[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."