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2 Sam. 20:10:

וַעֲמָשָׂא לֹא נִשְׁמַר בַּחֶרֶב אֲשֶׁר בְּיַד יוֹאָב וַיַּכֵּהוּ בָהּ אֶל הַחֹמֶשׁ וַיִּשְׁפֹּךְ מֵעָיו אַרְצָה וְלֹא שָׁנָה לוֹ וַיָּמֹת

M'tzudos says this means he stabbed him in the fifth rib. He needed to stab him but once to kill him.

Do those who strike in that place accurately strike the right spot to kill?

I mean if I want to kill someone I wouldn't bother to strike him in the rib. I'll strike anywhere. Anything would work. So does 5th rib killing has a special meaning?

I sometimes wonder if I were the translator. Should I translate חֹמֶשׁ as stomach or literally as the 5th rib? I was asking if there is some gematria or kaballah meaning in people getting stabbed on the 5th rib, rather than 4th, 6th, etc.

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This question is very vague. Could you please quote the verse[s] you're referring to and explain more what your question about them is? – Isaac Moses Sep 27 '11 at 15:05
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I've tidied it up to what I think the question means. JimThio, if I've misinterpreted your intent, obviously re-edit. @IsaacMoses, courtesy ping. – msh210♦ Sep 27 '11 at 15:56
You have to understand, JimThio, that bad translations of Tanach abound. I included the translation of the M'tzudos, a classical commentary. Perhaps other Jewish sources say the verse means "stomach", but the NIV and YLT are frankly not authoritative, so you're wasting your time quoting them here. Re "if I want to kill someone I wouldn't bother to strike him in the rib. I'll strike anywhere. Anything would work": It would take a long time for someone to die from having been stabbed in an arm or leg; I assume the same is true for parts of the torso (though clearly not all of it). – msh210♦ Sep 27 '11 at 21:43
   
@msh210 thanks. I'll bookmark a better translation then and check things out. I usually used young literal translation because it's the most literal and unbiased (and often yield funny meaning). When it's different than jewish translation, chance is the original words can indeed be interpreted differently. Am I right here? – Jim Thio Sep 29 '11 at 3:21

2 Answers

up vote 12 down vote accepted

According to http://www.rci.rutgers.edu/~uzwiak/AnatPhys/Cardiovascular_System.html the heart touches the chest wall between the 5th and 6th ribs. So if this passage means that he literally stabbed him at the 5th rib, it would have been a very efficient and quick kill.

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mercoholic, welcome to Mi Yodeya, and thanks very much for bringing this relevant information bear! Please consider registering your account, which will give you access to more of the site's features. – Isaac Moses Dec 10 '12 at 18:29
Didn't know that medical advance is so high at that time that such relatively unknown medical facts are used casually – Jim Thio Dec 11 '12 at 2:39
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@JimThio I would imagine that warriors in every generation are quite familiar with all kinds of anatomical information that bears on plying their craft effectively and efficiently. A warrior from 2K years ago may or may not have known where the heart is closest to the chest wall, but if that was a good place to stab for a quick kill, you bet he'd have figured that out empirically. – Isaac Moses Dec 11 '12 at 21:57
up vote 8 down vote

M'tzudos quotes Rabi Yochanan as saying that that spot is particularly dangerous because of the presence there of the liver and gallbladder.

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The liver, I'd imagine (I don't know medicine), would be a particular bad place to be stabbed, as it's "kulo dam". – msh210♦ Sep 27 '11 at 21:43
Not the best source, but it sounds reasonable answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080811125256AAOtX3f – Double AA♦ Dec 10 '12 at 19:05

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