Bible Commentaries

This chapter runs parallel with 1 Chronicles 11:9, after which it is to be compared with 1 Chronicles 11:40, the remainder 1 Chronicles 11:41-47 being an addition, to which Samuel has nothing corresponding. Compare throughout the notes in Samuel.

The narrative here given fills out a manifest defect in 2 Samuel 5:8 where something has evidently dropped out of the text.

The prowess of Joab on this occasion, and the part which he took in the building of the city of David 1 Chronicles 11:8, are known to us only from this passage of Chronicles.

Strengthened themselves - Or “exerted themselves” - “strenuously assisted with all Israel in making David king.” This list of David‘s principal heroes belongs, therefore, to his reign at Hebron. In Samuel the list is not given until nearly the end of David‘s reign 2 Samuel 23:8-39.

Chief of the captains - Or, “of the thirty,” according to another and better reading (see 1 Chronicles 11:15, 1 Chronicles 11:25; compare 2 Samuel 23:8 note). Jashobeam was the commander of the first monthly course of 24,090 soldiers 1 Chronicles 27:2. He is probably the warrior of the name who joined David at Ziklag 1 Chronicles 12:6.

Compare this passage with 2 Samuel 23:9-10.

Barley - In 2 Samuel 23:11, “lentiles.” The words for barley and lentils are so similar in the Hebrew that we may fairly explain the diversity by an accidental corruption.

Five cubits high - About 7 ft. 6 in. high. The height is not so great as that recorded of other giants.

etc. The list of names here given corresponds generally with that in 1 Chronicles 11:10. The writer of Samuel does not assign his list to any definite period of David‘s reign, but probably delivers it to us as it was constituted at a later date. It is quite possible therefore that the names which occur only in Chronicles are those of persons who had died or quitted the army before the other list was made out, and that the new names in Samuel are the names of those who had taken their places. See the 2 Samuel 23:39 note.

The sons of Hashem - It is impossible that this can be the true reading, since an individual warrior must be spoken of. Comparing 2 Samuel 23:32, perhaps the most probable conjecture is that the “Beni-Hashem” of Chronicles and the “Beni Jashen” of Samuel alike conceal some single name of a man which cannot now be recovered.