Ish-Boshet son of Saul אִישׁ־בֹּשֶׁת בֶּן־שָׁאוּל

After Saul and three of his sons fell on Mount Gilboa, the commander Abner son of Ner took the remaining son, brought him across the Jordan to Mahanaim and made him king "over Gilead, the Ashurites, Jezreel, Ephraim, Benjamin—over all Israel" (II Samuel 2:8–9). The house of Judah stayed with David.

On the years. Scripture gives him a two-year reign (II Samuel 2:10) and David seven years and six months in Hebron (II Samuel 2:11). Seder Olam Rabbah (ch. 13) accounts for the difference: the kingship of Israel stood empty for five and a half years. Five and a half plus two make seven and a half—so his reign fell in the last two years of David's time in Hebron, and before that there was the name of a king but no kingdom.

Through it all there was war: "there was long war between the house of Saul and the house of David, and David grew stronger and the house of Saul weaker" (II Samuel 3:1). It did not end in battle. Abner quarrelled with him over a concubine of Saul's, went over to David, and was killed by Joab at the gate of Hebron. Left without a commander, Ish-Boshet's "hands grew slack." Two of his raiding captains, Rechav and Baanah, came into the house in the heat of the day, killed him in his sleep and brought the head to David expecting a reward. David had them both executed: "when wicked men have slain a righteous man in his own house upon his bed, shall I not require his blood of your hand?" (II Samuel 4).

On the name. In Samuel he is Ish-Boshet, "man of shame." In the genealogy of Chronicles the same son of Saul is called Eshbaal (I Chronicles 8:33). He was forty years old when he became king; we do not derive a birth year from that—the year of his accession is itself a reckoning.