Ish-boseth

Ish-bosheth (also called Eshba'al or Ashba'al), appears in the Hebrew Bible. He was one of the four sons of King Saul, and was chosen as the second king over the united Kingdom of Israel after his father's and three brother's deaths at the Battle of Mount Gilboa.

His brief reign and death

Ish-bosheth was proclaimed king over Israel by Abner, the captain of Saul's army, at Mahanaim (2 Samuel 2:8), after his father and brothers were slain in the battle of Gilboa (1 Samuel 31:1). Ish-bosheth was 40 years old at this time and reigned over Israel for two years (2 Samuel 2:10). However another faction proclaimed David king, which led to war (2 Samuel 2:12). David's faction eventually prevailed against Ish-bosheth's (2 Samuel 3:1), but the war did not come to a close until Abner, joined David (2 Samuel 3:6). David's condition to return to him his wife Hebron (2 Samuel 4:12).

The names

The names Ish-bosheth and Ashba'al are unusual in some ways, as they have ambiguous meanings in the original Hebrew 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"). Most ominously, "ba'al" may also allude to the name of an ancient pagan idol Baal despised by God in the Bible. All these ambiguities and possibilities are somehow locked-up and intertwined within these names.

The name Ish-bosheth

He is almost exclusively called Ish-bosheth in the Book of Samuel in the Hebrew Bible:

"...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 Ephraim, and over Benjamin, 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..." (2 Samuel 2:8-10)

When he was prematurely assassinated and King David punished the killers:

"...Rechab 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 to 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." (2 Samuel 4:5-12)

The other name: Ashba'al

Ish-bosheth's name is changed to Ashba'al or Eshba'al (and not "Ish baal") in the Book of Chronicles (1 Chronicles 8:33; 9:39). The rabbinic commentator, Meir Loeb ben Jehiel Michael (1809 - 1879) known as the Malbim, basing himself on the commentary of Rabbi David ben Joseph Kimhi (the Book of Jeremiah :'...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)'." (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.