Chronicles presents a very different account of David’s life from what we have seen so far in the books of Samuel and Kings. For example, it does not include the tales of his conflicts with Saul. We are told about neither his affair with Bathsheba nor his civil wars, first with Absalom and then with Sheba ben Bichri. By omitting these and many other inglorious episodes, the authors of this revisionist history not only presented a much more innocent image of David; they also eliminated the texts that negotiate belonging in Judah and Israel via war commemoration. As a result, most of the accounts studied in the preceding chapters are not found in this work. Yet its authors still engage in war commemoration, even if the way they do so differs substantially from what we have seen so far in Samuel and Kings. This chapter is a consequential one, as it builds upon and integrates all the findings up to this point.

David and All Israel

In what follows I undertake a literary probe, focusing on just two chapters: 1 Chronicles 11–12. A short paragraph, depicting joyful feasting, demarcates this section from the surrounding narrative (see 12:39–41). The section as a whole appears to have grown up gradually around the theme of “assistance” or “support” for David.