1 Chronicles: A Commentary

20 4/ Translation After this there was again1 war w ith the Philistines at Gezer;2 then Sibbecai the Hushathite killed Sippai,l one of the descendants of4 the Rephaim;5 and they were subdued . 5/ There was again war with the Philistines, and Elhanan the son of Jair6 killed Lahmi the brother of Goliath the Gittite, and the shaft of his spear was like a weaver's beam. 6/ Again there was war at Gath, where there was a man of great size/ and there were six digits on each of his extremities, twenty-four in number; he was also descended from the Raphah.8 7/ When he taunted Israel, Jonathan the son of Shimea9 the brother of David killed him. 8/ These10 were descended11 from the Raphah in Gath;12 they fell by the hand of David and by the hand of his servants. 2 3 4 20:4-8 Israelite Heroes Defeat Philistine Heroes 11ll "i1n1, with Chronicles LXX, Syr, 2 Sam 21:18; Chronicles MT 1Dlln1 "[war] stood," a miswriting of the original reading; conu·ajaphet, "Interchanges," 17. In readings discussed in textual notes 2-4 and 9 Chronicles presupposes a text of Samuel other than MT. In textual note 7 I suggest that Chronicles preserves the original reading in Samuel, though it is not now present in the Hebrew or versions of Samuel. 1D::l; cf. 2 Sam 21:18 LXXL. This reading may be the original one in 2 Sam 21:18: MT ::ll::l "Gob" (anticipating v. 19) and LXX "Gath" (anticipating v. 20). Note that the final pan of the name of Ishbibenob (::ll::l) in 2 Sam 21:16 is very similar to the name of the city (::ll::l) in 2 Sam 21:18, 19. '::10; cf. 2 Sam 21:18 LXXL. Samuel MT "]0 "Saph." '1'1'D; cf. 2 Sam 21:18 LXXL Samuel MT '1'?':::! Iii!~ "who was among the descendants of." 5 t:J'~:lli1. Some editions of the Hebrew Bible have ~:lli1 "the Rapha" (2 Sam 21:18 i1:lli1). See vv. 6 and 8 and the commentary. 6 I'll' Q. LXX, Syr, Arab.; 11ll' K "Jaur." 2 Sam 21:19 MT o·n~ 'Ill' "[son of]Jaare-oregim." The second word, lit. "weavers," anticipates the last word in the verse and is secondary. Chronicles Q I'll' and the first name in 2 Sam 21:9, 'Ill', differ only in the metathesis of the last two letters. 7 i11D; 2 Sam 21:20 MT i'1D iii'~ "a man of Midian/ Madon," or "a man of strife." The reading in Chronicles may have been the original one in Samuel (McCarter, II Sarnue~ 449). For the usage see 1 Chr 11:23. 8 ~:lli1'?; 2 Sam 21:26 i1:lli1'?. 9 ~llDili ; cf. 2 Sam 21:21 LXXL (McCarter, II Samue~ 449). 2 Sam 21:21 Qi1llDili; K, LXX 'llr:lili. 1n 1 Sam 16:9 the name is spelled i1r:lili. The spelling ~llDili also occurs in 1 Chr 2:13. 10 i1'?~ Sebir; cf. 2 Sam 21:22. Chronicles MT '?~. 11 ·:';m; cf. 1 Chr 3:5. One would expect n(1l. Cf. GKC §69t; and Curtis and Madsen, 244. 12 nl::l. Chronicles LXX adds "all were four giants" after "Gath." This addition, entered wrongly, is a correction made on the basis of a comparison with the text of2 San1 21:22. 409 20:4-8 Structure The Chronicler concludes his account of David's wars by including three anecdotes found at 2 Sam 21:18-22,1 in which Israelite heroes defeated Philistine heroes in one-to-one combat. These incidents should probably be related historically to David's Philistine wars recounted in 2 Sam 5:18-25//1 Chr 14:8-16. Each of these anecdotes is structured in a similar way: • There wa war again with the Philistines • An Israelite hero kills a Philistine hero Characteristics of the Philistine hero and/ or his relationship to the Rapha Within this structure there is some minor variation. The third Philistine hero is unnamed, and the second's relation hip to the Rapha is not given. A final sentence in v. 8 serves as a summary for the whole account. These three accounts are taken over with minor changes from the Vorlage in 2 Sam 21:18-25. They show both how the blessing of Yahweh gave David victory and they indicate the bloodshed that prevented him from building the temple...