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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - 2 Samuel 17:25 - 17:25
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Absalom had made Amasa captain over his army instead of Joab, who had remained true to David, and had gone with his king to Mahanaim. Amasa was the son of a man named Jithra, הַיִּשְׂרְאֵלִי, who had gone in to (i.e., had seduced) Abigail, the daughter of Nahash and sister of Zeruiah, Joab's mother. He was therefore an illegitimate cousin of Joab. The description given of Jithra as יִשְׂרְאֵלִי is very striking, since there was no reason whatever why it should be stated that Amasa's father was an Israelite. The Seventy have therefore given ὁ Ἰεζραηλίτης, i.e., sprung from Jezreel, where David's wife Ahinoam came from (1Sa 27:3); but they have done so apparently from mere conjecture. The true reading is evidently הַיּשְׁמְעֵאלִי, an Ishmaelite, according to 1Ch 2:17, where the name is written Jether, a contracted form of Jithra. From the description given of Abigail as a daughter of Nahash and sister of Zeruiah, not of David, some of the earlier commentators have very justly concluded that Abigail and Zeruiah were only step-sisters of David, i.e., daughters of his mother by Nahash and not by Jesse.