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, 2Sa 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, Jud 15:17, whence it had its name; and Josephus 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 Ge 25:30;and the people fled from the Philistines; as they did before under Eleazar, 2Sa 23:9.
Antiqu. l. 7. c. 12. sect.