[120] These events--like almost everything derogatory to David and Solomon--are omitted by the chronicler.
[121] Luke iii. 31. Salathiel, son of Neri (Luke iii. 27), of Nathan's house, was probably adopted by Jeconiah, who was childless; or if he had a son Assir (captive), the son had died. 1 Chron. iii. 17; Isa. xxii. 3.
[122] 2 Sam. xii. 8. Comp. 1 Kings xx. 7; 2 Kings xxiv. 15. We only know, however, of one wife of Saul, and one concubine.
[123] Herod., iii. 68; Justin., x. 2.
[124] Comp. 1 Kings xv. 13; 2 Kings xi. 1. The queen-mother, like the Sultana Walidé, is always more powerful than even the favourite wife.
[125] Cant. iii. 11.
[126] Psalm xlv. 9. Some little mystery evidently hangs over the name of Bathsheba. In 2 Sam. xi. 3 she is called "Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam, the wife of Uriah the Hittite"; but in 1 Chron. iii. 5 she is called "_Bathshua_, the daughter of _Ammiel_." Now Shua was a Canaanite name (Gen. xxxviii. 12; 1 Chron. ii. 3), and it is at least remarkable that Bathsheba should be married to a Hittite. Further, the chronicler disguises "Ahithophel the Gilonite (the father of Eliam) into Ahijah the Pelonite," who is one of David's Gibborim in 1 Chron. xi. 36. Pelonite means _nescio qius_; in Spanish, Don Fulano,--Signor So-and-so. And how are we to account for the strange name Ahithophel ("brother of foolishness?")?
[127] Comp. Cant. vii. 1. It has been assumed that Solomon had already married Naamah the Ammonitess, and that Rehoboam was already born (see 1 Kings xiv. 21), but this is uncertain. Rehoboam, if he had reached the age of forty-one, could hardly have been called "young and tender-hearted" (2 Chron. xiii. 7).
[128] Shunem (Sulem, Euseb., _Jer._) is now _Solam_ (Robinson, _Researches_, iii. 402).
[129] 1 Sam. xxii. 23.
[130] 2 Sam. xv. 18 (LXX.).
[131] _Anata_, Robinson, _Researches_, ii, 319; Josh. xxi. 18; 1 Chron. vi. 60. It was the native town of Jeremiah (Jer. i. 1).
[132] It should be remembered that, as Ewald points out, imprisonment for life was a thing unknown.
[133] This interesting addition is found in the Septuagint version.
[134] 2 Sam. xxiii. 20. Ewald, Thenius, and most other critics, followed by the R.V., adopt the LXX. reading, "Slew the two sons of Ariel of Moab."
[135] Comp. 2 Kings xi. 15.
[136] See Deut. xix. 13.
[137] 2 Sam. iii. 28, 29.
[138] וָאָנָה אָנֶה (1 Kings ii. 36).
[139] It should be remembered that when Shimei came to meet David on his return, he managed to muster one thousand of his Benjamite kinsmen. Such local influence might prove troublesome.
[140] Achish seems to have been the dynastic name of the kings of Gath (1 Sam. xxi. 10, xxvii. 2). If this was the Achish, son of Maoch, with whom David had taken refuge fifty years before, he must now have been a very old man.
[141] Esth. ii. 5.
[142] Prov. xix. 11, xx. 2, 8, 26.
[143] 1 Kings ii. 7; Jer. xli. 17.
[144] Lev. x. 1-20; Num. iii. 4, xxvi. 61. This has been not unnaturally inferred from the prohibition to the priests to drink wine while serving the tabernacle lest they die, which occurs immediately after the catastrophe of the two priests (Lev. x. 9-11).
[145] 1 Chron. vii. 4-15. In David's time there were only eight descendants of Ithamar, but sixteen of Eleazar (1 Chron. xxiv. 4). For full discussion of these priestly genealogies, see Lord A. Hervey, _On the Genealogies_, pp. 277-306. It is true that they are not free from elements of difficulty, but I am unable to find any valid ground for the suspicion of some critics that Zadok was not even a priest, or of the priestly house at all. All the evidence we have points in the opposite direction.