1 Chronicles 12

1 Chronicles 12 (NIV)✞: Warriors Join David, Others Join David at Hebron

Passage

In the last chapter we saw David becoming king and had listed for us his “Mighty Warriors,” but now verses 1–22✞ of this chapter backtrack a bit in history to a point when David was still in the wilderness, and the author(s) present some of the warriors that joined David at that point. In fact, these weren’t just any warriors, they were relatives of Saul himself:

¹ These were the men who came to David at Ziklag, while he was banished from the presence of Saul son of Kish (they were among the warriors who helped him in battle; ² they were armed with bows and were able to shoot arrows or to sling stones right-handed or left-handed; they were relatives of Saul from the tribe of Benjamin):

1 Chronicles 12:1–2 (NIV)✞, emphasis added

Then verses 23–40✞ present more warriors who joined him when he arrived at Hebron to be anointed as king. In this case, the warriors are from all of the tribes of Israel.

I don’t think there’s a specific passage in Samuel to which these lists relate; not everything in Chronicles is in direct relation to Samuel/Kings. 🙂

Thoughts

It comes up again and again that Chronicles was written for different reasons than Samuel/Kings, but the author(s) are intending Chronicles to be another way of looking at things, reminding God’s people of certain truths, not a replacement history for the other books. For example, although Chronicles isn’t going to spend much time on David’s time in the wilderness while Saul was still king, the readers are expected to know that history. The author(s) simply mention that these are the men who joined David while he was banished from Saul; the readers are expected to know about that banishment, and what’s going on.

For comparison, imagine you went to dinner with a friend and a waiter made an offhand remark that ended up changing your life – it was the moment you decided to go into a new career. Someone writing a detailed biography of your life might very well go into a lot of detail on that momentous dinner, talking about who was there, the events leading up to it, etc. On the other hand, if someone else was writing specifically about your role in that career, they might simply mention that you’d gone into that career because of an offhand remark once made by a waiter, and that’s all the detail given. It doesn’t mean the second author is trying to hide any facts or present an alternative history; she’s just writing for a different purpose, and that other detail isn’t necessary. She might even give a footnote referring the reader to the first biography—the one that has more detail on your life—while Chronicles takes the approach of simply assuming that readers are already familiar with Samuel/Kings.

This particular passage feels pretty dry—just lists of warriors and scant detail about any of them—but given the author(s) focus on the enduring kingship of David it makes sense to highlight that:

1. Even when he was in the wilderness, on the run from Saul, there were still members of Saul’s family who recognized him as the legitimate successor to Saul, and
2. When he came to Hebron to be crowned king there were men from all of the tribes of Israel who joined him there.

The story told in Samuel is more complicated than that, but the author(s) of Chronicles are focused on the big picture at this point, not the small details: David was made king of Israel because it was God’s will, and some of the messy details of how he got there don’t change that fact.