Benjamite families, and had suffered considerably in its text. See the commentary on 1Ch 8:29-38.
Chap. 10
Verses 1-7
II. The History of David's Kingship - 1 Chronicles 10-29.
The account of the ruin of Saul and his house in 1Ch 10:1-14, cf. 1 Sam, forms the introduction to the history of the kingship of David, which is narrated in two sections. In the first, 1 Chron 11-21, we have a consecutive narrative of the most important events of David's life, and his attempts to settle the kingship of Israel on a firmer basis, from the time of his being anointed king over all Israel to the numbering of the people in the latter years of his reign. The second, 1 Chron 22-29, contains an account of the preparations made towards the end of his reign for the building of the temple, of the arrangement of the service of the Levites and the army, and the last commands of the grey-haired king as to the succession of his son Solomon to the kingdom, and matters connected with it. The first section runs parallel to the account of the reign of David in 2 Samuel; the second is peculiar to the Chronicle, and has no parallel in the earlier historical books, Samuel and Kings. Now, if we compare the first section with the parallel narrative in 2 Samuel, it is manifest that, apart from that omission of David's seven years' reign over the tribe of Judah in Hebron, and of all the events having reference to and connection with his family relationships, of which we have already spoken, in the Chronicle the same incidents are recounted as in the second book of Samuel, and with few exceptions the order is the same. The main alterations in the order of the narrative are: (a) that the catalogues of David's heroes who helped him to establish his kingdom (1 Chron 11:10-47), and of the valiant men of all the tribes, who even in Saul's lifetime had joined themselves to David (1 Chron 12), follow immediately upon the account of the choosing of Jerusalem to be the capital of the kingdom, after the conquest of the fortress Jebus (1Ch 11:1-9), while in 2 Samuel the former of these catalogues is found in 2 Sam 23:8-39, in connection with the history of his reign, and the latter is entirely omitted; and (b) the account of his palace-building, his wives and children, and of some battles with the Philistines, which in 2Sa 5:11-25 follows immediately after the account of the conquest of the citadel of Zion, is inserted in the fourteenth
