1 Chronicles 12:21

This chapter is a roll of the men who rallied to David. It begins with those who came to him at Ziklag (1 Chronicles 12:1–7) and the Gadites who crossed to him (1 Chronicles 12:8–15), and then comes to the Benjamites, Judahites and Manassites of this passage. The rest of the chapter lists the armed men who came to Hebron to make him king over all Israel (1 Chronicles 12:23–40). These verses belong to David’s hardest years, when God had chosen him and Saul still sat on the throne.

The verb in “there came” is bôwʼ, the ordinary word for going or coming. Nobody forced these men. They came of their own accord to a hunted man, and the passage records it as a steady movement toward him that kept growing until verse 22.

The striking name is Benjamin. Binyâmîyn, “son of the right hand”, was Saul’s own tribe, and Saul was trying to kill David. Tribal loyalty ran deep in Israel, so for Benjamites to come over to David was a public and dangerous act. They turned from the king of their own tribe because they recognised that God’s favour had passed from Saul to David. Judah was David’s own tribe and the core of the support his kingdom would rest on. Men of the two tribes arriving together point ahead to the day when all the tribes came to David at Hebron and made him king (2 Samuel 5:1–3).

The “hold” is mᵉtsad, a fastness, fort or stronghold, often a rocky height or a cave made defensible. David’s refuges in these years included the cave of Adullam, where his first followers gathered to him (1 Samuel 22:1–2), and Ziklag, which the Philistine king Achish gave him (1 Samuel 27:6). These places were bases where he gathered and trained his men. The words “unto David” carry as much weight as “to the hold”, because these men came to give a person their allegiance, and a safe place came with him. David knew where his own safety lay: “The LORD is my rock, and my fortress” (Psalm 18:2).

David went out to meet them himself and spoke first. His life was in danger, since Saul was hunting him (1 Samuel 19:9, 1 Samuel 23:14) and loyalties were shifting all around him. A band that arrived pretending friendship could hand him over to Saul or try to win Saul’s favour at his expense. So he set two possibilities before them and named the outcome of each.

“If ye be come peaceably unto me to help me, mine heart shall be knit unto you.” The word behind “peaceably” is shâlôwm, which names soundness, welfare, peace and safety. David is asking whether they come as friends who mean him well. “To help me” is ʻâzar, to surround, protect or aid, the verb that runs through the rest of the passage. If that is why they have come, his heart will be “knit” to them. The Hebrew there is yachad, “together” or “unitedly”: David’s heart and theirs will be joined together in one cause.

The other possibility was betrayal. The verb râmâh means to throw or shoot, and figuratively to deceive or betray, as if causing someone to fall. David’s caution was wisdom, the kind Jesus asked of his disciples when he sent them out to be “wise as serpents, and harmless as doves” (Matthew 10:16). He went out to them openly, offered his friendship, and named the danger plainly.

“Then the spirit came upon Amasai, who was chief of the captains.” Rûach means wind, breath and spirit, and here it is the Spirit of God. The verb for “came upon” is lâbash, which properly means to wrap around or to put on a garment, so the Spirit clothes Amasai as he speaks. Throughout Israel’s history the Spirit came upon people for a task: upon Othniel to judge Israel and go to war (Judges 3:10), upon Samson for strength (Judges 14:6), upon Saul so that he prophesied (1 Samuel 10:10), and upon David himself on the day Samuel anointed him (1 Samuel 16:13). Here the Spirit gives Amasai words, and so his pledge is God’s own confirmation that David is the chosen king. That is why this answer is called Amasai’s prophecy.

Amasai was a leader, which gave his words the weight of all the men he led. “Chief” is rôʼsh, “head”. Beneath “captains” the Hebrew has a word tied to the number thirty, shᵉlôwshîym, so he may have been chief of a company known as the thirty.

To escape Saul, David had gone over to Achish, king of Gath, and lived in Philistine country at Ziklag for a year and four months (1 Samuel 27). From there he raided the Geshurites, the Gezrites and the Amalekites, while letting Achish believe he was raiding Judah. It was a way of surviving a desperate time. Then the Philistines went to war against Saul, and David came with them (1 Samuel 29). For David to fight alongside Israel’s old enemies would have been treason in the eyes of his own people, and it would have stained his claim to the throne.

At that very moment “there fell some of Manasseh to David.” The verb nâphal means “to fall”, and “fell to” is a Hebrew way of saying that men went over to someone’s side. These Manassites left Saul and joined David even while he marched with the Philistines.

“But they helped them not.” David and his men gave the Philistines no help, because the lords of the Philistines sent him away “upon advisement”. ‘Ēṣāh is counsel, advice or a plan, so the lords took counsel together and decided calmly. Their reason was fear: “He will fall to his master Saul to the jeopardy of our heads.” The verb is nâphal again. The men of Manasseh really did fall to David, and the Philistines feared that David would fall back to Saul in the middle of the battle. “Heads” is rôʼsh, and “the jeopardy of our heads” means the risk of their lives.

God used the suspicion and self-interest of his people’s enemies to bring David out of an impossible position. He was spared from fighting against his own people and against the Lord’s anointed, and his integrity was kept for the throne. “The king’s heart is in the hand of the LORD” (Proverbs 21:1), and the God who turned to good what Joseph’s brothers meant for evil (Genesis 50:20) works all things together for good to them that love him (Romans 8:28).

“As he went to Ziklag” places verse 20 on David’s road back from the Philistine army. The men who joined him there are the last of those who came while he was still a fugitive (1 Chronicles 12:1–22). Seven of them are named: Adnah, Jozabad, Jediael, Michael, Jozabad, Elihu and Zilthai. Jozabad was a common name, borne by ten men in the Old Testament, so two different captains most likely shared it. Recording each one by name shows that real men made a costly choice, and God keeps their names.

They were “captains of the thousands”. “Captains” is rôʼsh, heads or chiefs, and ʼeleph is “a thousand”. As a military word it can mean a unit of a thousand men, or a smaller unit or clan. Either way these were commanders who brought their own men with them. Manasseh was a large northern tribe, so David’s support was spreading well beyond Judah. Later in the chapter all such men are said to have come with “a perfect heart” (1 Chronicles 12:38).

Verse 22 sums up the whole movement. “For at that time day by day there came to David to help him.” Yôwm is “day”, and the doubled “day by day” describes a steady stream of men arriving one day after another. The verb for “help” is ʻâzar once more.

They kept coming “until it was a great host”. Gâdôwl is “great” in size and strength. Machăneh, “host”, means a camp, the place where people live in tents for a time, and by extension the company or army camped there. It stands twice in this verse, for David’s host and for “the host of God”. David’s camp had grown so great that it could be compared with God’s own. ʼĔlôhîym, “God”, is plural in form and, used of the true God, is a plural of majesty that normally takes singular verbs.

The comparison speaks of size and of God’s hand on the army. It gives us a picture of an army so large, and so plainly God’s doing, that it resembled the armies of heaven. When angels met Jacob on his way home he said, “This is God’s host” (Genesis 32:2), and Joshua was met by the captain of the host of the LORD (Joshua 5:14). David’s men were men, gathered by God’s providence.

This growth was God keeping his word. He had told Saul that the kingdom would be torn from him (1 Samuel 15:28), and he had anointed David, and later he promised David a house and a throne established for ever (2 Samuel 7:16). The Chronicler wrote for God’s people after the exile, and the long roll of 1 Chronicles 12 reminded them that God had gathered all Israel around David once and was faithful to his promises to David’s line.

Jesus is the Son of David (Matthew 1:1), and these verses point ahead to him. The Spirit who came upon David at his anointing descended upon Jesus at his baptism (Matthew 3:16). David could say there was no wrong in his hands, and Jesus lived without sin (Hebrews 4:15). Yet he was betrayed by one of his own (John 13:21) and handed over to his enemies, though even a man crucified beside him confessed that “this man hath done nothing amiss” (Luke 23:41). He went to that betrayal willingly as the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29), praying that the Father’s will be done (Luke 22:42). He was obedient unto death (Philippians 2:8), and God looked on it and answered by raising and exalting him (Philippians 2:9–11, Acts 2:33), so that he is both Lord and Christ (Acts 2:36).

Amasai’s words are the words of everyone who comes to Christ: “Thine are we, and on thy side.” Following him means taking up the cross daily (Luke 9:23). The peace Amasai spoke over David and his helpers is ours in Christ, for “he is our peace” (Ephesians 2:14), and through his cross God reconciles all things to himself (Colossians 1:20).

Benjamin, Judah, Gad and Manasseh came together around David. Christ gathers people from every nation, tribe and tongue (Revelation 7:9–10), in whom earthly divisions give way to oneness (Galatians 3:28). They are built together into a dwelling place of God (Ephesians 2:19–22), many members in one body (Romans 12:4–5), and “behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity!” (Psalm 133:1). As men came to David day by day, “the Lord added to the church daily such as should be saved” (Acts 2:47). Christ builds his church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it (Matthew 16:18). His kingdom is not of this world (John 18:36), and of it there shall be no end (Luke 1:33). His people fight in the whole armour of God (Ephesians 6:10–18) against powers he has already triumphed over at the cross (Colossians 2:15). And as the captains of Manasseh were recorded by name, the names of his people are written in the Lamb’s book of life (Revelation 21:27).

God prepares the way for the king he has chosen, and he does it in the years when that king looks weakest. He moved men from Saul’s own tribe to come to a fugitive, he gave a captain words by his Spirit, and he turned the suspicion of the Philistine lords into a way of escape for David. Much of his work came quietly, one day’s arrivals after another, until the camp was great.

The passage also shows how help works among God’s people. Men helped David, and David received their help gladly and trusted them with command, but Amasai named the help beneath all theirs: “thy God helpeth thee.” Our loyalty to Christ rests on the same ground. We come to a King whom God has helped and exalted, and the peace Amasai spoke over David and his helpers belongs to all who are on his side.