ContradictionsReading order 238Bible context 2 min read
How many men did the chief of David's captains kill?
The leading warrior's feat is recorded with different names and a five-hundred-man difference in the death toll.
- Textual conflict
- Interpretive tension
- The passages pull in different directions, but the conflict depends on how their wording, scope, or narrative context is read.
- Importance
- Minor
- A local detail in a story, chronology, or inventory.
Parallel chief captain accounts give eight hundred versus three hundred victims in one encounter, although identifying the warrior requires matching roles despite different names.
An editorial assessment of the quoted passages. Importance describes the stakes; it does not increase certainty. Reading order weighs both.
David's chief captain kills eight hundred men in one encounter
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.
2 Samuel 23:8
Translation / edition: King James Version (KJV)
Read the full chapter:2 Samuel 23
David's chief captain kills three hundred men in one encounter
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.
1 Chronicles 11:11