Bible Commentaries

1 Chronicles 11:22

I. Notice, first, that Benaiah did a great deed: he "slew a lion." Our David has some Benaiahs still in His camp who slay lions. (1) A man who boldly meets a besetting sin—he is a Benaiah. (2) Another Benaiah is the man who boldly overcomes a natural infirmity. (3) A third is found in the man who combats with and overcomes some special temptation. (4) He who achieves work for God, and work under difficult circumstances, is a Benaiah.

II. Observe that he slew the lion in a pit. That is a noble deed done in a very difficult place. Very often Benaiahs in the Lord's army have to meet their lion in a pit, where apparently everything is on the enemy's side. Work for God may be difficult in itself, but ten times more difficult because of its position.

III. And, lastly, done with very difficult surroundings—in a pit on a snowy day. There are some sins hard to combat when grace is filling the heart, and when spiritual life is at its best. But to meet the besetting sin on a snowy day, when unbelief is freezing you! to go and work for Christ and dare something difficult when your own love seems half frozen up! But even if your heart be cold and you feel numbed and powerless to do anything, yet, like Benaiah, go and venture it, though it be on a snowy day.

A. G. Brown, Penny Pulpit, No. 1068.

References: 1 Chronicles 12:16-18.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxx., No. 1770. 1 Chronicles 12:32.—J. Baldwin Brown, Old Testament Outlines, p. 85; D. Burns, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxvii., p. 68. 1 Chronicles 12:33.—S. Cox, An Expositor's Notebook, p. 103.