by
Damien F. Mackey
Just as previously I had extended the
identification of King David’s general, Joab,
to include the shrewd counsellor of 2 Samuel
13:3, Jonadab,
so here shall I be expanding - albeit
tentatively, this time - Joab’s mighty brother, Abishai,
to include King David’s scribe, Shisha.
Introduction
This article can serve as both a ‘brotherly’
companion piece to my recent:
King David’s Crafty
General Joab
and - dealing as it does with the name,
‘Shisha’ - a PART TWO to:
Can the Name, ‘Shishak’,
be reconciled to Thutmose III?
The importance of Abishai in the life of David is apparent from the
following account of Abishai’s dramatic career (http://biblehub.com/topical/a/abishai.htm):
ABISHAI
ab'-i-shi, a-bi'-shi ('abhishai, in Ch 'abhshai;
meaning is doubtful, probably "my father is Jesse," BDB): Son of
Zeruiah, David's sister, and one of the three famous brothers, of whom Joab and
Asahel were the other two (2 Samuel 2:18). He was chief of
the second group of three among David's "mighty men" (2 Samuel 23:18).
He first appears with David, who was in the
Wilderness of Ziph, to escape Saul. When David called for a volunteer to go
down into Saul's camp by night, Abishai responded, and counseled the killing of
Saul when they came upon the sleeping king (1 Samuel 26:6-9). In the skirmish
between the men of Ishbosheth and the men of David at Gibeon, in which Asahel
was killed by Abner, Abishai was present (2 Samuel 2:18, 24). He was with and
aided Joab in the cruel and indefensible murder of Abner, in revenge for their
brother Asahel (2 Samuel 3:30).
In David's campaign against the allied Ammonites
and Syrians, Abishai led the attack upon the Ammonites, while Joab met the
Syrians; the battle was a great victory for Israel (2 Samuel 10:10-14). He was always
faithful to David, and remained with him, as he fled from Absalom. When Shimei,
of the house of Saul, cursed the fleeing king, Abishai characteristically
wished to kill him at once (2 Samuel 16:8, 9); and when the
king returned victorious Abishai advised the rejection of Shimei's penitence,
and his immediate execution (2 Samuel 19:21).
In the battle with Absalom's army at Mahanaim
Abishai led one division of David's army, Joab and Ittai commanding the other
two (2 Samuel 18:2).
With Joab he put down the revolt against David of Sheba, a man of Benjamin (2 Samuel 20:6, 10), at which Joab
treacherously slew Amasa his cousin and rival, as he had likewise murdered
Abner, Abishai no doubt being party to the crime.
King
David owed his very life to Abishai, as this article goes on to recount:
In a battle with the Philistines late in his life,
David was faint, being now an old man, and was in danger of death at the hands
of the Philistine giant Ishbihenob when Abishai came to his rescue and killed
the giant (2 Samuel 21:17).
In the list of David's heroes (2 Samuel 23) Abishai's right
to leadership of the "second three" is based upon his overthrowing
three hundred men with his spear (2 Samuel 23:18). He does not
appear in the struggle of Adonijah against Solomon, in which Joab was the
leader, and therefore is supposed to have died before that time.
He was an impetuous, courageous man, but less
cunning than his more famous brother Joab, although just as cruel and
relentless toward rival or foe. David understood and feared their hardness and
cruelty. Abishai's best trait was his unswerving loyalty to his kinsman, David.
Edward Mack
King
David’s Scribe, ‘Shisha’
In Kings 4:1-3, we read about King Solomon’s chief officials,
including two “sons of Shisha”:
So King Solomon ruled over all Israel.
And these were his chief officials:
Azariah son of Zadok—the priest;
Elihoreph and Ahijah, sons of
Shisha—secretaries [scribes] ….
Considering that the “sons” of
Shisha were in office during the reign of King Solomon, then one might expect
that their illustrious father would have been officiating as secretary, or
scribe, during the reign of Solomon’s father, David.
I have previously asked the
question, regarding this “Shisha”:
Can we now biblically identify David’s scribe, Shisha?
And this is the tentative answer that I have given:
This Shisha [var. Shavsha] must have been a very significant person,
though he, unlike his fellow officials, is never accorded a patronymic (father’s
name).
I suggest that Shavsha (or Shabsha) was the durable warrior, Abishai
(var. Abshai) – ‘Chief of the Thirty’ (2 Samuel 23:18), who were King David’s mighty
men - and ever loyal to David, his uncle. Being listed as a scribe always (if
Abishai) in relation to his brother, General Joab, who is given a ‘matronymic’
(“son of Zeruiah”, David‘s sister), Shavsha himself would not require any
further qualification. Though, as Abishai, he too is called “son of Zeruiah”.
In my ‘General Joab’ article, in which I identified Joab with Jonadab,
the son of David‘s brother Shimeah (or Shammah), 2 Samuel 13:3, I concluded
logically, on the strength of this identification, that Joab was therefore the
son of Shimeah. This meant that Zeruiah, the mother of Joab and Abishai (and
Asahel), and “sister” of David, must in actual fact have been David’s
sister-in-law.
So, getting back to Shisha/Shavsha, I continued:
I tentatively suggest that Shavsha, is Shabshai (Sheba?), Hebraïsed to
Abshai (Abishai), and that his brother, Joab, must be the courtly wise (hkm, with a diacritical h) counsellor, Jonadab, the son of David’s
brother Shimeah (Shammah, 1 Sam 16:9; 17:13), a “friend” (réa) of David‘s son Amnon (2 Samuel 13:23), who counselled the
latter towards the seduction of Tamar.
In the context of the proposed
identification of Thutmose III with the biblical “Shishak” (“Can the Name, ‘Shishak’,
be reconciled to Thutmose III?”), the fact that
Israelites bore names such as “Shisha” and “Shashak” (I Chronicles 8:14, 25)
might suggest that we would be wasting our time trying to find the equivalent
of “Shishak” amongst the Egyptian
names of Thutmose III, when he may have been known by the Israelites under a
name then in use in Israel.
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