One event, told twice

David's Mighty Men

David's elite warriors, the mighty men, are honored in two lists: 2 Samuel 23 and 1 Chronicles 11. The rolls overlap closely, with some variations in names and numbers that reward an honest look.

“These be the names of the mighty men whom David had: The Tachmonite that sat in the seat, chief among the captains; the same was Adino the Eznite: he lift up his spear against eight hundred, whom he slew at one time.”2 Samuel 23:8

“These also are the chief of the mighty men whom David had, who strengthened themselves with him in his kingdom, and with all Israel, to make him king, according to the word of the LORD concerning Israel.”1 Chronicles 11:10

The two accounts

The two accounts. Both passages record the heroes who stood with David and whose deeds became legend. There is the inner circle, the three, and the exploits told of them: the breaking through the Philistine lines to bring David water from the well of Bethlehem, which he would not drink but poured out to the LORD; the stands made alone against overwhelming odds. Then come the thirty, a wider company of valiant men named one by one, from many towns of Israel and beyond. 2 Samuel 23:8-39 closes the book's account of David's reign with this honor roll, ending with Uriah the Hittite among them. 1 Chronicles 11:10-47 places its list right after David is made king over all Israel and takes Jerusalem, and it continues past the point where Samuel stops, adding further names of mighty men. Both lists celebrate the same brotherhood of courage gathered around God's anointed king, remembering not only the great captains but the many faithful warriors by name, so that their loyalty and valor would not be forgotten in Israel.

Read side by side: what differs, and why

Read side by side: what differs, and why. The two lists plainly describe the same group of men and the same famous deeds; the agreement is broad and deep. The differences are of two honest kinds. First, Chronicles' list is longer. Where Samuel ends at Uriah the Hittite (2 Samuel 23:39), Chronicles adds a further section of names (1 Chronicles 11:41-47), warriors from the region east of the Jordan and beyond. Chronicles is not correcting Samuel but supplementing it, preserving more of the roll for the returned community that treasured its heritage. Second, there are small variations in some names and numbers between the two lists, for example spellings of a warrior's name or his father's name, or a figure like the number slain in a single stand. These are the ordinary marks of hand-copied texts transmitted across centuries. A copyist could easily read one Hebrew letter for a similar one, or a number could be miscopied, and the two traditions preserve slight differences at such points. This should not alarm us. The doctrine of Scripture concerns what the authors wrote by inspiration, and no point of faith or history hangs on whether a warrior's name is spelled one way or another. The lists agree overwhelmingly on who these men were and what they did. Where a name or number differs, we can hold the variation honestly as a feature of transmission, confident that God's word is preserved reliably even through human copying, and that the honor of these faithful men stands secure in both books.