Biblion Bible Commentary
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The Army That Came to Hebron
1 Chronicles 12:23-40
23 These are the numbers of the heads of those who were armed for war, who came to David to Hebron to turn the kingdom of Saul to him, according to Yahweh’s word. · WEB
The muster is measured by singleness of heart rather than by size, and it ends in three days of eating.
The chapter closes with a tribal census of the men who came to make David king, and the totals repay reading against each other.
Judah, David's own tribe and the place he was already reigning, sends six thousand eight hundred 1 Chronicles 12:24. Zebulun sends fifty thousand 1 Chronicles 12:33. The tribes beyond the Jordan send a hundred and twenty thousand 1 Chronicles 12:37. The support is smallest where the king is best known and largest at the far edges of the country.
Every tribe appears. Zebulun and Dan, who had almost no place in the genealogies, are both mustered here in strength 1 Chronicles 12:33–35. Whatever became of their records, the writer does not treat them as absent from Israel.
Benjamin's number is three thousand, and the reason is given rather than hidden: until then the greatest part of them had kept their allegiance to Saul's house 1 Chronicles 12:29. A tribe that was slow to come is recorded as slow to come.
One entry is not a military figure at all. Issachar contributes two hundred heads, men who had understanding of the times, to know what Israel ought to do 1 Chronicles 12:32. In a list that counts shields by the ten thousand, the smallest contingent is counted for judgment.
And the phrases that recur are not about numbers. Zebulun's men were not of double heart. They all came with a perfect heart to make David king, and the rest of Israel were of one heart to do it 1 Chronicles 12:33 1 Chronicles 12:38. Three times in six verses the measure applied to an army is undividedness.
Then the muster becomes a meal. They stay three days eating and drinking, supplied by their own relatives; neighbors as far off as Naphtali bring flour, figs, raisins, wine, oil, cattle and sheep on donkeys, camels, mules and oxen 1 Chronicles 12:39–40.
The scene ends on four words that explain the inventory: for there was joy in Israel. A gathering assembled for war is described at its close as a feast, and the writer's last note on the making of the king is not about power.
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