1 Chronicles 11:3

Made a covenant … before the Lord . A forcible use of this phrase occurs in 11:11 . It implies that the engagement was ratified in the presence of a holy place, a holy vessel of the sanctuary, or a holy person ( 1 Samuel 21:6 , 1 Samuel 21:7 ; Joshua 18:8 ; Le Joshua 1:5 ). Whether the tabernacle was now at Hebron is doubtful, but the two priests, Abiathar and Zadok, were. They anointed David . The first time of David's being anointed (lSa 16:1 , 16:13 ) Samuel the prophet officiated. The second time ( 2 Samuel 2:4 ) was when the "men of Judah" anointed him king over "the house of Judah." This third time when David was anointed king over the united people, it was at all events at the special instance of "all the elders of Israel," although who officiated on these two last occasions is not mentioned. According to the word of the Lord by Samuel . The sentence marks the complete fulfilment of what had been foreshadowed in 1 Samuel 16:12 , 1 Samuel 16:13 ; and it may probably have been the more carefully introduced by the compiler of Chronicles, in consideration of the absence from his own work of previous details and of the previous anointings of David.