2 Samuel 23:18

18 Now Abishai the brother of Joab the son of Zeruiah [was] himself the leader of the thirty. He [was] wielding his spear against three hundred slain and {gained a name} among the thirty.

2 Samuel 23:18 Meaning and Commentary

2 Samuel 23:18

And Abishai, the brother of Joab, the son of Zeruiah, was
chief among the three
Another triumvirate, of which he was the head:

and he lifted up his spear against three hundred, [and] slew [them];
Josephus ^F5 says six hundred; this seems to confirm the reading of ( 2 Samuel 23:8 ) , that the number eight hundred is right, for if it was only three hundred, Abishai would have been equal to one, even the first, of the former three; which yet is denied him in ( 2 Samuel 23:19 ) :

and had the name among three;
of which he was one; and he had the chief name among them, or was the most famous of them.

---

FOOTNOTES:

F5 Antiqu. l. 7. c. 12. sect. 4.

2 Samuel 23:18 In-Context

16 So three of the mighty warriors broke into the camp of [the] Philistines, and they drew water from the well of Bethlehem that [was] at the gate, and they carried [it] and brought [it] to David. But he [was] not willing to drink it, but poured it out to Yahweh.

17 He said, "Far be it from me before Yahweh that I should do this. [Is this not] the blood of the men who went at the risk of their lives?" So he [was] not willing to drink it. These things the three mighty warriors did.

18 Now Abishai the brother of Joab the son of Zeruiah [was] himself the leader of the thirty. He [was] wielding his spear against three hundred slain and {gained a name} among the thirty.

19 Among the thirty, is it not that he [was] honored and became a commander for them? But he did not come up to the three

20 Benaiah the son of Jehoiada, the son of Ish-Hai, [was] a great [man] of deeds from Kabzeel. He struck down two sons of Ariel of Moab, and he went down and killed a lion in the middle of a pit on a snowy day.

Footnotes

• [a]. Literally "and to him a name"