[²] Hebrew slain.
11. this is the number] More suitably in Samuel, “These be the names.”
Jashobeam] Called “Jashobeam the son of Zabdiel” in xxvii. 2. The name “Jashobeam” is however uncertain. In 2 Samuel (xxiii. 8, Revised Version) it appears as “Josheb-basshebeth,” which is certainly wrong. LXX. (B) varies in reproducing the name, but it seems to have read “Ish-bosheth” in Samuel, and “Ish-baal” (Esh-baal) in both places of Chronicles. These readings are probably right. For the relation of the forms “Ish-bosheth,” “Esh-baal” see viii. 33, note.
son of a Hachmonite] Compare xxvii. 32. In Samuel (wrongly) “a Tahchemonite.”
chief of the thirty] So the Hebrew margin (Kethīb), but the Hebrew text (Ḳerī) reads chief of the captains, which the Authorized Version follows. Neither Authorized Version nor Revised Version gives satisfactory sense. In 2 Samuel xxiii. 8 the LXX. gives, chief of the third part [of the army], compare 2 Samuel xviii. 2; and this is perhaps right; the Hebrew text of Samuel (if not faulty) probably bears the same sense. Ish-baal (Jashobeam) then is one of three “mightiest of the mighty” men, the other two being Eleazar (verse 12) and Shammah (= 2 Samuel xxiii. 11; omitted in Chronicles—see note on verses 12, 13).
he lifted up his spear] Literally “he aroused his spear,” a poetic expression.
against three hundred] Samuel “against eight hundred”; so Peshitṭa (good MSS.) of Chronicles Some light is thrown on this exploit by 1 Samuel xviii. 25–27; the two hundred Philistines slain by David and his men were carefully counted and reckoned to the credit of David personally.
12, 13. These verses answer in part to verses 9 and 11 of Samuel, but since verse 10 and parts of verses 9, 11 of Samuel have no equivalent in Chronicles, two incidents are confounded, and the name of a hero (Shammah) is omitted, his exploit being ascribed to Eleazar.
¹²And after him was Eleazar the son of Dodo, the Ahohite, who was one of the three mighty men.
12. Eleazar the son of Dodo] Probably to be identified with “Dodai the Ahohite,” the commander of the second “course”; xxvii. 4.