deeds, but yet stood higher than the list of heroes which follows in 1Ch 11:26 and onwards. אבשׁי, as 1Ch 2:16 and 2Sa 10:10, while in 2Sa 23:18 and elsewhere he is called אבישׁי, was one of the three sons of Zeruiah (1Ch 2:16). It is difficult to explain השׁלושׁה ראשׁ, “he was the chief of the three,” instead of which we find in 2Sa 23:23 השׁלשׁי, i.e., השּׁלשׁי, “chief of the body-guard” (knights). But owing to the succeeding שׁם (ולו) בּשּׁלושׁה ולא, where Samuel also has בּשּׁלשׁה, and to the recurrence of השׁלושׁה on two occasions in 1Ch 11:21 (cf. 2 2Sa 23:19), it does not seem possible to alter the text with Thenius. Bertheau proposes to get rid of the difficulty by taking the word שׁלושׁה in two different significations-on the one hand as denoting the numeral three, and on the other as being an abstract substantive, “the totality of the thirty.” He justifies the latter signification by comparison of 1Ch 11:21 with 1Ch 11:25, and of 2Sa 23:19 with 1Ch 11:23, from which he deduces that שׁלושׁה and שׁלושׁים denote a larger company, in which both Abishai and Benaiah held a prominent place. But this signification cannot be made good from these passages. In both clauses of 1Ch 11:25 (and 2Sa 23:23) השּׁלשׁים and השּׁלשׁה are contrasted, which would rather go to prove the contrary of Bertheau's proposition, viz., that השּׁלשׁה, the three, cannot at the same time denote the whole of the thirty, השּׁלשׁים. The truth of the matter may be gathered from a comparison of 1Ch 11:18 with 1Ch 11:15. In 1Ch 11:18 השּׁלשׁה is synonymous with השּׁלושׁים מן השׁלושׁה, 1Ch 11:15; i.e., the three in 1Ch 11:18 are the same men who in 1Ch 11:15, where they are first met with, are called three of the thirty; and consequently השּׁלשׁה, the three (triad), 1Ch 11:21 and 1Ch 11:25, can only denote the triad of heroes previously named. This is placed beyond doubt by a comparison of 1Ch 11:24 with 1Ch 11:25, since the הגּבּרים שׁלושׁה, the triad of heroes, 1Ch 11:24, corresponds to the simple השּׁלשׁה of 1Ch 11:25. The only remaining question is, whether by this triad of heroes we are to understand those spoken of in 1Ch 11:11-14, - Jashobeam, Eleazar, and Shammah, - or the three whose names are not given, but whose exploit is narrated in 1Ch 11:15-19. But the circumstance that the names of the three latter are not mentioned goes decidedly to show that השּׁלשׁה in 1Ch 11:20-25 does not denote that nameless triad, whose exploit is manifestly adduced incidentally only as a similar case, but the three most valiant, who held the first rank among David's heroes. Bertheau's opinion, that in 1Ch 11:20-25 one triad of heroes is distinguished
