And Joab said unto the king, Now the LORD thy God add unto the people, how many soever they be, an hundredfold, and that the eyes of my lord the king may see it: but why doth my lord the king delight in this thing?
| Word | Hebrew | Strong’s | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|
| Joab | יוֹאָ֜ב yo.'Av | H3097 | Joab · proper noun, a man's name |
| said | וַיֹּ֨אמֶר vai.Yo.mer | H559 | to say (used with great latitude) · conjunction + verb, qal sequential imperfect, 3rd person masculine singular |
| king | הַמֶּ֗לֶךְ ha.Me.lekh | H4428 | a king · definite article + noun, common masculine singular absolute |
| LORD | יְהוָה֩ Yah.weh | H3068 | Jehovah · proper noun, a title |
| God | אֱלֹהֶ֨יךָ 'e.lo.Hei.kha | H430 | gods in the ordinary sense · noun, common masculine plural construct + pronominal suffix, 2nd person masculine singular |
| add | וְיוֹסֵ֣ף ve.yo.Sef | H3254 | to add or augment (often adverbial · conjunction + verb, hiphil jussive, 3rd person masculine singular |
| people | הָעָ֜ם ha.'Am | H5971 | a people (as a congregated unit) · definite article + noun, common masculine singular absolute |
| soever | הֵם hêm | H1992 | they (only used when emphatic) |
| hundredfold | מֵאָ֣ה me.'Ah | H3967 | a hundred · noun, common feminine singular absolute |
| eyes | וְעֵינֵ֥י ve.'ei.Nei | H5869 | an eye (literally or figuratively) · conjunction + noun, common feminine dual construct |
| lord | אֲדֹנִֽי 'a.do.ni- | H113 | sovereign · noun, common masculine singular construct + pronominal suffix |
| king | הַמֶּ֖לֶךְ ha.Me.lekh | H4428 | a king · definite article + noun, common masculine singular absolute |
| see | רֹא֑וֹת ro.'ot | H7200 | to see · verb, qal active participle, feminine plural absolute |
| lord | וַאדֹנִ֣י va.do.Ni | H113 | sovereign · conjunction + noun, common masculine singular construct + pronominal suffix |
| king | הַמֶּ֔לֶךְ ha.Me.lekh | H4428 | a king · definite article + noun, common masculine singular absolute |
| delight | חָפֵ֖ץ cha.Fetz | H2654 | properly · verb, qal perfect, 3rd person masculine singular |
| thing | בַּדָּבָ֥ר ba.da.Var | H1697 | a word · preposition with the article + noun, common masculine singular absolute |
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Joab said unto the king - This very bad man saw that the measure now recommended by the king was a wrong one, and might be ruinous to the people, and therefore he remonstrates against it in a very sensible speech; but the king was infatuated, and would hear no reason.
And Joab said unto the king,.... Not so rudely and insolently as he did on account of his mourning for Absalom, but in a more modest, decent, and polite manner: now the Lord thy God add unto the people (how many soever they be) an hundredfold; he wished his subjects were an hundred times more numerous than they were: and that the eyes of my lord the king may see it; that he might live to see with his own eyes so great an increase: but why doth my lord the king delight in this thing? he being now old, and therefore it might seem strange to indulge such curiosity, pride, and vanity, and besides quite needless and useless: the numbering of them would not make them more or less; and they were…
Read the whole note in the console"Again the anger of Jehovah was kindled against Israel; and He moved David against them, saying, Go, number Israel and Judah." לחרות ... ויּסף points back to the manifestation of the wrath of God, which Israel had experienced in the three years' famine (2 Samuel 21). Just as that plague had burst upon the land on account of the guilt which rested upon the people, so the kindling of the wrath of God against Israel a second time also presupposes guilt on the part of the nation; and as this is not expressly pointed out, we may seek for it generally in the rebellions of Absalom and Sheba against the divinely established government of David. The subject to "moved" is Jehovah, and the words "again…
Read the whole note in the consolewhy . . . do you want to do this? Joab either realized that such a move would be unpopular among the people, or he believed that it was wrong before God.
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
Their [current] number. [Yoav meant with] the word כׇּהֵם to convey that their amount should double and the second word וְכָהֵם, to convey a second doubling to have now a total of four times [the original population] and then to again double the [new] total for one hundred times.1For a total of two hundred times the current population. It follows that Yoav's blessing was more then Moshe's who said, "One thousand times you [current] number".2Devorim 1:11. Furthermore, Moshe's blessing was only [to take effect] a long time [into the future] but Yoav's was intended [to take effect] immediately as it says [here], "[With] my master, the king's eyes [being able to] see it."
Henry, Jamieson-Fausset-Brown, Clarke, Gill, Calvin and Keil & Delitzsch are in the public domain; Tyndale Open Study Notes © Tyndale House Publishers, CC BY-SA 4.0 — all from the Free Use Bible API (bible.helloao.org). Rashi: the Rosenbaum & Silbermann Pentateuch (public domain) and the Judaica Press and Metsudah Tanakh (CC BY), via Sefaria. Spurgeon's Treasury of David: public domain (lyteword's markdown edition, CC0).
