Attributed commentary excerpt
Keil & Delitzsch on 1 Chronicles 12:23
A historical reference excerpt for this verse. Read it alongside the biblical text and other available sources.
Commentary on the Old Testament
C. F. Keil & F. Delitzsch · 19th-century historical commentary
Source: BibleWord.ai's local reference edition of this named work.
List of the warriors who made David king in Hebron. - The superscription ( Ch1 12:23) runs: "These are the numbers of the bands of the men equipped for war, who came," etc. החלוּץ is a collective noun, denoting the equipped manhood. ראשׁי signifies here, not principes exercitus, as the Vulgate renders it, heads, i.e., leaders of the army (Berth.), but literally denotes sums, i.e., companies, bands of soldiers, as in Jdg 7:16, Jdg 7:20; Jdg 9:34, Jdg 9:37, Jdg 9:44; Sa1 11:1; or it may perhaps also be heads for individuals, as ראשׁ in Jdg 5:30. Both these meanings are linguistically certain; so that we cannot say, with Bertheau, that ראשׁי before החלוּץ denotes, according to the well-ascertained use of language, leaders of the army, and that גלגלת would have been used had it been wished to express the number by heads, e.g., 1 Chron 23:3-24. That use of the word is indeed also found, but it cannot be proved to be the only proper one. If we take ראשׁי here to denote leaders, we bring the superscription into irreconcilable contradiction with the contents of the following catalogue, which gives the names of the heads and the number of the warriors ( Ch1 12:27.) only in the case of the families of Aaron, and in that of Issachar the number of the princes; while in the case of the other tribes we have only the numbers of the bands or detachments. This contradiction cannot be got rid of, as Bertheau imagines, by the hypothesis that the superscription referred originally to a catalogue which was throughout similar in plan to that which we find in Ch1 12:26-28, and that the author of the Chronicle has very considerably abridged the more detailed statements of the original documents which he used. This hypothesis is a mere makeshift, in which we have the less need "to take refuge," as the catalogue has neither the appearance of having been abridged or revised by the author of our Chronicle. It is shown to be a faithful copy of a more ancient authority, both by the characteristic remarks which it contains on the individual tribes, and by the inequality in the numbers. Bertheau, indeed, derives support for his hypothesis "from the inequality of the statements of number, and their relation to each other," and upon that ground throws doubt upon the accuracy and correctness of the numbers, but in both cases without sufficient warrant. If we place the respective statements together synoptically, we see that there came to David to Hebron - Of the tribe of: Judah 6,800 men Of the tribe of: Simeon 7,100 men Of the tribe of: Levi 4,600 men With Jehoiada the prince of Aaron 3,700 men With Zadok and his father's-house 22 שׂרים (captains) Of the tribe of: Benjamin 3,000 men Of the tribe of: Ephraim 20,800 men Of the half-tribe of: Manasseh 18,000 men Of the tribe of: Issachar 200 chiefs and all their brethren Of the tribe of: Zebulun 50,000 men Of the tribe of: Naphtali 37,000 men with 1000 שׂרים Of the tribe of: Dan 28,000 men Of the tribe of: Asher 40,000 men Of two and a half trans-Jordanic tribes 120,000 men Total 336,600 men with 1222 heads and captains The total is not objected to by Bertheau, and its correctness is placed beyond a doubt by the recollection that we have here to do not with the representation of the various estates of the kingdom, but with a declaration of the will of the whole nation, who wished to make David their king. We must, if we are to estimate these statements, endeavour to go back in imagination to the circumstances of that ti…
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