Ish-bosheth
Encyclopedia
According to the Hebrew Bible
, Ish-bosheth ' onMouseout='HidePop("6745")' href="/topics/Tiberian_vocalization">Tiberian
: ) also called Eshbaal , Ashbaal or Ishbaal, was one of the four sons of King Saul, born c. 1047 BC. Ish-bosheth was chosen as the second king over the Kingdom of Israel, which then consisted of all the twelve tribes of the Israelites, after the death of his father and three brothers at the Battle of Mount Gilboa
.
, the captain of Saul's army, at Mahanaim
in Transjordan
, after his father and brothers were slain in the battle of Gilboa . Ish-bosheth was 40 years old at this time and reigned for two years.
However, after the death of King Saul, the tribe of Judah
seceded from the rule of the House of Saul by proclaiming David
as its king, and war ensued. David's faction eventually prevailed against Ish-bosheth's , but the war did not come to a close until Abner joined David. David's terms for peace required that Michal
(Saul's daughter and Ish-bosheth's sister who had been David's wife before David and Saul fell out with each other) be returned to him, which Ish-bosheth fulfilled. After Abner's death Ish-bosheth seems to have given up hope of retaining power.
Ish-bosheth was assassinated in c 1005 BCE by two of his own army-captains, Rechab
and Baanah , who expected a reward from David because of this. David, however, refused to give any commendation for high treason
; he had both killers stoned to death. Ish-bosheth was buried in Abner's grave at Hebron
.
There is a void in the Biblical account as to what happened to the kingship of the non-Judah tribes of the Israelites during the five years following the murder of Ish-bosheth, as the united kingship of David is dated as 1000 BCE.
that are puzzling. In Hebrew, for Ish-bosheth, "ish" means "[great] man" and "boshet" means "[given to] bashfulness [or humility]" or "[sensitive to] shame", but it could also mean "shameful (or shamed) person". He is also called Ashba'al, in Hebrew meaning "[person of] master[y]" (and the "esh" may be connected to the Hebrew word for "fire"). "Ba'al" may also allude to the name of the ancient deity Baal
mentioned elsewhere in the Bible.
Critical scholarship suggests that Bosheth was a substitute for Ba'al, beginning when Ba'al became an unspeakable word; as (in the opposite direction) Adonai became substituted for the ineffable Tetragrammaton
(see taboo deformation).
in the Hebrew Bible
:
When he was prematurely assassinated and King David
punished the killers:
, basing himself on the commentary of Rabbi David ben Joseph Kimhi (the Radak, 13th century) says:
The Radak emphasizes that what the correlation was between the names of bosheth and ba'al is unclear, while it may have been clear to the people of that time it is not really known or understood at the present time. The Malbim asserts that the name Ish-bosheth is utilized as a "cover" for Ashba'al to deliberately differentiate itself from the Baal, so that the Baal not be mentioned explicitly, and that even the name Ashba'al not to be directly associated with the actual idol of the similar sounding Baal name, even though linguistically they all have shared meanings. Hence the continuing mystery about why the name was given to him (Ish-bosheth) in the first place.
identified Ishbaal with Mutbaal
of the Amarna Letters
. Both names have the same meaning, "Man of Baal." Both fathers (Saul
, Labaya
) had their capitals west of the Jordan, but their sons had their center of power in Transjordan
. Rohl's chronology is controversial.
Hebrew Bible
The Hebrew Bible is a term used by biblical scholars outside of Judaism to refer to the Tanakh , a canonical collection of Jewish texts, and the common textual antecedent of the several canonical editions of the Christian Old Testament...
, Ish-bosheth ' onMouseout='HidePop("6745")' href="/topics/Tiberian_vocalization">Tiberian
Tiberian vocalization
The Tiberian vocalization is a system of diacritics devised by the Masoretes to add to the consonantal Masoretic text of the Hebrew Bible; this system soon became used to vocalize other texts as well...
: ) also called Eshbaal , Ashbaal or Ishbaal, was one of the four sons of King Saul, born c. 1047 BC. Ish-bosheth was chosen as the second king over the Kingdom of Israel, which then consisted of all the twelve tribes of the Israelites, after the death of his father and three brothers at the Battle of Mount Gilboa
Battle of Mount Gilboa
According to the Bible, Saul, the king of the Israelites, went to war against the Philistines, who were attacking his kingdom. Facing a more numerous and sophisticated enemy, Saul used guerilla tactics, but was eventually forced to confront a Philistine army...
.
Reign and death
In the Biblical story, Ish-bosheth was proclaimed king over Israel in 1007 BCE by AbnerAbner
In the Book of Samuel, Abner , is first cousin to Saul and commander-in-chief of his army...
, the captain of Saul's army, at Mahanaim
Mahanaim
Mahanaim is a place near Jabbok, beyond the Jordan River, mentioned a number of times by the Bible. The precise location of Mahanaim is very uncertain, the Biblical data being inconclusive. Although two possible sites have been identified, the one most widely accepted lies about ten miles east of...
in Transjordan
Transjordan (Bible)
The Transjordan is used to describe an area of land in the Southern Levant lying east of the Jordan River that is mentioned in the Hebrew Bible. The area is said to form part of an ill-defined area known as the land of Israel...
, after his father and brothers were slain in the battle of Gilboa . Ish-bosheth was 40 years old at this time and reigned for two years.
However, after the death of King Saul, the tribe of Judah
Tribe of Judah
According to the Hebrew Bible, the Tribe of Judah was one of the Tribes of Israel.Following the completion of the conquest of Canaan by the Israelite tribes after about 1200 BCE, Joshua allocated the land among the twelve tribes....
seceded from the rule of the House of Saul by proclaiming David
David
David was the second king of the united Kingdom of Israel according to the Hebrew Bible and, according to the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, an ancestor of Jesus Christ through both Saint Joseph and Mary...
as its king, and war ensued. David's faction eventually prevailed against Ish-bosheth's , but the war did not come to a close until Abner joined David. David's terms for peace required that Michal
Michal
Michal was a daughter of Saul, king of Israel, who loved and became the wife of David, who later became king of Judah, and later still of the united Kingdom of Israel....
(Saul's daughter and Ish-bosheth's sister who had been David's wife before David and Saul fell out with each other) be returned to him, which Ish-bosheth fulfilled. After Abner's death Ish-bosheth seems to have given up hope of retaining power.
Ish-bosheth was assassinated in c 1005 BCE by two of his own army-captains, Rechab
Rechab
Rechab is the name of three men in the Bible:*One of the two "captains of bands" whom Saul's son Ish-bosheth took into his service, and who conspired to kill him....
and Baanah , who expected a reward from David because of this. David, however, refused to give any commendation for high treason
High treason
High treason is criminal disloyalty to one's government. Participating in a war against one's native country, attempting to overthrow its government, spying on its military, its diplomats, or its secret services for a hostile and foreign power, or attempting to kill its head of state are perhaps...
; he had both killers stoned to death. Ish-bosheth was buried in Abner's grave at Hebron
Hebron
Hebron , is located in the southern West Bank, south of Jerusalem. Nestled in the Judean Mountains, it lies 930 meters above sea level. It is the largest city in the West Bank and home to around 165,000 Palestinians, and over 500 Jewish settlers concentrated in and around the old quarter...
.
There is a void in the Biblical account as to what happened to the kingship of the non-Judah tribes of the Israelites during the five years following the murder of Ish-bosheth, as the united kingship of David is dated as 1000 BCE.
The names
The names Ish-bosheth and Ashba'al are unusual in some ways, as they have ambiguous meanings in the original HebrewHebrew language
Hebrew is a Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Culturally, is it considered by Jews and other religious groups as the language of the Jewish people, though other Jewish languages had originated among diaspora Jews, and the Hebrew language is also used by non-Jewish groups, such...
that are puzzling. In Hebrew, for Ish-bosheth, "ish" means "[great] man" and "boshet" means "[given to] bashfulness [or humility]" or "[sensitive to] shame", but it could also mean "shameful (or shamed) person". He is also called Ashba'al, in Hebrew meaning "[person of] master[y]" (and the "esh" may be connected to the Hebrew word for "fire"). "Ba'al" may also allude to the name of the ancient deity Baal
Baal
Baʿal is a Northwest Semitic title and honorific meaning "master" or "lord" that is used for various gods who were patrons of cities in the Levant and Asia Minor, cognate to Akkadian Bēlu...
mentioned elsewhere in the Bible.
Critical scholarship suggests that Bosheth was a substitute for Ba'al, beginning when Ba'al became an unspeakable word; as (in the opposite direction) Adonai became substituted for the ineffable Tetragrammaton
Tetragrammaton
The term Tetragrammaton refers to the name of the God of Israel YHWH used in the Hebrew Bible.-Hebrew Bible:...
(see taboo deformation).
The name Ish-bosheth
He is almost exclusively called Ish-bosheth in the Books of SamuelBooks of Samuel
The Books of Samuel in the Jewish bible are part of the Former Prophets, , a theological history of the Israelites affirming and explaining the Torah under the guidance of the prophets.Samuel begins by telling how the prophet Samuel is chosen by...
in the Hebrew Bible
Hebrew Bible
The Hebrew Bible is a term used by biblical scholars outside of Judaism to refer to the Tanakh , a canonical collection of Jewish texts, and the common textual antecedent of the several canonical editions of the Christian Old Testament...
:
- "...Now Abner the son of Ner, captain of Saul's host, had taken Ish-bosheth the son of Saul, and brought him over to Mahanaim; and he made him king over Gilead, and over the Ashurites, and over Jezreel, and over EphraimTribe of EphraimAccording to the Hebrew Bible, the Tribe of Ephraim was one of the Tribes of Israel. The Tribe of Manasseh together with Ephraim also formed the House of Joseph....
, and over BenjaminTribe of BenjaminAccording to the Hebrew Bible, the Tribe of Benjamin בִּנְיָמִין was one of the Tribes of Israel.From after the conquest of the land by Joshua until the formation of the first Kingdom of Israel in c. 1050 BCE, the Tribe of Benjamin was a part of a loose confederation of Israelite tribes...
, and over all Israel. Ish-bosheth, Saul's son was forty years old when he began to reign over Israel, and he reigned two years..." http://www.mechon-mamre.org/p/pt/pt08b02.htm
When he was prematurely assassinated and King David
David
David was the second king of the united Kingdom of Israel according to the Hebrew Bible and, according to the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, an ancestor of Jesus Christ through both Saint Joseph and Mary...
punished the killers:
- "...RechabRechabRechab is the name of three men in the Bible:*One of the two "captains of bands" whom Saul's son Ish-bosheth took into his service, and who conspired to kill him....
and Baanah, went, and came about the heat of the day to the house of Ish-bosheth, as he took his rest at noon, and they came into the house, as though they would have fetched wheat; and they struck him in the groin; and Rechab and Baanah his brother escaped ...And they brought the head of Ish-bosheth to David in Hebron, and said to the king: 'Behold the head of Ish-bosheth the son of Saul your enemy, who sought your life; and the Lord has avenged my lord the king this day of Saul, and of his seed' ...And David answered ... '...shall I not now require his blood of your hand, and take you away from the earth?' ...But they took the head of Ish-bosheth, and buried it in the grave of Abner in Hebron." http://www.mechon-mamre.org/p/pt/pt08b04.htm
The other name: Ashba'al
Ish-bosheth's name is changed to Ashba'al or Eshba'al in the Book of Chronicles (1 Chronicles 8:33; 9:39). The rabbinic commentator, Meir Loeb ben Jehiel Michael (1809-1879) known as the MalbimMalbim
Meïr Leibush ben Jehiel Michel Weiser , better known by the acronym Malbim , was a rabbi, Hebrew grammar master, and Bible commentator....
, basing himself on the commentary of Rabbi David ben Joseph Kimhi (the Radak, 13th century) says:
- "Ashba'al is Ish-bosheth, as bosheth and ba'al is one, as in the Book of JeremiahBook of JeremiahThe Book of Jeremiah is the second of the Latter Prophets in the Hebrew Bible, following the book of Isaiah and preceding Ezekiel and the Book of the Twelve....
:'...like the number of streets in Jerusalem have you made altars to the shameful (la-bosheth) idol, altars to sacrifice to the Baal (la-ba'al)'." http://www.mechon-mamre.org/p/pt/pt1111.htm (Jeremiah 11:13). Thus, "the shameful idol" ("bosheth") and the "Baal" are one and the same in terms of the words in this verse from Jeremiah.
The Radak emphasizes that what the correlation was between the names of bosheth and ba'al is unclear, while it may have been clear to the people of that time it is not really known or understood at the present time. The Malbim asserts that the name Ish-bosheth is utilized as a "cover" for Ashba'al to deliberately differentiate itself from the Baal, so that the Baal not be mentioned explicitly, and that even the name Ashba'al not to be directly associated with the actual idol of the similar sounding Baal name, even though linguistically they all have shared meanings. Hence the continuing mystery about why the name was given to him (Ish-bosheth) in the first place.
Identification with Mutbaal
Egyptologist David RohlDavid Rohl
New Chronology is the term used to describe an alternative Chronology of the ancient Near East developed by English Egyptologist David Rohl and other researchers beginning with A Test of Time: The Bible - from Myth to History in 1995...
identified Ishbaal with Mutbaal
Mutbaal
Mutbaal was a Canaanite king of the Amarna Period. He is identified in the Amarna letters as a son of Labaya, the ruler of the hill country north of Jerusalem, including the territory in the vicinity of the city of Shachmu .Mutbaal may be the son whose association with the Habiru raiders Labaya...
of the Amarna Letters
Amarna letters
The Amarna letters are an archive of correspondence on clay tablets, mostly diplomatic, between the Egyptian administration and its representatives in Canaan and Amurru during the New Kingdom...
. Both names have the same meaning, "Man of Baal." Both fathers (Saul
Saul
-People:Saul is a given/first name in English, the Anglicized form of the Hebrew name Shaul from the Hebrew Bible:* Saul , including people with this given namein the Bible:* Saul , a king of Edom...
, Labaya
Labaya
Labaya was a Habiru, possibly Canaanite, warlord who lived contemporaneously with Pharaoh Akhenaten . Labaya is mentioned in several of the Amarna Letters , which is practically all scholars know about him...
) had their capitals west of the Jordan, but their sons had their center of power in Transjordan
Transjordan (Bible)
The Transjordan is used to describe an area of land in the Southern Levant lying east of the Jordan River that is mentioned in the Hebrew Bible. The area is said to form part of an ill-defined area known as the land of Israel...
. Rohl's chronology is controversial.