Before the Crown, Men Kept Arriving

“Kept himself close” is atsur, shut in or restrained; David lived at Ziklag a year and four months (1 Samuel 27:7). “Helpers” is from azar, to help, and the word runs through the chapter, in verses 17, 18, 19, 21 and 22. The chapter is about who helped David, and when.

Benjamin’s name means son of the right hand, yet his tribe was famous for the left, and these men could sling and shoot with either. “Saul’s brethren” means his own tribesmen, perhaps his kin. The first men listed as coming to David are from the tribe of the king he was hiding from.

The Gibeathite comes from Gibeah, Saul’s seat, and Anathoth was a Benjamite town a few miles away. The sons of Azmaveth may be sons of the Azmaveth listed among David’s heroes in 11:33, which would put fathers and sons in his service together. Pelet means escape, Berachah blessing.

Ismaiah is called a mighty man among the thirty and over them, yet his name is not in the roll of chapter 11, which suggests that the Thirty had changing members over the years. A Gibeonite among Benjamites fits Gibeon’s position inside Benjamin’s land. Gederah lay in the lowland of Judah (Joshua 15:36).

Bealiah means “the LORD is Baal”, that is, the LORD is master, a name from a time when baal could still be used of Israel’s own God. Hosea 2:16 later rules it out: “thou shalt call me Ishi; and shalt call me no more Baali.” Shemariah and Shephatiah both carry Yah.

Korhites are normally Levites descended from Korah, like the singers and gatekeepers of chapters 6 and 9, yet here they stand in a Benjamite list. They may be Levites living in Benjamin’s towns. Jashobeam shares his name with the chief of David’s mighty men (11:11).

This Gedor is otherwise unknown in Benjamin’s territory. Joelah and Zebadiah are brothers, and their names close a roll of twenty three men who came to David from Saul’s tribe. Zebadiah is a name heard in several Benjamite families of chapter 8.

“Separated themselves” means they broke away from Saul. The hold in the wilderness is David’s earlier hiding place, before Ziklag, so the chapter is not strictly in order. The Hebrew pair here, tsinnah and romach, is the same as in verse 24, where the King James renders it “shield and spear”; here it has “shield and buckler”.

The Gadites are numbered in rank from first to eleventh, the only list in the chapter set out that way. Eliab the third bears the name of David’s eldest brother, the one Samuel thought must be the LORD’s anointed on sight (1 Samuel 16:6).

Two men called Jeremiah stand among these eleven Gadites, the fifth and the tenth, and a third is in the Benjamite list of verse 4. The prophet’s name was common. Mishmannah is found nowhere else and its meaning is uncertain.

Attai is also the name of a man in Judah’s line in 2:35–36, grandson of Sheshan’s Egyptian servant Jarha. Eliel, “my God is God”, is one of the commonest names in these chapters. The ordinal count keeps each man in his place.

Johanan means the LORD has been gracious, the Hebrew name that becomes John in Greek. Elzabad, “God has given”, is also the name of a Levite gatekeeper in 26:7. Eighth and ninth are still ranks among captains, not ordinary soldiers.

The tenth Jeremiah is distinguished from the fifth only by his number, the count doing the work that a father’s name does elsewhere. Machbanai, the eleventh and last, appears nowhere else. Eleven captains made up the whole Gadite company named here.

The Hebrew can be read two ways: the least was over a hundred men and the greatest over a thousand, or the least was a match for a hundred and the greatest for a thousand. The second echoes Leviticus 26:8, “five of you shall chase an hundred”, and Deuteronomy 32:30.

The first month is Nisan, in early spring, when snowmelt from Hermon and the late rains swell the Jordan. Joshua 3:15 uses the same words of the river that Israel crossed: it “overfloweth all his banks all the time of harvest”. The Gadites cleared the valley on both banks as they went.

Men of Judah coming to David might seem natural, since it was his own tribe, but Judah’s towns had given him up before, and he had been hunted through Judah’s wilderness. The hold is again the wilderness stronghold. Benjamin is named first, and the next verse shows why David met them warily.

“Mine heart shall be knit unto you” is literally “my heart shall be to you for oneness”, the word yachad. “No wrong in mine hands” is chamas, violence, the word for what filled the earth before the flood (Genesis 6:11). David asks God to judge between them, since he cannot know their intent.

The Hebrew says the spirit “clothed” Amasai, the idiom used of Gideon (Judges 6:34) and of Zechariah son of Jehoiada (2 Chronicles 24:20). Some identify Amasai with Amasa, David’s nephew, later Absalom’s commander, an unproved guess. His words are verse: “Thine are we, David, and on thy side.”

“Fell” is naphal, the verb for deserting to the other side, used of those who “fell away” to Babylon (2 Kings 25:11). The Philistine lords’ fear repeats 1 Samuel 29:4, where they asked how David could make peace with his master better than “with the heads of these men”.

Seven captains of thousands from Manasseh left on the march toward Gilboa, deserting Saul’s side before the battle. Two of them are called Jozabad. Elihu and Michael are names that turn up in several tribes, which is why these lists keep the tribe attached to each man.

“The band of the rovers” is the Amalekite raiding party that burned Ziklag and carried off the women and children while David was away with the Philistines (1 Samuel 30:1–20). The Manassites who had just arrived joined the pursuit that recovered them.

“The host of God” is mahaneh Elohim, the phrase Jacob used when the angels met him: “This is God’s host”, and he named the place Mahanaim (Genesis 32:2). David’s camp grew daily until it deserved Jacob’s name.

“To turn the kingdom of Saul to him” picks up 10:14, “turned the kingdom unto David”, with the same verb. What God did in the verdict on Saul, these armed men now carry out at Hebron. The list that follows goes tribe by tribe.

Judah sends only six thousand eight hundred, fewer than Simeon. Judah had already anointed David at Hebron years before (2 Samuel 2:4), so its full strength may not have needed to come. The figure is small for the tribe that was his own.

Simeon’s towns lay inside Judah’s southern country, so its men were David’s near neighbours. Seven thousand one hundred warriors from a tribe that elsewhere is shrinking is a large showing, larger than Judah’s own.

Numbers 1:47–49 excluded Levi from the census of fighting men. Here Levites are counted among the armed contingents, four thousand six hundred of them. They were not only temple servants but also men who could be mustered.

The priests have their own leader, Jehoiada, and are counted apart from the Levites of verse 26. “Aaronites” appears only here and in 27:17. Jehoiada may be the father of Benaiah, the captain of David’s guard, whose father is called a chief priest in 27:5.

Josephus identified this young Zadok with the later high priest, which would make this his first appearance, as a fighter. The description, “a young man mighty of valour”, is unusual for a priest. Twenty two captains of his father’s house came with him.

Only three thousand from Benjamin, and the reason is given: most had kept “the ward of the house of Saul”, holding to Ish-bosheth and Abner. “Hitherto” means up to this point. The tribe of the old king came late, and in small numbers.

Ephraim sends twenty thousand eight hundred. It was Joshua’s tribe, the strongest in the north, and later Jeroboam, an Ephraimite, would lead ten tribes away from David’s grandson (1 Kings 11:26). At Hebron it came in force.

“Expressed by name” is the phrase of Numbers 1:17, used of the men “which are expressed by their names” who helped Moses take the census. Eighteen thousand were designated individually for the task of making David king.

Issachar alone is counted by its leaders, two hundred, with no total of fighting men. “At their commandment” is literally “at their mouth”, so the whole tribe followed what these men said. The tribe is listed for its counsel, not its numbers.

Zebulun sends fifty thousand, the largest contingent west of the Jordan. “Not of double heart” is literally “without heart and heart”, the Hebrew idiom for a divided mind in Psalm 12:2, “with a double heart do they speak”. Zebulun, which has no genealogy in these chapters, appears here with its largest number.

A thousand captains over thirty seven thousand men gives about one officer for every thirty seven, so “thousand” here counts officers, not units of a thousand. Naphtali lived in the hills north-west of the Sea of Galilee, far from Hebron.

The Danites had long since moved north, taking Laish by the sword and renaming it Dan (Judges 18:27–29). Twenty eight thousand six hundred “expert in war” came from the northern edge of the land to Hebron, the tribe’s one appearance as a body in these chapters.

Asher’s genealogy in 7:40 counted twenty six thousand men fit for war. Here forty thousand come, and the description is the stock phrase for trained troops. The two figures come from different records, and neither is adjusted to match the other.

The three eastern tribes together send a hundred and twenty thousand, the largest figure in the list. In 5:18 their fighting men were counted at forty four thousand seven hundred and sixty. The tribes beyond the Jordan come with “all manner of instruments of war”, fully equipped.

“A perfect heart” is lev shalem, a whole heart, a phrase Chronicles uses often; David charges Solomon to serve God “with a perfect heart” (28:9). “Could keep rank” means able to take a place in a battle line. The whole assembly and the rest of Israel share one purpose.

A coronation was sealed with a feast. When Adonijah tried to make himself king, his guests were “eating and drinking before him, and say, God save king Adonijah” (1 Kings 1:25). Here the hosts are “their brethren”, the people of Hebron and Judah, who had the food ready.

Cakes of figs and bunches of raisins are what Abigail loaded on asses for David and his men in the wilderness (1 Samuel 25:18). The tribes who sent food lived as far off as Galilee, days away with laden animals. Oxen are named twice, as carriers and as meat.