2 Samuel 23:33

Hebrew (Westminster Leningrad Codex)

English Translation

Shammah the Hararite, Ahiam the son of Sharar the Ararite,

World English Bible · Public Domain

Highlights

1 hapax legomenon — only here in the Hebrew Bible
2 first appearances in the Hebrew Bible

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Word by word

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שָׁרָ֖ר

Shârar

H8325

“Sharar”

Noun, Proper

Appears 1× in the Hebrew Bible
First appears here

Full BDB Definition

Origin: from H8324

TWOT: None

Sharar = "enemy" - father of Ahiam, one of David's mighty warriors

About this verse

These counts appear in no published source. They are computed here, from the morphology-tagged text and Lemma’s own curated glosses. What Lemma adds →

6: words
5: distinct lemmas
Historical: section

Notable vocabulary

1 hapax legomenon — a word that appears only here in the entire Hebrew Bible:

שָׁרָ֖ר Sharar H8325

First appearance in Scripture

These words make their first canonical appearance in the Hebrew Bible here:

אֲחִיאָ֥ם Ahiam H279
שָׁרָ֖ר Sharar H8325

Shared distinctive vocabulary

אֲחִיאָ֥ם Ahiam H279 occurs in 2 verses of the Hebrew Bible. Also found in:

1 Chronicles 11:35

Grammatical profile

6 nouns

Repetition

A word recurs within this verse — often emphatic in Hebrew:

הַֽהֲרָרִ֔י Hararite H2043 ×2

Hebrew & Septuagint length

In English translation the verse runs 10 words from the Hebrew and 10 from the Septuagint (LXX English) — the same length.

A rough comparison of the two English renderings, which tokenize alike — not a word-level alignment.

Word counts can differ between the Hebrew and the Greek without any difference in meaning — e.g. the Hebrew direct-object marker אֵת has no separate Greek word, and Greek often adds the article ὁ.

In the original languages it is 6 Hebrew tokens and 8 Greek tokens — but the two are counted differently (Hebrew bundles its prefixes and suffixes into one token; the Greek is in lemma form), so that isn’t a like-for-like length.

Cross-references

Topical passages linked to 2 Samuel 23:33 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge — connected by theme and wording, ordered by reader-vote popularity; previews shown in the World English Bible.

2 Samuel 23:11 After him was Shammah the son of Agee a Hararite. The Philistines were gathered together into a troop, where was a plot of ground full of lentils; and the people fled from the Philistines.
1 Chronicles 11:27 Shammoth the Harorite, Helez the Pelonite,
1 Chronicles 11:35 Ahiam the son of Sacar the Hararite, Eliphal the son of Ur,

Cross-references courtesy of OpenBible.info (CC BY 4.0).

Hebrew and Greek witnesses Masoretic Hebrew ↔ Greek Septuagint

The same verse in the two great witnesses to the Old Testament, shown verse-for-verse.

These are two independent witnesses, not word-aligned to each other, and the Septuagint is shown in lemma (dictionary) form.

Hebrew 2 Samuel 23:33 Masoretic · Westminster Leningrad Codex

שַׁמָּה֙ הַֽהֲרָרִ֔י אֲחִיאָ֥ם בֶּן שָׁרָ֖ר הָארָרִֽי

Shammah the Hararite, Ahiam the son of Sharar the Ararite,

World English Bible · Public Domain

Greek LXX 2 Samuel 23:33 Septuagint · lemma form

σαμμα ὁ αρωδίτης αχιαν υἱός σαραδ ὁ αραουρίτης

Samnan the Arodite; Amnan the son of Arai the Saraurite.

LXX2012 (modern English Septuagint) · Public Domain

Hebrew: Westminster Leningrad Codex (CC BY 4.0). Greek: Septuagint (public domain); English from LXX2012 (modern English Septuagint) (Public Domain). How the Septuagint differs from the Hebrew →

Targum (Aramaic paraphrase)

The Targum is the ancient Jewish Aramaic paraphrase of the Hebrew Scriptures — an interpretive translation, not the Hebrew text itself. Onkelos (literal) and Pseudo-Jonathan (expansive) render the Torah, and Jonathan the Prophets. Coverage is partial: where no permissively-licensed English translation exists for a verse, only the Aramaic is shown. This is verse-level text, not a word-by-word alignment to the Hebrew.

Targum Jonathan Prophets (Joshua–Malachi)

שַׁמָה דְמִן הֲרַר טוּרָאָה אֲחִיאָם בַּר שָׁרָר דְמִטוּר גָבוֹהַּ:

(no public-domain English translation for this verse)

Targum Jonathan — Aramaic: “Mikraot Gedolot” (public domain). English: “Sefaria Community Translation” (CC0 1.0 (public-domain dedication)); “London "Chaldee Paraphrase," 1871” (public domain). Text via Sefaria.

Commentary

Notes on 2 Samuel 23:33 from classic Christian and Jewish commentators (each source and its license shown beneath its notes). The classic Christian expositions comment on the surrounding passage and are grouped to its opening verse, so a note may address several verses; the Jewish commentaries on the Tanakh (Rashi and others) are per-verse, so they appear only where the commentator wrote on this verse.

Lemma curates 59 commentaries, every one of them public domain or Creative Commons licensed, each selected and text-cleaned for this edition rather than reprinted as found. About our sources →

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(33) Shammah the Hararite.—“Shammah the son of Agee the Hararite” has already been mentioned in 2Sa_23:11, and here Chronicles reads “Jonathan the son of Shage the Hararite.” As Shage is identical with Agee with a letter prefixed, we should probably read “Jonathan the son of Shammah the Hararite.” Jonathan, one of “the thirty,” was thus the son of one of “the first three.”

Sharar is in Chronicles Sacar, and Hararite is spelt in the Hebrew here differently from the previous clause and from Chronicles.

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne

33. Shammah the Hararite] Shammah has already been mentioned in 2Sa_23:11 as one of the first Three, so that his name is evidently out of place among the Thirty. A comparison of the text of 1Ch_11:34 makes it tolerably certain that we should read either Jonathan the son of Agee the Hararite, or Jonathan the son of Shammah the Hararite, making Jonathan either brother or son of the hero mentioned in 2Sa_23:11.

Sharar] In Chron. Sacar, a name found also in 1Ch_26:4.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

John Gill's Exposition

Shammah the Hararite,.... From the mountainous country, as the Targum; the Arabic and Syriac versions say, from the mount of Olives:

Ahiam the son of Sharar the Hararite: from the high mountain, as the Targum; in Ch1 11:35, he is called the son of Sacar.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary

Aliam, &c. Paralipomenon, Ahiam, the son of Sachar. The change is easy.

George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).

The Pulpit Commentary

Shammah the Hararite. He was really one of the first three (see ver. 11). (For the reading in Chronicles, see above.) A very probable correction would be "Jonathan the son of Shammah, the son of Agee the Hararite." Thus both father and son would be in the number of the thirty, Ahiam. He is called "the son of Sacar" in 1Ch_11:35.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

unfoldingWord translationNotes

Door43 World Missions Community

General Information:

This continues the list of David's greatest soldiers. (See: How to Translate Names)

translationWords

tribe

Gad

unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.

Lesson kit

Teaching starters — assembled from the data on this page, not authored interpretation. Every prompt links to the verse data it draws on. Edit before teaching.

2 Samuel, in the Historical, opens this verse with 6 words (5 distinct Hebrew lemmas). Its most distinctive word is Shârar (“Sharar”). A historical commentator’s framing appears above. Read the whole chapter for the surrounding context.

Discussion questions

How does “Sharar” (Shârar) shape what this verse is saying?
This verse holds 1 word here found nowhere else in the Hebrew Bible. What might the rare word draw attention to?
2 words here appear for the first time in Scripture. What is being introduced at this debut?
1 Chronicles 11:35 shares the word «Ahiam» with this verse. How do the two illuminate each other?
“Hararite” occurs 2× in this one verse. What is the effect of the repetition?
The translations on this page render this verse differently — a whole-verse word diff, not a word-by-word alignment. What might account for the different wordings?
Reading how Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers and The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges read this verse, where do the two commentators agree and where do they part?

Things to notice

1 word in this verse appears nowhere else in the Hebrew Bible.
2 words make their first canonical appearance in Scripture here.
This verse counts 6 Hebrew ↔ 8 Greek words.
These translations choose different wording for 1 word in this verse.
“Hararite” occurs 2× in this single verse.