[²] Hebrew slain.
[³] Or, Of the three in the second rank he was the most honourable.
20. chief of the three] In 2 Samuel xxiii. 18 (Kethīb) Abishai is called by the same title (Hebrew rōsh hasshālīshi) as Josheb-basshebeth (2 Samuel xxiii. verse 8). This title probably means chief of the third part [of the army]; compare verse 11, note. Chief of the three is a faulty reading: it certainly ought not to be taken in connection with the three mighty men—Jashobeam (Ishbaal), Eleazar and <Shammah>—referred to in verses 10 ff. Probably a reading “chief of the thirty,” for which there is some MS. authority, is correct; but the references here and in the following verse are obscure (see Driver, Samuel², pp. 367, 368).
had a name among the three] Compare verse 24, where the same thing is said of Benaiah. The three meant are either the three of verses 15–19 or else an unknown three; compare next note.
²¹he was more honourable than the two, and was made their captain: howbeit he attained not to the first three.
21. Of the three, he was more honourable than the two] margin “Of the three in the second rank he was the most honourable.” Neither of these renderings is satisfactory, and the text is certainly corrupt (compare 2 Samuel xxiii. 19), and should be corrected. Read perhaps: He was more honourable than the three, or perhaps, than the thirty. The verse probably comes from a lost poem. What is meant by the three and by the first three cannot be determined owing to the loss of the context.
²²Benaiah the son of Jehoiada, the son of a valiant man of Kabzeel, who had done mighty deeds, he slew the two sons of Ariel of Moab: he went down also and slew a lion in the midst of a pit in time of snow.
22. Benaiah] See 2 Samuel viii. 18; 1 Kings i. 8 ff., ii. 25–35.
Kabzeel] It was in the south of Judah; Joshua xv. 21.
he slew the two sons of Ariel of Moab] So LXX. of 2 Samuel xxiii. 20. The phrase is very difficult. Some, emending the text, read “He slew two young lions, having gone down to their lair.” Another but an improbable conjecture is “he smote the two altar-pillars of Moab,” i.e. he overthrew the two high columns on which the sacred fire of the Moabites was kept (Robertson Smith, Religion of the Semites, Additional Note L). To injure or defile the sacred place of an enemy was a common practice in ancient war.