2 Samuel 5:14 - Ellicott's Commentary On The Whole Bible

These be the names. — The same list, with some variations, is given in 1 Chronicles 3:5-8; 1 Chronicles 14:5-7. According to 1 Chronicles 3:5, the first four were children of Bathsheba (Bath-shua), and were consequently not born until a later period of David’s reign. Solomon and Nathan are the two sons through whom St. Matthew and St. Luke trace our Lord’s genealogy. Although Solomon is placed last in all the lists, he appears, from 2 Samuel 12:24, to have been the oldest of Bathsheba’s sons, and could otherwise hardly have been old enough to take charge of the kingdom at his father’s death. The variations in the names are chiefly mere differences of spelling. The first, Elishama, in 1 Chronicles 3:6, is evidently a copyist’s mistake for Elishua, since Elishama occurs again in 2 Samuel 5:8; and the names of Eliphalet and Nogah, given in both lists in Chronicles, are omitted here, probably because they died young, the name of the former being given again to the last son in all the lists. In 1 Chronicles 3:9, it is said that all these were sons of David’s wives, besides those of his concubines.