Today, I am reading and commenting on  1 Chronicles 10-12.

The passage starts with an account of the death of King Saul.  This account echoes that given at the end of 1 Samuel.  It goes on to describe David becoming king over all Israel and the warriors who followed him.  This account shows us that David had a significant number of followers from tribes other than Judah even while Saul was king.  In fact, this passage suggests that warriors from the tribe of Benjamin formed a larger part of David’s war band than those from the tribe of Judah.  The fact that significant numbers of the tribe of Benjamin, which was King Saul’s tribe, defected to David tells us quite a bit about both King Saul and David.  I wonder if perhaps the fact that David had as much loyalty to all of Israel as he did to the tribe of Judah played a role in his animosity towards Joab and his brothers.  I have not previously noticed that Joab and his brothers put more emphasis on the interests of the tribe of Judah than other tribes, but I have not thought to look for it previously.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.