Online Resource Library
Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadMcClintock Biblical Encyclopedia: Eliam
Subjects in this Topic:
[usually El'am] (Hebrews Eliam', àֵַìåòָí , God is [his] people, i.e., friend; Sept. Å᾿ëéÜâ , Vulg. Eliam), the father of Bathsheba, the wife of Uriah and afterwards of David (2Sa_11:3). In the list of 1Ch_3:5, the names of both father and daughter are altered, the former to the equivalent AMMIEL SEE AMMIEL (q.v.), and the latter to Bathshua, both the latter names being also those of non-Israelite persons, while Uriah was a Hittite (comp. Gen_38:12; 1Ch_2:3; also 2Sa_17:27). 'The same name Eliam also occurs as that of a Gilonite, the son of Ahithophel, and one of David's "thirty" warriors (2Sa_23:34). It is omitted in the list of 1Ch_11:1-47, but is now probably discernible as "AHIJAH the Pelonite" (1Ch_11:36) (see Kennicott, Dissertation, p. 207). The ancient Jewish tradition preserved by Jerome (Qu. Hebr. on 2Sa_11:3, and 1Ch_3:5) is that the two Eliams are the same person. An argument has been founded on this to account for the hostility of Ahithophel to king David, as having dishonored his house and caused the death of his son-in-law (Blunt, Coincidences, part 2, 10). But he would perhaps have rather been proud of this alliance with royalty. B.C. 1046.