David's Mighty Men

The Bible is not all quiet devotion. It keeps a war record, a roster of men whose real exploits read like legend, and it puts their names down on purpose. These were David's gibborim, his mighty men: marksmen who did not miss, soldiers who fought until their bodies gave out, men who ran toward lions and giants. If you are young and have been handed a tame, bloodless version of faith, read this and think again. Then notice where all that valor is pointing.

Marksmen who did not miss

Israel had slingers whose skill is hard to believe. Among the tribe of Benjamin were "seven hundred chosen men lefthanded; every one could sling stones at an hair breadth, and not miss" (Judges 20:16). Others could fight with either hand, "armed with bows, and could use both the right hand and the left in hurling stones and in shooting arrows out of a bow" (1 Chronicles 12:2). The sling was not a toy; in trained hands it was a precision weapon, which is exactly why a shepherd boy could drop a nine-foot champion with one stone to the forehead (1 Samuel 17:49).

The Three

At the top of the roster stood three. Josheb-basshebeth "lift up his spear against eight hundred, whom he slew at one time" (2 Samuel 23:8). Eleazar stood his ground when the army fled and fought the Philistines so long that "his hand was weary, and his hand clave unto the sword" (2 Samuel 23:9-10), he had to be pried loose from his own weapon. Shammah planted himself alone in the middle of a field of lentils and held it against a Philistine raid when everyone else ran (2 Samuel 23:11-12).

The water from Bethlehem

The best story is not a body count. Pinned down in a cave, David sighed that he wished someone would get him a drink from the well by the gate of Bethlehem, his hometown, then held by a Philistine garrison. He did not order it. He just longed for it aloud. So three of his men broke straight through the enemy line, drew the water, and carried it back through the line again:

2 Samuel 23:16-17 · KJV

…and took it, and brought it to David: nevertheless he would not drink thereof, but poured it out unto the LORD… Is not this the blood of the men that went in jeopardy of their lives? therefore he would not drink it.

Reckless loyalty, met by reverence. They risked everything for a whim of love; he refused to treat their blood as common, and gave the gift to God. That is the whole bond between a king and his men in one cup.

Benaiah, who went down into the pit

Then there is Benaiah son of Jehoiada, who seems to have gone looking for the fights other men ran from. He "slew two lionlike men of Moab: he went down also and slew a lion in the midst of a pit in time of snow" (2 Samuel 23:20-21), into a pit, against a lion, on a day the footing was ice, and he won. He also faced a giant Egyptian armed with a spear, went at him with only a staff, tore the spear out of the Egyptian's hand, and killed him with it.

Faces like lions

And these were not lone wolves; they came in companies. The Gadite warriors who crossed over to David were "men of might, and men of war fit for the battle… whose faces were like the faces of lions, and were as swift as the roes upon the mountains" (1 Chronicles 12:8), and they crossed the Jordan when it had overflowed all its banks (12:15). Lion-faced, deer-swift, river in flood, they came anyway.

Why it's in the Bible

God did not edit the courage and skill out of His book, and that is worth sitting with. These men trained their hands for war, mastered their weapons, and then spent all of it, their strength, their skill, their lives, in loyalty to the anointed king. And that is the arrow pointing home. There is a greater David, the true Anointed One, Christ the King (the word Messiah means anointed), and He is still gathering mighty men. The war is different now, but it is no less real: "the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds" (2 Corinthians 10:4-5).

The call

So the same Scripture that records lion-killers calls you into the ranks: "Watch ye, stand fast in the faith, quit you like men, be strong" (1 Corinthians 16:13); "endure hardness, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ" (2 Timothy 2:3); "put on the whole armour of God… and having done all, to stand" (Ephesians 6:11-13). Benaiah trained his arm; train your soul. Learn your weapon, which is the Word (Ephesians 6:17). Be the kind of man who runs toward the pit on the icy day because the King is worth it.

Where this lands

God builds mighty men. He took a shepherd boy with a sling and made him a king, then gathered around him men still remembered three thousand years later for courage, skill, and fierce loyalty. He has not stopped doing it. The only question left for a young man reading their names is the one their lives keep asking: whose mighty man will you be?

Read the roster

Read it in full, the whole list of names and deeds, on BibleHub.

• 2 Samuel 23:8-39 — the Three and the Thirty
• 1 Chronicles 11:10-47 — the mighty men list
• 1 Chronicles 12 — the warriors who came to David
• Judges 20:16 — the slingers who never missed
• 1 Samuel 17:48-50 — David and Goliath
• 2 Corinthians 10:4-5 — the weapons of our warfare
• Ephesians 6:10-18 — the armor of God

Scripture from the King James Version, linked to BibleHub. Gibborim ("mighty ones") is the Hebrew term for David's elite warriors in 2 Samuel 23 and 1 Chronicles 11-12.