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

A couple of things which become clear from this passage which are otherwise somewhat murky.  Here it explains how Joab became commander of the army for David.  Elsewhere we see various lists of David’s mighty men and, aside from being commander of the army, Joab does not otherwise rank particularly high among them.  Even his brother Abishai comes out in those lists as a more major figure.  However, here we learn that Joab became commander of the army for David by leading the attack to conquer Jerusalem.  Further, Joab played a major role in building Jerusalem as the capital of Israel (here it says that David built up part of the city and Joab restored the rest).  Another thing we learn here, although there is some reference to it elsewhere, is that while David was on the run from King Saul warriors from many different tribes defected from Saul’s army and joined David.  Perhaps the most significant of these were the warriors of the tribe of Benjamin, which was Saul’s tribe.  These defections show us that David developed a following among all of the tribes, even while Saul was still king.  They became the basis for David becoming king over all of Israel.

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