1st Chronicles Chapter 12 verse 23 Holy Bible

Pulpit Commentary

Pulpit CommentaryVerse 23. The bands; rather, the chief men, or captains, by one or the other of which words this same term has been several times hitherto rendered in the immediate context (yet see Judges 9:37, 44, and Judges 5:30 for yet a third signification). There follow (vers. 24-37) the numbers of each tribe (the full thirteen being enumerated) who "came with a perfect heart to Hebron, to make David king over all Israel." The large numbers of some of the joyful pilgrims to Hebron, as for instance of the trans-Jordanic tribes, the very small number that came of the tribe of Judah (in fact, lowest but one, i.e. Benjamin, and yet nearest home), and of some others, help to invest with doubt the numerals of this passage, although it is not at all difficult to suggest some very passable explanations of these phenomena. This doubt is not lessened by the total, which, according to this list, must make a figure between three hundred and forty thousand and three hundred and fifty thousand men. To the host have to be added, as we are expressly told, the "asses, camels, mules, and oxen," which carried the "bread, meat, meal, cakes of figs and bunches of raisins, and wine, and oil, and oxen, and sheep in abundance," for the consumption of the host during their "three days' "stay "with David," and their journeys to and fro. In the presence of such numbers, and the celebration of such an occasion, Hebron must indeed have beheld the reflection of its own probable meaning, of the "fellowship" or "community" of society. To turn the kingdom of Saul to him (so 1 Chronicles 10:14). The phrase is not a common one. According to the word of the Lord (so 1 Chronicles 11:3; 1 Samuel 16:1, 12, 13).

Ellicott's Commentary

Ellicott's Commentary for English ReadersII. THE NUMBER OF THE WARRIORS WHO MADE DAVID KING IN HEBRON AFTER SAUL'S DEATH (1Chronicles 12:23-40).(23) And these are the numbers of the bands that were ready armed to the war.--Literally, And these are the numbers of the heads of the equipped for warfare. "Heads" may mean (1) polls, or individuals, as in Judges 5:30, though "skull" (gulg?leth) is more usual in this sense; or (2) it may mean "totals," "bands," as in Judges 7:16. The latter seems preferable here. The Vulg. and LXX. render "chiefs of the army"; but no chiefs are named in the list, except those of the Aaronites (1Chronicles 12:27-28); and we cannot suppose, on the strength of a single ambiguous term in the heading, that the character of the entire list has been altered by the chronicler. The Syriac version omits the whole verse.And came to David.--"And" is wanting in the Heb. "They came to David at Hebron," &c., is a parenthesis, unless the relative has fallen out.To turn the kingdom.--Literally, to bring it round out of the direct line of natural heredity (1Chronicles 10:14). . . .