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The interpretation timeline

2Sam 23:20

How this passage has been read — the sources, oldest to newest.

From the early Church Fathers to now.

2Sam 23:20 · Douay-Rheims
“And Banaias the son of Joiada a most valiant man, of great deeds, of Cabseel: he slew the two lions of Moab, and he went down, and slew a lion in the midst of a pit, in the time of snow.”
Patristic before A.D. 750
735
A.D.
Bede Patristic
A.D. 673–735
“"He went down and struck the lion in the middle of the cistern." [2 Samuel 23:20] As it is said of Benaiah: And he went down and struck the lion in the middle of the cistern on a snowy day (Book VII, Antiquities, ch. 12), how this was done, Josephus recounts more clearly, because the cistern was indeed very deep, which in the wintertime, when everything was filled with snow, it too was leveled with an excessive heap of snow. When the lion, unbeknownst to danger, happened upon it and fell in, and being trapped there roared greatly, people ran to see what it was. And when Benaiah came with others to such a spectacle, he immediately jumped into the cistern, and attacked and killed the lion in the midst of the snow.”
Source
Modern · 1953 →

The in-app commentary runs from the Fathers to the early-modern record, then stops — that's where the public-domain sources end, not where the reading does. For the modern reading, follow the sources directly.