Son of Jabesh.Not man of Jabesh Gilead, as Hitzig explains. The father’s name is always given in the case of usurpers.

Before the people. — Rather, before peoplei.e., in public. So all the versions except the LXX. The open assassination of the king is noted, in contrast with the secrecy with which former conspiracies had been concerted. It is a symptom of the rapidly-increasing corruption of morals, which allowed people to look on with indifference while the king was being murdered. (The LXX. puts the Hebrew words into Greek letters thus: κεβλααμ. The word qobol — “before” — is Aramaic rather than Hebrew, and only occurs here. Ewald acutely conjectured that Qobol’âm — “before people” — was really the proper name of another usurper, comparing Zechariah 11:8, “the third king during that month;” but in that case the narrative is hardly coherent of complete. Grätz suggests the correction “in Ibleam.”

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