1 Chronicles 2:16

Whose sisters were Zeruiah, and Abigail. And the sons of Zeruiah; Abishai, and Joab, and Asahel, three.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

2:1-55 Genealogies. - We are now come to the register of the children of Israel, that distinguished people, who were to dwell alone, and not be reckoned among the nations. But now, in Christ, all are welcome to his salvation who come to him; all have equal privileges according to their faith in him, their love and devotedness to him. All that is truly valuable consists in the favour, peace, and image of God, and a life spent to his glory, in promoting the welfare of our fellow-creatures.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Sisters - i. e. half-sisters. Abigail and Zeruiah were daughters not of Jesse, but of a certain Nahash, whose widow Jesse took to wife 2 Samuel 17:25.

From the present passage, and from the fact that Abishai joined David as a comrade in arms before Joab 1 Samuel 26:6, it would seem that, although Joab was pre-eminent among the three 2 Samuel 2:13, 2 Samuel 2:16, Abishai was the eldest.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

15. David the seventh—As it appears (1Sa 16:10; 17:12) that Jesse had eight sons, the presumption is from David being mentioned here as the seventh son of his father, that one of them had died at an early age, without leaving issue.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

No text from Poole on this verse.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

Whose sisters were Zeruiah and Abigail..... That is, sisters of David:

and the sons of Zeruiah; Abishai, and Joab, and Asahel, three; all valiant men and captains in David's army; their father's name is nowhere mentioned.

Geneva Study Bible

Whose sisters were Zeruiah, and Abigail. And the sons of Zeruiah; Abishai, and Joab, and Asahel, three.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

16. sons of Zeruiah] Joab and his brothers are always thus named after their mother; probably their father died while they were young, or we may have a relic here of the ancient method of tracing kinship through the mother.

Pulpit Commentary

Verses 16, 17. - These verses do not say that David "begat" Zeruiah and Abigail, but that these two were sisters of the foregoing seven brethren. Light is thrown upon this by 2 Samuel 17:25, which says that Abigail was the daughter of one Nahash, and that Zeruiah was her sister. But it is to leave us in greater darkness as to who Nahath was: whether Nahath was another name for Jesse, or the name of Jesse's wife, or the name of a former husband of Jesse's wife, to whom she bore these two daughters before she became wife to Jesse, and that former husband possibly none other than the Ammonite king (2 Samuel 10:2) - or whether none of these conjectures be near the truth, some of which on the face of them seem unlikely enough, is as yet unsettled. Meantime it is worth remembering that Zeruiah named one of her celebrated sons, and probably the eldest of them, Abishai, after Jesse, Ishai being the same as our Jesse; yet from the above premises it is taken that she was strictly sister of Abigail, and therefore was not really related to Jesse. The subject is treated interestingly under the various names in Smith's 'Bible Dictionary.' The husband of Zeruiah is given nowhere, while the husband of Abigail, here called Jether the Ishmeelite, is, in the passage already referred to (2 Samuel 17:25), called Ithra (which is a slightly altered form of the name), an Israelite, with little doubt an error for Ishmaelite. In the same passage also her own name appears as אֲבִיגַל, instead of אֲבִיגַיִל, though many manuscripts have this latter. 1 Chronicles 2:16

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

The sisters of David have become known through their heroic sons. Zeruiah is the mother of the heroes of the Davidic history, Abishai, Joab, and Asahel (cf. 1 Samuel 26:6; 2 Samuel 2:18; 2 Samuel 3:39; 2 Samuel 8:16, and elsewhere). Their father is nowhere mentioned, "because their more famous mother challenged the greater attention" (Berth.). Abigail was, according to 2 Samuel 17:25, the daughter of Nahash, a sister of Zeruiah, and so was only a half-sister of David, and was the mother of Amasa the captain of the host, so well known on account of his share in the conspiracy of Absalom; cf. 2 Samuel 17:25; 2 Samuel 19:14, and 2 Samuel 20:10. His father was Jether, or Jithra, the Ishmaelite, who in the Masoretic text of 2 Samuel 17:25 is called, through a copyist's, error, היּשׂראלי instead of היּשׁמעאלי; see comm. on passage.