Abinadab

Abinadab (Heb. av-nadav, father of nobility or my father is willing) is the name of four distinct men in the Old Testament — a Levite, two members of royal households, and a Solomonic official's father.

**1. Of Kiriath-jearim, in whose house the Ark of the Covenant rested twenty years (1 Samuel 7:1-2).** After the Philistines returned the Ark to Israel and the men of Beth-shemesh perished for looking into it, the men of Kiriath-jearim came down and brought the Ark to the house of Abinadab on the hill, where it remained for twenty years under the care of his son Eleazar. When David at last set out to bring the Ark to Jerusalem, two more of Abinadab's sons — *Uzzah and Ahio* — drove the new cart on which the Ark was set, and Uzzah was struck dead when he reached out to steady the Ark (2 Samuel 6:3-7).

**2. The second son of Jesse, brother of David (1 Samuel 16:8; 17:13; 1 Chronicles 2:13).** Abinadab passed before Samuel at the anointing scene at Bethlehem and was not chosen. He later went with Saul to fight the Philistines in the valley of Elah, where his youngest brother David came down with food and faced Goliath.

**3. Son of King Saul (1 Samuel 31:2; 1 Chronicles 8:33).** One of three sons of Saul who died with their father at the battle of Mount Gilboa against the Philistines — alongside Jonathan and Malchishua. The defeat that ended Saul's dynasty and opened the throne to David.

**4. Father of one of Solomon's twelve commissariat officers (1 Kings 4:11).* Named not as an official himself but as the father of the unnamed son — sometimes called Ben-Abinadab* — who was responsible for provisioning the royal household one month each year from the region of Dor on the Mediterranean coast. This son married Taphath, one of Solomon's daughters.