Bible Synapse
Did the chief of David’s mighty men kill 800 men at one time or 300?
Hard question · Israel’s history: Joshua to Esther · raised by 2 of the lists sceptics circulate
See the passages joined in the interactive mapThe passages
The chief of David’s mighty men (called Adino the Eznite in the KJV) “lift up his spear against eight hundred, whom he slew at one time”.
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.
Jashobeam the Hachmonite “lifted up his spear against three hundred slain by him at one time”.
And this is the number of the mighty men whom David had; Jashobeam, an Hachmonite, the chief of the captains: he lifted up his spear against three hundred slain by him at one time.
Abishai, of the second rank of heroes, “lifted up his spear against three hundred, and slew them”.
And Abishai, the brother of Joab, the son of Zeruiah, was chief among three. And he lifted up his spear against three hundred, and slew them, and had the name among three.
The objection
The two lists of David’s heroes describe the same exploit by the same chief warrior. Samuel says he killed eight hundred men at one time; Chronicles says three hundred.
The answer
The two lists clearly describe one man and one exploit, and the difference is best explained as a copyist’s slip. Both lists have suffered in copying, especially in their names: Samuel’s Josheb-basshebeth the Tachmonite is Chronicles’ Jashobeam the Hachmonite, and Keil and Delitzsch, following Luther, think the KJV’s ‘Adino the Eznite’ is a garbled form of the words ‘he lifted up his spear’, which Chronicles keeps. The number has probably suffered too. A few verses later both lists credit Abishai with lifting up his spear against three hundred (2 Samuel 23:18; 1 Chronicles 11:20), and Keil thought that ‘three hundred’ was carried over from there into the Chronicler’s account of Jashobeam. Samuel’s eight hundred would then be the original figure. Nothing in the story turns on the exact number: both books say that he slew a great company at one time.
Other answers Christians give
Two exploits
Some suggest that Jashobeam won two such victories, over three hundred on one occasion and eight hundred on another, and that each list records one. Apologetics Press thinks this possible but less likely.
Still open
How the figure was altered is a conjecture, and since the Greek follows each Hebrew text, the original number cannot be fixed with certainty.
From the classic commentators
The Chronicles give three hundred instead of eight hundred; and as that number occurs again in 2 Samuel 23:18, in the case of Abishai, it probably found its way from that verse into this in the book of Chronicles.Keil & Delitzsch, Commentary on 2 Samuel 23
Sources
- Keil & Delitzsch, Commentary on 2 Samuel 23, at Bible Hub
- Keil & Delitzsch, Commentary on 1 Chronicles 11, at Bible Hub
- The Septuagint (Brenton’s Greek text), 1 Chronicles 11