1 Chronicles 11 (NIV)✞: David Becomes King Over Israel, David Conquers Jerusalem, David’s Mighty Warriors
Passage
In the last passage Chronicles covered the end of Saul’s reign over Israel, so we now go into the start of David’s. The author(s) of Chronicles skip over much of the tension between David and Saul near the end of Saul’s reign, and simply start with Saul’s death and David taking over.
The chapter starts with what seems like a majority of Israelites welcoming David as their new king:
1 All Israel came together to David at Hebron and said, “We are your own flesh and blood. 2 In the past, even while Saul was king, you were the one who led Israel on their military campaigns. And the LORD your God said to you, ‘You will shepherd my people Israel, and you will become their ruler.’”
3 When all the elders of Israel had come to King David at Hebron, he made a covenant with them at Hebron before the LORD, and they anointed David king over Israel, as the LORD had promised through Samuel.
In verses 4–9✞ David then conquers Jerusalem (which had been called Jebus, because the Jebusites lived there). I had to go back to 2 Samuel 5 to refresh my memory on these events, but at this point in Israel’s history, even though Saul has been king for forty years, the Israelites don’t actually control the city of Jerusalem because it’s too easy for the Jebusites to defend from invaders. David and his soldiers, however, are finally able to capture it and put it under his own control.
This is also where the author(s) of Chronicles introduce Joab, the commander of David’s army. David promises that whoever leads the attack on the Jebusites will become commander in chief, which Joab does, so the position is his.
David now claims the city and makes it the capital of his nation:
7 David then took up residence in the fortress, and so it was called the City of David. 8 He built up the city around it, from the terraces to the surrounding wall, while Joab restored the rest of the city. 9 And David became more and more powerful, because the LORD Almighty was with him.
Verses 10–47✞ then list David’s “mighty warriors” – the elite fighting men from his army. This is mostly a recap from 2 Samuel 23:8–39, with some supplementary material added from other sources.
Thoughts
Again we see the author(s) of Chronicles giving a more simplified version of the history than was given in the books of Samuel and Kings. For example, here in Chapter 11 we see David taking over as king of Israel but there’s no mention of Saul’s remaining son, Ish-Bosheth, being made king in Saul’s place for a couple of years before David fully takes over. (See 2 Samuel 2:1–35 for a comparable passage, or the comparison chart provided by the ESV to see the full timeline.)
I don’t know if I’ll end up saying this over and over again throughout the book but the author(s) of Chronicles aren’t trying to tell a comprehensive history of the nations of Israel and Judah—that’s what the books of Samuel and Kings are for!—they’re trying to tell God’s people, who have been in exile but are now returning to their land, that God hasn’t forgotten His promises to King David.
In fact, I think1 we’ll also see less of a mention of Joab altogether in Chronicles, though he was a key player in Samuel/Kings. But there always seemed to be bad blood between David and Joab, and, again, that’s not what the author(s) of Chronicles are trying to focus on.
This focus on King David was important for God’s people as they returned from exile to the Promised Land, but it’s also important to the modern-day Christian. Even up to New Testament times God had not restored the kingdom to a descendent of David, and made him king. This promise that a descendent of David’s would reign forever was something God’s people looked forward to from the time of their initial exile right up to the time of Jesus – at which point the promise was fulfilled in a way none of God’s people had expected: God Himself is the descendent of David, who now reigns forever.
Footnotes
- I “think?” Yes, I think. I did the right thing and sat down and read Chronicles before beginning to blog through it—something that sounds obvious but I don’t always do when starting a new book—but I already forget whether Joab gets a lot of mention or not. ↩
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