David’s Mighty Men

Before David was a king he was a fugitive, and the men who came to him in the cave at Adullam were not soldiers. They were the men nobody else wanted.

The Cave

Everyone in distress, everyone in debt and everyone bitter in soul gathered to him — about four hundred of them. That was the starting material. Scripture is not embarrassed about it, and neither should we be: the roster of Israel’s most decorated warriors begins with a list of men at the end of themselves.

The Three

Years later the same men have names. Josheb-basshebeth stood against eight hundred at one time. Eleazar held the line at Pas-dammim when the army fled around him, and would not let go of his sword until the battle was over. Shammah planted himself alone in a field of lentils — a field, of all things — and refused to give ground.

He struck down the Philistines until his hand was weary, and his hand clung to the sword.

2 Samuel 23:10

The Thirty

Behind the three stood thirty more, named one by one. Not one of them became what he became alone. They were made in company, under a king worth following, doing hard things beside other men doing hard things — which is the whole argument of this mission, made three thousand years before we made it.

Mighty Men takes its name from them, and means it as a description of where a man ends up rather than where he starts.