For Teaching

1 Chronicles 11: What the Passage Says

127 claims across 47 verses, in the order the chapter makes them.

Not a sermon outline. What 1 Chronicles 11 says, and what its hard words meant. The reading of it is yours.

The Chapter in a Sentence

All Israel gathers at Hebron, makes a covenant with David, and anoints him king, as the LORD had said through Samuel. David and Israel then capture the Jebusite stronghold of Jerusalem, which becomes the City of David, and Joab becomes chief commander by leading the attack. The rest of the chapter lists David's mighty men and records their deeds: Jashobeam, Eleazar, the three who broke through Philistine lines to bring David water, Abishai, and Benaiah, followed by a long roster of the other warriors.

Claim by Claim

11:1
- All Israel gathered themselves to David at Hebron.
- They said to David that they were his bone and his flesh.
11:2
- They said that in time past, even when Saul was king, David was the one who led Israel out and brought Israel in.
- They said the LORD David's God had said to David that David would shepherd God's people Israel.
- They said the LORD had said to David that David would be ruler over God's people Israel.
11:3
- All the elders of Israel came to the king at Hebron.
- David made a covenant with them in Hebron before the LORD.
- They anointed David king over Israel.
- The anointing was according to the word of the LORD by the hand of Samuel.
11:4
- David and all Israel went to Jerusalem.
- Jerusalem is Jebus.
- The Jebusites, the inhabitants of the land, were there.
11:5
- The inhabitants of Jebus said to David that he would not come in there.
- David captured the stronghold of Zion.
- The stronghold of Zion is the city of David.
11:6
- David said that whoever struck a Jebusite first would become head and captain.
- Joab the son of Zeruiah went up first.
- Joab became head.
11:7
- David dwelt in the stronghold.
- For that reason they called it the city of David.
11:8
- David built the city round about, from the Millo and all around.
- Joab restored the rest of the city.
11:9
- David grew greater and greater.
- The LORD of hosts was with David.
11:10
- These are the chiefs of the mighty men whom David had.
- They strengthened themselves with David in his kingdom.
- They acted together with all Israel to make David king.
- This was according to the word of the LORD concerning Israel.
11:11
- This is the number of the mighty men whom David had.
- Jashobeam a Hachmonite was chief of the officers.
- Jashobeam lifted up his spear against three hundred slain at one time.
11:12
- After him was Eleazar the son of Dodo the Ahohite.
- Eleazar was one of the three mighty men.
11:13
- Eleazar was with David at Pas-dammim.
- The Philistines were gathered there for battle.
- There was a plot of ground full of barley there.
- The people fled from before the Philistines.
11:14
- They stationed themselves in the midst of that plot of ground.
- They delivered the plot of ground.
- They struck down the Philistines.
- The LORD saved with a great deliverance.
11:15
- Three of the thirty chief men went down to the rock to David, to the cave of Adullam.
- The camp of the Philistines was encamped in the valley of Rephaim.
11:16
- David was then in the stronghold.
- The garrison of the Philistines was then at Bethlehem.
11:17
- David longed and said, wishing someone would give him water to drink from the well of Bethlehem that is at the gate.
11:18
- The three broke through the camp of the Philistines.
- They drew water from the well of Bethlehem that was by the gate.
- They carried it and brought it to David.
- David would not drink it.
- David poured it out to the LORD.
11:19
- David said that his God forbid him to do this thing.
- David asked whether he should drink the blood of these men at the cost of their lives.
- David said that at the risk of their lives they brought the water.
- David would not drink it.
- These things the three mighty men did.
11:20
- Abishai was the brother of Joab.
- Abishai was chief of the three.
- Abishai lifted up his spear against three hundred slain.
- Abishai had a name among the three.
11:21
- Of the three, Abishai was more honored than the two.
- Abishai became their captain.
- Abishai did not attain to the three.
11:22
- Benaiah was the son of Jehoiada.
- Benaiah was the son of a valiant man of Kabzeel.
- Benaiah did many acts.
- Benaiah struck down two lionlike men of Moab.
- Benaiah went down and struck a lion inside a pit on a snowy day.
11:23
- Benaiah struck down an Egyptian, a man of great size, five cubits tall.
- In the Egyptian's hand was a spear like a weaver's beam.
- Benaiah went down to him with a staff.
- Benaiah wrested the spear out of the Egyptian's hand.
- Benaiah killed the Egyptian with his own spear.
11:24
- These things Benaiah the son of Jehoiada did.
- Benaiah had a name among the three mighty men.
11:25
- Benaiah was honored among the thirty.
- Benaiah did not attain to the three.
- David set Benaiah over his guard.
11:26
- The mighty men of the armies were as follows.
- Asahel the brother of Joab was among them.
- Elhanan the son of Dodo of Bethlehem was among them.
11:27
- Shammoth the Harorite was among them.
- Helez the Pelonite was among them.
11:28
- Ira the son of Ikkesh the Tekoite was among them.
- Abiezer the Anathothite was among them.
11:29
- Sibbecai the Hushathite was among them.
- Ilai the Ahohite was among them.
11:30
- Maharai the Netophathite was among them.
- Heled the son of Baanah the Netophathite was among them.
11:31
- Ithai the son of Ribai of Gibeah of the children of Benjamin was among them.
- Benaiah the Pirathonite was among them.
11:32
- Hurai of the brooks of Gaash was among them.
- Abiel the Arbathite was among them.
11:33
- Azmaveth the Baharumite was among them.
- Eliahba the Shaalbonite was among them.
11:34
- The sons of Hashem the Gizonite were among them.
- Jonathan the son of Shage the Hararite was among them.
11:35
- Ahiam the son of Sacar the Hararite was among them.
- Eliphal the son of Ur was among them.
11:36
- Hepher the Mecherathite was among them.
- Ahijah the Pelonite was among them.
11:37
- Hezro the Carmelite was among them.
- Naarai the son of Ezbai was among them.
11:38
- Joel the brother of Nathan was among them.
- Mibhar the son of Haggeri was among them.
11:39
- Zelek the Ammonite was among them.
- Naharai the Berothite was among them.
- Naharai was the armorbearer of Joab the son of Zeruiah.
11:40
- Ira the Ithrite was among them.
- Gareb the Ithrite was among them.
11:41
- Uriah the Hittite was among them.
- Zabad the son of Ahlai was among them.
11:42
- Adina the son of Shiza the Reubenite was among them.
- Adina was a chief of the Reubenites.
- Thirty were with Adina.
11:43
- Hanan the son of Maachah was among them.
- Joshaphat the Mithnite was among them.
11:44
- Uzzia the Ashterathite was among them.
- Shama and Jehiel the sons of Hothan the Aroerite were among them.
11:45
- Jediael the son of Shimri was among them.
- Joha his brother the Tizite was among them.
11:46
- Eliel the Mahavite was among them.
- Jeribai and Joshaviah the sons of Elnaam were among them.
- Ithmah the Moabite was among them.
11:47
- Eliel was among them.
- Obed was among them.
- Jasiel the Mesobaite was among them.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

11:1: Hebron was a town in the hill country of Judah, about twenty miles south of Jerusalem. David had already ruled there over the tribe of Judah alone; this gathering makes him king over all twelve tribes. "We are your own flesh and blood" is the Hebrew idiom for a kinship claim, the tribes are asserting that David is one of their own, not a foreign ruler.
11:2: "Led Israel out and brought them home" is a set phrase for commanding an army on campaign. "Shepherd" was a standard title for a king throughout the ancient Near East: the ruler who pastures, guards and provides for his people. LORD printed in capitals stands for the personal name of Israel's God, which Hebrew writes with four consonants (YHWH); the King James translators followed the Jewish custom of not pronouncing it.
11:3: The "elders" were the heads of families and clans who spoke for their tribes in public business. The agreement (Hebrew *berith*, usually translated "covenant") was a formal, binding pact with obligations on both sides, sworn in God's presence. Anointing meant pouring olive oil over the head, the ceremony that installed a king in office. Samuel was the prophet who had privately anointed David years earlier while Saul still reigned.
11:4: Jebus was the older name for Jerusalem, and the Jebusites were its non-Israelite inhabitants. Although the city sat between the northern tribes and Judah, Israel had never taken it; David is capturing neutral ground that belonged to no tribe.
11:5: Zion here means the fortified ridge of the old Jebusite town, not the whole city or the temple hill. "The City of David" became the standing name for that section of Jerusalem.
11:6: Zeruiah was David's sister, so Joab was David's nephew; Joab and his brothers are unusually identified by their mother throughout the books of Samuel and Chronicles. "Chief commander" means head of the whole army.
11:8: The Millo is left untranslated because no one is certain what it was. The Hebrew word means something like "the filling," and it probably refers to the stepped stone terracing that shored up the steep eastern slope and made building on it possible.
11:9: "LORD of Hosts" means the LORD commanding the armies, a military title, fitting in a chapter about warriors, though "hosts" can also take in the heavenly armies and the stars.
11:10: "Mighty men" translates a Hebrew word for elite warriors of proven reputation. In David's army it became a formal designation for a recognized corps, with an inner group of three and a larger body known as the Thirty.
11:11: The parallel list in 2 Samuel 23:8 gives eight hundred rather than three hundred, and the name in different form; the two lists have been copied separately and differ at several points. "Chief of the officers" means the highest-ranking of these picked men.
11:12: "The three mighties" is the top rank of the corps, a group of exactly three men. Notice that the chapter then struggles to keep the arithmetic straight, because the records it draws on came from different sources.
11:13: The Philistines were a people settled on the coastal plain to Israel's southwest, in five allied cities, and were Israel's main military rival throughout Saul's and David's lifetimes. Pas-dammim lay in the border country west of Bethlehem. A ripe barley field mattered because standing crops were both food and plunder, and because the level ground made a defensible line.
11:15: The Thirty was the name of the larger corps of David's picked fighters, and "officers" here are its leaders. Adullam was a cave in the limestone hills southwest of Bethlehem where David had hidden during his years as an outlaw. The Valley of Rephaim is the broad plain running southwest from Jerusalem, the standard invasion route up from Philistine territory.
11:16: A garrison or outpost is a permanent detachment holding a position; Bethlehem, David's home town, is under enemy occupation. "The stronghold" is the fortified refuge David was using, probably the Adullam position just named.
11:17: Wells and springs generally lay outside or at the edge of a walled town, near the gate, which is why fetching water meant passing through the Philistine line.
11:18: Pouring a liquid out on the ground was a recognized form of offering, a libation. David treats the water as too costly for ordinary use and gives it to God instead.
11:19: In Israelite thought blood was the life itself, and consuming blood was forbidden. Calling the water "the blood of these men" says that their lives went into getting it, so drinking it would be drinking them.
11:20: Some ancient copies read "chief of the Thirty" here rather than "the three," which fits better with the next verse's statement that he was not one of the first three; the Hebrew text of this list is uncertain at several such points. To "win a name" is to gain formal standing and reputation among these ranked warriors.
11:21: The Hebrew of this verse is difficult and ancient copies differ, which is why the counting seems to contradict itself. The sense is that Abishai was the most celebrated soldier of the second rank and commanded it, without ever being counted in the top three.
11:22: Moab was the nation east of the Dead Sea, a frequent enemy. The King James "lionlike men" and the modern "champions" both translate a Hebrew word whose sense is disputed; it may mean champions, or may be a title, or even a place name. Lions were still found in the region in this period, and pits were dug traps for them.
11:23: A cubit was roughly eighteen inches, the length of a forearm, so five cubits is about seven and a half feet. A weaver's beam is the thick wooden roller of a loom, a stock comparison for an enormous spear shaft. Benaiah's "staff" or club is a herdsman's stick, which is the point: he is unarmed by comparison.
11:25: "His guard" is David's personal bodyguard, a standing unit of professional soldiers distinct from the citizen army; commanding it was a position of high trust.
11:26: From here the chapter is a muster roll. The endings "-ite" and "of" mark a man's home town or clan, Netophathite means "from Netophah," Tekoite "from Tekoa," and so on. Several of these places are otherwise unknown, and some names are spelled differently in the parallel list in 2 Samuel 23. Lists like this preserved who had standing in the army and where their families came from.
11:27: Men were often named after the town they came from. That helped people tell apart two men with the same first name.
11:31: Gibeah in the territory of Benjamin was Saul's own hometown. Men from the dead king's own tribe and village are on David's roll, which the list records without comment.
11:39: Zelek is an Ammonite and Ithmah in verse 46 a Moabite: David's corps included men from neighboring nations Israel usually fought. An armor-bearer carried a commander's weapons and shield into battle and fought at his side; it was a post for a trusted soldier, not a servant's job.
11:41: This is the Uriah whose wife Bathsheba David took, recounted in 2 Samuel 11. Chronicles lists him among the loyal elite without telling that story. "Hittite" marks him as of foreign descent, from the peoples of the north.
11:42: "Thirty with him" is a separate detachment under Adina's command, not the corps called the Thirty. The full list runs past thirty names, which indicates that the Thirty was a unit title whose membership changed over time as men died and were replaced, rather than a fixed headcount.
11:44: Ashtaroth and Aroer both lay east of the Jordan River, outside the Israelite heartland, so this line records men drawn from the far edges of David's territory.
11:46: Ithmah came from Moab, the country next door. Some of David's best soldiers were not born in Israel.
11:47: The names from the end of verse 41 onward have no parallel in the matching list at 2 Samuel 23. Chronicles preserves about sixteen extra men, many of them from east of the Jordan, which suggests its author had access to a longer or later version of the army records.

Read 1 Chronicles 11