BAANAH bā’ ə nə (בַּעֲנָ֖ה, son of oppression). 1. One of two brothers, sons of Rimmon, captains in the army of Ishbosheth, king of Israel while David was king of Judah in Hebron. Learning of the death of Abner, Ishbosheth’s chief captain, Baanah and his brother plotted to unify the kingdom under David. They journeyed to Ishbosheth’s house and, arriving when the king was taking his noontime nap, they eluded the doorkeeper and murdered the king in his bed. They took his severed head to David in Hebron expecting commendation and prob. advancement from the king. David, however, angrily accused them of murdering an innocent man in his sleep. He ordered them killed, their hands and feet severed, and their bodies publicly hung by the pool in Hebron (2 Sam 4:2-12).

2. A man of Netophah, father of Heleb, or Heled, one of David’s renowned thirty “mighty men” (2 Sam 23:29; 1 Chron 11:30).

3. A leader who returned with Zerubbabel to Judah after the Exile (Ezra 2:2; Neh 7:7; 1 Esd 5:8). Probably the Baanah who set his seal with Nehemiah and others to a covenant of the time (Neh 10:27), and to be identified with Baana 3.