In First Chronicles, chapter eleven, verse one, begins the story of David. Second Samuel, chapters two through five, tells more fully just how David became King over Judah and then all of Israel.
Upon the death of Saul, Abner, while espousing the cause of Ishbo-sheth, the only surviving son of Saul, “made him king over” a large proportion of the people, exclusive of Judah, as in Second Samuel two, verses eight through ten. David was already anointed at Hebron by “the men of Judah, king over the house of Judah” in stanzas one to four of the same chapter. And David continued, “King in Hebron over the house of Judah seven years and six months.” Notice the agreement of this date with the account of the six sons born to David in Hebron in Second Samuel three, verses two through five. The explanation of the chronology of Ishbosheth affecting this period is not easy. It said he reigned over Israel “two years” in verse ten of this chapter. Where was the difference of five and a half years lost? Our first verse here, with its emphatic, then would seem to make it very unlikely that between the death of Ishbosheth and the kingship of David over “all the tribes of Israel” together with Judah. On the other hand, the interval in question might find its account in the “long war in Second Samuel three, verses one, six, and verses seventeen through twenty-one, between the house of Saul and the house of David.”
The first nine verses of this chapter cover the same ground as the first ten verses of Second Samuel five: Unto Hebron, which depicts how David came here from Second Samuel two, verse one. Hebron was the “earliest seat of civilized life, not of Judah only, but of all Palestine.” It and Bethlehem are two of the most special memorials of David.