11 After him was Shammah the son of Agee a Hararite. The Philistines were gathered together into a troop, where there was a plot of ground full of lentils; and the people fled from the Philistines.
*Minor differences ignored. Grouped by changes, with first version listed as example.
Hararite - Interpreted to mean "mountaineer," one from the hill country of Judah or Ephraim.
A piece of ground full of lentiles - In 1-Chronicles 11:13 it is a parcel of ground full of barley. There is probably a mistake of עדשים adashim, lentiles, for שעורים seorim, barley, or vice versa. Some think there were both lentiles and barley in the field, and that a marauding party of the Philistines came to destroy or carry them off, and these worthies defeated the whole, and saved the produce of the field. This is not unlikely.
And after him was Shammah the son of Agee the Hararite,.... One who was of the mountainous country, as the Targum, the hill country of Judea, of Hebron, or the parts adjacent; this was the third of the first three; there was one of this name among the thirty, 2-Samuel 23:33,
and the Philistines were gathered together into a troop; but so they were no doubt at first; R. Isaiah takes it to be the name of a place called Chiyah; as the Targum, Chayatha; and which Kimchi says was a village, an unwalled town; and Ben Melech observes, that it is said in the Arabic language, a collection of houses is called Alchai: it may be the same with Lehi, where Samson slew a thousand with the jawbone of an ass, Judges 15:17, whence it had its name; and Josephus (u) says, the place where the Philistines were gathered together was called "the Jawbone": but perhaps the sense of Ben Gersom may be best of all, that they gathered together in this place for provision, for food and forage, to support the life of them and their cattle: since it follows:
where was a piece of ground full of lentiles; a sort of pulse, which was eaten in those countries, and the pottage of which was delicious food, see Genesis 25:30,
and the people fled from the Philistines; as they did before under Eleazar, 2-Samuel 23:9.
(u) Antiqu. l. 7. c. 12. sect. 4.
Lentiles - Or barley, as it is 1-Chronicles 11:13. For both might grow in the same field, in divers parts of it. And this fact is ascribed to Eleazar, 1-Chronicles 11:12, but it is implied, that he had some partner or partners in it; for it is there said, 1-Chronicles 11:14 they set themselves, &c. So Eleazar might fight in that part where the barley was and Shammah where the lentiles were.
*More commentary available at chapter level.