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David's Mighty Warriors

soldiers of biblical King David

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionMay 18, 2026
Entity authorityQ3306322 ↗
Source-derived summary

David's Mighty Warriors (also known as David's Mighty Men or the Gibborim; Hebrew: הַגִּבֹּרִ֛ים, romanized: hagGībbōrīm, lit. 'the Mighty') are a group of 37 men in the Hebrew Bible who fought with King David and are identified in 2 Samuel 23:8–38, part of the "supplementary information" added to the Second Book of Samuel in its final four chapters. The International Standard Version calls them "David's special forces".

A similar list is given in 1 Chronicles 11:10–47 but with several variations and sixteen more names.

The text divides them into "the Three", of which there are three, and "the Thirty", of which there are more than thirty. The text explicitly states that there are 37 individuals in all, but it is unclear whether this refers to The Thirty, which may or may not contain The Three, or the combined total of both groups. The text refers to The Three and The Thirty as though they were both important entities, and not just an arbitrary list of three or 30-plus significant men.

Complete list

The Three

The Three are Ishbaal the Tahkemonite, Eleazar son of Dodo the Ahohite, and Shammah son of Agee the Hararite.

The Book of Chronicles also mentions the Three. According to one reading, the first of these three is named as Jashobeam instead. However, the Septuagint version of the same passage presents a name that scholars regard as clearly being a transliteration from Isbosheth— the euphemism employed in some parts of the Bible for the name Ishbaal.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “David's Mighty Warriors” as soldiers of biblical King David. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around David's, Mighty and Warriors.

Editorial reviewA productive starting point for separating a subject’s documented career from later reputation and commemoration. The current 249-word lead offers orientation but no explicit four-digit date, so chronology should not be assumed. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with David's, Mighty and Warriors providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “David's Mighty Warriors”, the useful work is to connect “soldiers of biblical King David” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 18, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q3306322. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference.

Critical limits

Later biographies can compress uncertainty and repeat inherited reputations, so apparently settled claims may still require comparison. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
Verify next

Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “David's Mighty Warriors”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow David's Mighty Warriors primary sources, David's Mighty Warriors archive and David's research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “David's Mighty Warriors”?
  2. Which claims depend on a single source or contested interpretation?
  3. How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “David's Mighty Warriors” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.