its situation. There he made Ishbosheth king “for Gilead,” i.e., the whole of the land to the east of the Jordan (as in Num 32:29; Jos 22:9, etc.). “For the Ashurites:” this reading is decidedly faulty, since we can no more suppose it to refer to Assyria (Asshur) than to the Arabian tribe of the Assurim (Gen 25:3); but the true name cannot be discovered.[1]“And for Jezreel,” i.e., not merely the city of that name, but the plain that was named after it (as in 1Sa 29:1). “And for Ephraim, and Benjamin, and all (the rest of)Israel,” of course not including Judah, where David had already been acknowledged as king.
Verses 10-11
2Sa 2:10-11Length of the reigns of Ishbosheth over Israel, and David at Hebron. The age of Ishbosheth is given, as is generally the case at the commencement of a reign. He was forty years old when he began to reign, and reigned two years; whereas David was king at Hebron over the house of Judah seven years and a half. We are struck with this difference in the length of the two reigns; and it cannot be explained, as Seb. Schmidt, Clericus, and others suppose, on the simple assumption that David reigned two years at Hebron over Judah, namely up to the time of the murder of Ishbosheth, and then five years and a half over Israel, namely up to the time of the conquest
- ↑ In the Septuagint we find Θασιρὶ or Θασούρ, an equally mistaken form. The Chaldee has “over the tribe of Asher,” which is also unsuitable, unless we include the whole of the northern portion of Canaan, including the territory of Zebulun and Naphtali. But there is no proof that the name Asher was ever extended to the territory of the three northern tribes. We should be rather disposed to agree with Bachienne, who supposes it to refer to the city of Asher (Jos 17:7) and its territory, as this city was in the south-east of Jezreel, and Abner may possibly have conquered this district for Ishbosheth with Gilead as a base, before he ventured to dispute the government of Israel with the Philistines, if only we could discover any reason why the inhabitants (“the Ashurites”) should be mentioned instead of the city Asher, or if it were at all likely that one city should be introduced in the midst of a number of large districts. The Syriac and Vulgate have Geshuri, and therefore seem to have read or conjectured הגּשׁוּרי; and Thenius decides in favour of this, understanding the name Geshur to refer to the most northerly portion of the land on both sides of the Jordan, from Mount Hermon to the Lake of Gennesareth (as in Deu 3:14; Jos 12:5; Jos 13:13; 1Ch 2:23). But no such usage of speech can be deduced from any of these passages, as Geshuri is used there to denote the land of the Geshurites, on the north-east of Bashan, which had a king of its own in the time of David (see at 2Sa 3:3), and which Abner would certainly never have thought of conquering.
