[214] 2 Kings xviii. 18; Isa. xxii. 15.
[215] 2 Sam. xx. 24. He is not mentioned in 1 Chron. xxvii. 25-31.
[216] This use of patronymics only is common among the Arabs, but not in Scripture (Reuss, Hist. d. Isr., i. 423).
[217] If he was the son of David's elder brother (1 Sam. xvi. 8, xvii. 13) he was Solomon's first cousin. The materialistic or non-religious element in Solomon seems to come out in the names of his only known children. The element "Jehovah," afterwards so universal, does not occur in them. Basmath, characteristically, means "fragrant"; Taphath is perhaps connected with טָפַת, to go mincingly; Rehoboam means "enlarger of the people."
[218] The LXX. indeed reads καὶ νασὲφ εἷς ἐν γῇ Ἰούδα ("and he was the only officer in the land of Judah"). But this would make thirteen fiscal overseers. The Targum, adopting the same reading, says that the thirteenth nitzab was to maintain the king in the intercalary month.
[219] Taking the cor at a low estimate this would amount to eighteen thousand pounds of bread a day.
[220] 1 Kings iv. 23, בַּרְבֻּרִים. Vulg., Avium altilium.
[221] Athen., Deipnos., iv. 146.
[222] 2 Sam. iv. 6 (LXX.).
[223] This description of agricultural felicity soon became an anachronism.