And Joab said unto the man that told him
That gave the above account of him:
and, behold, thou sawest [him];
in reality; or, "didst thou see him?" is it a fact?
and why didst thou not smite him there to the ground;
kill him on the spot, that he might have dropped from the tree to the ground:
and I would have given thee ten [shekels] of silver;
on the news of it, for doing it, which was near twenty four shillings of our money; Josephus says F9 fifty shekels; the Arabic version has it ten thousand talents of silver, too great a sum by far:
and a girdle?
which was a mark of great honour, and a token of a commission under him, and of investing: him with a military office; see ( 1 Samuel 18:4 ) ; it used to be given as an honorary reward to soldiers that behaved well, as on the contrary it was reckoned a reproach to be ungirt, or the girdle to be taken away F11.