(26-47) A catalogue of forty-eight "doughty warriors." Sixteen names are here added to the list as given in Samuel. The chronicler, therefore, possessed a source more complete than our Book of Samuel. Variations of spelling abound in the names common to the two texts, the transcription of proper names being especially liable to error.

(26) Also the valiant men of the armies.--The Heb. phrase has this meaning (1Chronicles 12:8); but elsewhere it denotes "valiant heroes" (1Chronicles 7:5; 1Chronicles 7:7, &c). and so here. 2Samuel 23:24 has "Asahel brother of Joab was among the thirty." It thus appears that the warriors of this list are none other than the famous baud of thirty warriors already spoken of (1Chronicles 11:15; 1Chronicles 11:25). From having been the original number, thirty may have become the conventional name of the corps even when its limits had been enlarged. It is notice. able that so far as to 1Chronicles 11:41 the heroes are arranged in pairs, and that the gentilic or cantonal name is usually added to that of the hero. They mostly belong to Judah and Benjamin; whereas the sixteen additional names, so far as known, belong to the transjordanic tribes, and the northern tribes are not represented at all. . . .

Verses 26-41. - These verses correspond with vers. 24-39 in 2 Samuel 23, and with them the subject ends there, though not here. The list announced here as comprising "the valiant men of the armies," is unannounced there, but, beginning with the same name, Asahel, it calls him "one of the thirty," and suggests the inference that those who follow will make up the rest. The number that follows (coinciding in this respect strictly with our list here) is itself thirty, which, though one too many, may be considered satisfactorily accounted for in the fact of the untimely death of Asahel, already recorded (2 Samuel 2:23). Considering the exact crisis at which he died, it is very likely that his place should be compensated for, although his name were unremoved from the honourable list. Amid the difficulties that develop themselves in the contents of these lists, when compared, the comparison of them aids the conviction that, so far as they go together, they do stand for "the thirty" spoken of in both places, and that a sentence or two here and there, now lost or corrupted beyond recognition, would clear up the whole subject. The comparison also seems to make it clear that the compiler of Chronicles, meaning to go beyond an enumeration of the thirty, nowhere speaks of thirty after ver. 25. On the other hand, the writer of the account in Samuel carefully sums up all (ver. 39) in the words, "thirty and seven in all " - an addition which means either the actual thirty-one given and the two sets of three each; or the thirty, with the two sets of three each and Joab ever all. Our present chapter, however, goes on to the number forty-eight in all, vers. 41-47, adding sixteen to the thirty-two which precede. Beside some minor differences, it must be said that at fewest three names, Hepher, Ahijah, and Mibhar, in Chronicles, resist identification with those that should (from position) correspond with them in the list of Samuel and with any others. And the same thing may be said of the same number in the list of Samuel (Elika, Eliam, Bani) when compared with the list now before us. The points of contact and clearest identification are, therefore, in so great a majority and are so uniformly distributed that, although it is left hard to decide the causes of them, these differences cannot throw any discredit upon the list as a whole. Perhaps the most probable suggestion to be offered is that the knowledge of the writer of the Book of Samuel enabled him to supersede the names of such as were soon lost to their brave career by death by other names; or, resting on the same fundamental reason, there may have been two different editions of the list, to one of which the writer of Samuel was indebted, and to the other the compiler of Chronicles.

Parallel Commentaries ...


Now [these were] the mighty men:
וְגִבּוֹרֵ֖י (wə·ḡib·bō·w·rê)
Conjunctive waw | Adjective - masculine plural construct
Strong's 1368: Powerful, warrior, tyrant

Asahel
אֵל֙ (’êl)
Noun - proper - masculine singular
Strong's 6214: Asahel -- 'God has made', four Israelites

the brother
אֲחִ֣י (’ă·ḥî)
Noun - masculine singular construct
Strong's 251: A brother, )

of Joab,
יוֹאָ֔ב (yō·w·’āḇ)
Noun - proper - masculine singular
Strong's 3097: Joab -- 'the LORD is father', three Israelites

Elhanan
אֶלְחָנָ֥ן (’el·ḥā·nān)
Noun - proper - masculine singular
Strong's 445: Elhanan -- 'God has been gracious', two of David's leaders

son
בֶּן־ (ben-)
Noun - masculine singular construct
Strong's 1121: A son

of Dodo
דּוֹד֖וֹ (dō·w·ḏōw)
Noun - proper - masculine singular
Strong's 1734: Dodo -- 'his beloved', three Israelites

of
מִבֵּ֥ית (mib·bêṯ)
Preposition
Strong's Hebrew

Bethlehem,
לָֽחֶם׃ (lā·ḥem)
Preposition | Noun - proper - feminine singular
Strong's 1035: Bethlehem -- 'place of bread', a city in Judah, also a city in Zebulun


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OT History: 1 Chronicles 11:26 Also the mighty men of the armies: (1 Chron. 1Ch iCh i Ch 1 chr 1chr)