(1–9) Parallel to 2 Samuel 5:1-10.
(1) Then all Israel gathered themselves. — Literally, and. “Then” is too definite a mark of time. The chronicler passes over the subsequent history of the house of Saul, and its decline under the feeble Ishbosheth, who reigned at Mahanaim as a puppet-king in the hands of Abner his powerful kinsman and general (2 Samuel 2-4).
All Israel. — This proves that the allusion is not to David’s election by Judah (2 Samuel 2:4).
Hebron, the burial-place of the patriarchs, was the capital of Judah, the tribe of David.
Thy bone and thy flesh. — A proverb first of physical, then of moral unity (Genesis 2:23; Judges 9:2). It was not as if David were some valiant foreigner, like certain of his own heroes. Moreover, the affection and sympathy of the tribes were with him, whose life of struggle and success had marked him out as their divinely chosen leader.