Ish'bi-be'nob (Heb. YishW-Benob', 3:3 '■^t'^^ my seat is at Nob, as in the margin, for which the text has 332 121:3'', Yishbo'-Benob', his seat is at Nub; Sept. 'leafii cnru N<ii/3,Vulg. Jeshi-benob) , one of the Eepha- im, a gigantic warrior who bore a spear of 800 shekels' weight, and came near slaying David in a personal ren- counter, but was slain by Abishai (2 Sam. xxi, 16). B.C. cir. 1018. See Gi.-vxt. "
Ish-bo'sheth [many Ish'-bosheth,'] (Ilch. M-bo'- sheth, rU2l"lI3'^Xj man of shumcj i. e. bashful, other- wise disgraceful; Sept. 'lafinaSr v. r. 'ItjioaSif, Joseph, 'If/3o(T5oc, Vulg. Isboseth), the youngest of Saul's four sons, and his legitimate successor, being the only one who survived him (2 Sam. ii-iv). His name appears (1 Chron. viii, 3S ; ix, 89) to have been originally Esh- baal, bj.'3"bl!t, " the man of Baal." Whether this in- dicates that Baal was used as equivalent to Jehovah, or that the reverence for Baal still lingered m Israelitish families, is uncertain ; but it can hardly be doubted that the name (Lsh-bosheth, " the man of shame") by which he is commonly known must have been substituted for the original word, with a view of removing the scandal- ous sound of Baal from the name of an Israelitish king
ISH-BOSHETH
681
ISH-BOSHETH
(see Ewald, Isr. Gesch. ii, 383), and superseding it hy the contemptuous word (Bosheth — "shame") which was sometimes used as its equivalent in later times (Jer. iii, 24 ; xi, 13 ; Hos. ix, 10). A similar process appears in the alteration of Jerubbaal (Judg. viii, 35) into Jerub- besheth (2 Sam. xi, 21) ; Meri-baal (2 Sam. iv, 4) into Mephibosheth (1 Chron. viii, 34 ; ix, 40). The last tliree cases all occur in Saul's family. See Saul. He is thought by some to be the same with Ishui C^l.l^^, 1 xiv, 49), these two names having considerable resem- blance ; but this is forbidden by 1 Sam. xxxi, 2, comp. with 1 Chron. viii, 33. See Abixadab. He appears to have been fortj' years of age at the time of the battle of Gilboa (B.C. 1053), in which he was not liimself pres- ent, but in which his father and three older brothers perished ; and therefore, according to the law of Orien- tal, though not of European succession, he ascended the throne, as the oldest of the royal family, rather than Mephibosheth, son of his elder brother Jonathan, wlio was a child of five years old. Too feeble of himself to seize the sceptre which had just fallen from the hands of Saul, he was immediately taken under the care of Abner, his powerful Jcinsman, \vho brought him to the ancient sanctuary of Mahanaim, on the east of the Jor- dan, beyond the reach of the victorious Philistines, and he was there recognised as king by ten of the twelve tribes (2 Sam. ii, 8, 9). There was a momentary doubt even in those remote tribes wliether they should not close with the offer of David to be their king (2 Sam. ii, 7 ; iii, 17). But tliis was overruled in favor of Ish- bosheth by Abner (2 Sam. iii, 17), who then for five years slowly but effectually restored the dominion of the house of Saul over the trans-Jordanic territory, the plain of Esdraelon, the central mountains of Ephraim, the frontier tribe of Benjamin, and eventually "over all Israel" (except the tribe of Judah, 2 Sam. iii, 9). In 2 Sam. ii, 10 Isli-bosheth is said to have reigned two years, which some understand as the whole amount of his reign. As David reigned seven and a half years over Judah before he became king of all Israel upon the death of Ish-bosheth, it is conceived by the Jewish chronologer (Sed^j- Olain Rabbit, p. 37), as well as by Kimchi and others, that there was a vacancy of five years in the throne of Israel. It is not, however, agreed by those who entertain this opinion whether this va- cancy took place before or after the reign of Ish-bo- sheth. Some think it was before, it being then a mat- ter of dispute whether he or Mephibosheth, the son of Jonathan, should be made king; but others hold that after his death five years elapsed before David was gen- erally recognised as king of all Israel. If the reign of Ish-bosheth be limited to two years, the latter is doubt- less the best way of accounting for the other five, since no ground of delay in the succession of Ish-bosheth is suggested in Scripture itself; for the claim of Mejjhibo- sheth, the son of Jonathan, which some have produced, being that of a lame boy five years old, whose father never reigned, against a king's son forty years of age, would have been deemed of little weight in Israel. Be- sides, oiu- notions of Abner do not allow us to suppose that under him the question of the succession could have remained five years in abeyance. But it is the more usual, and perhaps the better course, to settle this question by supposing that the reigns of David over Judah, and of Ish-bosheth over Israel, were nearly con- temporaneous, namely, about seven years each; and that the two years named are only the first of this pe- riod, being mentioned as those from which to date the commencement of the ensuing events — namely, the wars between the house of Saul and that of David. This appears to be the view taken by Josephus (.4 nt. vii, 1, 3 ; comp. 2, 1). Ish-bosheth thus reigned seven, or, as some will have it, two years — if a power so mi- certain as liis can be called a reign. Even the sem- blance of authority which he possessed he owed to the will and influence of Abner, who l;ept the real control of affairs in his own hands. The wars and negotia-