[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." [135] Comp. 2 Kings xi. 15. [136] See Deut. xix. 13. [137] 2 Sam. iii. 28, 29. [138] וָאָנָה אָנֶה (1 Kings ii. 36). [139] It should be remembered that when Shimei came to meet David on his return, he managed to muster one thousand of his Benjamite kinsmen. Such local influence might prove troublesome. [140] Achish seems to have been the dynastic name of the kings of Gath (1 Sam. xxi. 10, xxvii. 2). If this was the Achish, son of Maoch, with whom David had taken refuge fifty years before, he must now have been a very old man. [141] Esth. ii. 5. [142] Prov. xix. 11, xx. 2, 8, 26. [143] 1 Kings ii. 7; Jer. xli. 17. [144] Lev. x. 1-20; Num. iii. 4, xxvi. 61. This has been not unnaturally inferred from the prohibition to the priests to drink wine while serving the tabernacle lest they die, which occurs immediately after the catastrophe of the two priests (Lev. x. 9-11).