy of Amasa. Joab and Abishai then followed Sheba.

2 Samuel 20:11

One of Joab's attendants remained standing by him (Amasa), no doubt at Joab's command, and said to the people who came thither, i.e., to the men of Judah who were collected together by Amasa (vid., 2 Samuel 20:4), “He that favoureth Joab, and he that (is) for David, let him (go) after Joab,” i.e., follow him to battle against Sheba.

2 Samuel 20:12-13

Amasa lay wallowing in blood in the midst of the road; and when the man (the attendant) saw that all the people stood still (by the corpse), he turned (pushed) Amasa from the road to the field, and threw a cloth over him, whereupon they all passed by and went after Joab.

2 Samuel 20:14

But Joab “went through all the tribes of Israel to Abela, and Beth-maacah, and all Berim.” Abela (2 Samuel 20:15), or Abel (2 Samuel 20:18), has been preserved in the large Christian village of Abil , a place with ruins, and called Abil-el-Kamh on account of its excellent wheat ( Kamh ), which lies to the north-west of Lake Huleh, upon a Tell on the eastern side of the river Derdâra ; not in Ibl-el-Hawa , a place to the north of this, upon the ridge between Merj Ayun and Wady et Teim (vid., Ritter, Erdk . xv. pp. 240, 241; Robinson , Bibl . Researches , pp. 372-3; and v. de Velde, Mem . p. 280). Beth-maacah was quite close to Abela; so that the names of the two places are connected together in 2 Samuel 20:15, and afterwards, as Abel-beth-maacah (vid., 1 Kings 15:20, and 2 Kings 15:29), also called Abel-maim in 2 Chronicles 16:4. Berim is the name of a district which is unknown to us; and even the early translators did not know how to render it. There is nothing, however, either in the πάντες ἐν χαῤῥί is the lxx or the omnes viri electi of the Vulgate, to warrant an alteration of the text. The latter, in fact, rests upon a mere conjecture, which is altogether unsuitable; for the subject to ויּקּהלוּ cannot be כּל־הבּרים on account of the vav consec ., but must be obtained from ישׂראל בּכל־שׁבטי . The Chethib ויקלהו is evidently a slip of the pen for ויּקּהלוּ .

2 Samuel 20:15

They besieged him (Sheba) in Abel-beth-maacah, and piled up a rampart against the city , so that it rose up by the town-moat ( חל , the moat with the low wall belonging to it); and all the people with Joab destroyed to throw down the wall .

2 Samuel 20:16-18

Then a wise woman of the city desired to speak to Joab, and said (from the wall) to him (2 Samuel 20:18), “They were formerly accustomed to say, ask Abel; and so they brought (a thing) to pass.” These words show that Abel had formerly been celebrated for the wisdom of its inhabitants.

2 Samuel 20:19

“I am of the peaceable, faithful in Israel: thou seekest to slay a city and mother in Israel; wherefore wilt thou destroy the inheritance of Jehovah?” The construing of אנכי with a predicate in the plural may be explained on the simple ground that the woman spoke in the name of the city as well as in its favour, and therefore had the citizens in her mind at the time, as is very evident from the figurative expression אם (mother) for mother-city or capital.

(Note: The correctness of the text is not to be called in question, as Thenius and Böttcher suppose, for the simple reason that all the older translators have followed the Hebrew text, including even the lxx with their ἐγώ εἰμι εἰρηνικὰ τῶν στηριγμάτων ἐν Ἰσραήλ ; whereas the words ἅ ἔθεντο οἱ πιστοὶ τοῦ Ἰσραήλ , which some of the MSS contain at the close of 2 Samuel 20:18 after ει ̓ ἐξέλιπον , and upon which Thenius and Böttcher have founded their conjectures, are evidently a gloss or paraphrase of התמּוּ וכן , and of so little value on critical grounds, that Tischendorf did not even think the reading worth mentioning in his edition of the Septuagint.)

The woman gave Joab to understand, in the first place, that he ought to have asked the inhabitants of Abela whether they intended to fight for Sheba before commencing the siege and destruction of the town, according to the law laid down in Deuteronomy 20:10. with reference to the siege of foreign towns; and secondly, that he ought to have taken into consideration the peaceableness and fidelity of the citizens of Abela, and not to destroy the peace-loving citizens and members of the nation of God.

2 Samuel 20:20

The woman's words made an impression upon Joab. He felt the truthfulness of her reproaches, and replied, “Far be it, far be it from me, to swallow up or destroy.” אם , as in the case of oaths: “ truly not .”

2 Samuel 20:21

“It is not so (sc., as thou sayest), but a man of the mountains of Ephraim (which extended into the tribe of Benjamin: see at 1 Samuel 1:1), Sheba the son of Bichri, hath lifted up his hand against the king David. Only give him up, and I will draw away from the city.” The woman promised him this: “Behold, his head shall be thrown out to thee over the wall.”

2 Samuel 20:22

She then came to all the people (i.e., the citizens of the town) “ with her wisdom ,” i.e., with the wise counsel which she had given to Joab, and which he had accepted; whereupon the citizens cut off Sheba's head, and threw it out to Joab. Then Joab had a trumpet blown for a retreat, and the men disbanded, whilst he himself returned to Jerusalem to the king.


Verses 23-26

David's Ministers of State. - The second section of the history of David's reign closes, like the first (2 Samuel 8:16.), with a list of the leading ministers of state. The author evidently found the two lists in his sources, and included them both in his work, for the simple reason that they belonged to different periods, as the difference in the names of some of the officers clearly shows, and that they supplemented on another. The list before us belongs to a later period of David's reign than the one in 2 Samuel 8:16-18. In addition to the office-bearers mentioned in 2 Samuel 8, we find here Adoram over the tribute, and Ira the Kairite a confidential counsellor ( cohen : see at 2 Samuel 8:18), in the place of the sons of David noticed in 2 Samuel 8:18. The others are the same in both lists. The Chethib הכרי is to be read הכּרי (cf. 2 Kings 11:4, 2 Kings 11:19), from כוּר , perfodit , and is synonymous with הכּרתי (see at 2 Samuel 8:18). Adoram is the same person as Adoniram, who is mentioned in 1 Kings 4:6 and 1 Kings 5:14 as overseer over the tributary service in the time of Solomon; as we may see from the fact, that the latter is also called Adoram in 1 Kings 12:18, and Hadoram in 2 Chronicles 10:18. Hadoram is apparently only a contracted form of the name, and not merely a copyist's mistake for Adoniram. But when we find that, according to the passage cited, the same man filled this office under three kings, we must bear in mind that he did not enter upon it till the close of David's reign, as he is not mentioned in 2 Samuel 8:16., and that his name only occurs in connection with Rehoboam's ascent of the throne; so that there is no ground for assuming that he filled the office for any length of time under that monarch. המּס does not mean vectigal , i.e., tribute or tributary service, but tributary labourers. The derivation of the word is uncertain, and has been disputed. The appointment of a special prefect over the tributary labourers can hardly have taken place before the closing years of David's reign, when the king organized the internal administration of the kingdom more firmly than before. On the tributary labourers, see at 1 Kings 5:13. Ira the Jairite is never mentioned again. There is no ground for altering Jairi (the Jairite) into Jithri (the Jithrite), as Thenius proposes, since the rendering given in the Syriac (“from Jathir”) is merely an inference from 2 Samuel 23:38; and the assumption upon which this conclusion is founded, viz., that Ira , the hero mentioned in 2 Samuel 23:38, is the same person as Ira the royal cohen , is altogether unfounded.