1 Chronicleschapter 20
8 verses · Ezra, by tradition · 450 to 400 BC · History
Key verse
And there was war again with the Philistines; and Elhanan the son of Jair slew Lahmi the brother of Goliath the Gittite, whose spear staff was like a weaver’s beam.
It stands in The giants of Gath fall one after another, verses 4 to 8.
The chapter
Chapter summary
The siege of Rabbah is finished. And here the Chronicler makes his most conspicuous omission, passing over Bathsheba and Uriah entirely to keep his focus on the throne and the temple. David takes the crown of their king from off his head, a talent of gold with a precious stone in it. Then three brief giant-slayings at Gezer and Gath: Sippai of the sons of the giant, Lahmi the brother of Goliath whose spear staff was like a weaver's beam, and a man of great stature with six fingers on each hand and six toes on each foot. 'They fell by the hand of David, and by the hand of his servants.'
Context
History · Ezra · 1 Chronicles overview
The world behind this chapter
1 Chronicles 20The history
The chapter belongs to Joab in its first half, leading the army against Rabbah, and to three Israelite soldiers in its second, Sibbecai, Elhanan and Jonathan the son of David's brother.
The time is the spring campaign season of the year after chapter 19, about 994 BC, with the Philistine fights following over the next few years.
The places are Rabbah east of the Jordan, on the site of modern Amman, and then Gezer and Gath in Philistine country.
The occasion is the second campaign against the city Joab had left standing.
The rest of the history, and what it meant to them
A first hearer knew why armies moved in spring. The winter rains had stopped, the roads were passable, and a force could live off the standing grain, so campaign seasons were set by weather and crops.
He knew what taking Rabbah required. The city sat on a height with its water supply in the valley below, so an attacker either blockaded it for months or seized the water first.
He also knew the crown. It weighed a talent of gold, which is far more than a man wears, so it was most likely the crown of the Ammonite god. The Hebrew can be read either as their king or as the god's name Milcom.
Putting the captured population to work with saws, iron picks and axes is forced labour on state building projects. That was the standard fate of a defeated city, and the same institution later split Israel in two.
What it meant to them
The silence in this chapter is loud to anyone who knows the other account. Between the siege of Rabbah and its fall lies the whole story of Bathsheba and Uriah, and the writer passes over it.
His readers had Samuel and Kings and had heard Psalm 51 sung, so the omission hid nothing from them. He is writing a different book, about the man who founded the temple's worship, for a people who needed the institution in front of them.
Sources cited
- John H. Walton, Victor H. Matthews and Mark W. Chavalas, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: Old Testament
- Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: Chronicles , 1872
Where the chapter sits
1 Chronicles 20 falls in David's reign: temple-framed (chapters 10–29). Saul's death framed as judgment; David's consolidation; the ark brought to Jerusalem; the Davidic covenant (ch. 17); the military victories; the census and the threshing-floor site (ch. 21); temple preparation; Solomon's charge; David's doxology.
Before it: Genealogies from Adam to Saul, chapters 1–9.
The whole shape of 1 Chronicles→The structure of this chapter
The heads below are this chapter's scenes. The numbered points under each are its verses.
A. The crown of Rabbah set on David's headvv. 1-3
after the year was expired: The campaign against Rabbah opens with the same words 2 Samuel 11:1 uses to open its own account, at the time that kings go out to battle, and Chronicles keeps the phrase while cutting everything Samuel set inside it. Between David tarried at Jerusalem and the fall of the city, 2 Samuel 11-12 records Bathsheba, Uriah's death, Nathan's rebuke and Solomon's birth, and none of it appears here. The Chronicler moves straight from the siege to the crown taken off the Ammonite king's head, a talent of gold set on David's own, keeping the victory and passing over the sin that ran beside it.
1 Chronicles 20:1
“After the year was expired, at the time that kings go out to battle - About the spring of the year; see the note on 2Sa 11:1. After this verse the parallel place in Samuel relates the whole story of David and Bath-sheba, and the murder of Uriah, which the compiler of these books passes over as he designedly does almost every thing prejudicial to the character of David. All he states is, but David tarried at Jerusalem; and, while he thus tarried, and Joab conducted the war against the Ammonites, the awful transactions above referred to took place.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
3 more voices on this verseWhat preachers and commentators have said about this verse, in their own words.
1 Chronicles 20:1
“See Gill on 1Ch 20:1, 2Sa 11:1, 1Ch 20:2, 2Sa 12:30, 2Sa 21:15, and 1Ch 21:1.”
1 Chronicles 20:1
“Joab led forth the power of the army, and wasted the country . . . of Ammon--The former campaign had been disastrous, owing chiefly to the hired auxiliaries of the Ammonites; and as it was necessary, as well as just, that they should be severely chastised for their wanton outrage on the Hebrew ambassadors, Joab ravaged their country and invested their capital, Rabbah.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
1 Chronicles 20:1
“This chapter, containing such other warlike exploits belonging to David’s reign as the writer of Chronicles thinks it important to put on record, is to be compared with the passages of Samuel noted in the marginal references.”
1 Chronicles 20:2
“David took the crown of their king - off his head - See 2Sa 12:30. Precious stones in it - The Targum says, “And there was set in it a precious stone, worth a talent of gold; this was that magnetic stone that supported the woven gold in the air.” What does he mean?”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
1 Chronicles 20:2
“But, like many other state crowns of Eastern kings, the crown got at Rabbah was not worn on the head, but suspended by chains of gold above the throne. precious stones--Hebrew, a "stone," or cluster of precious stones, which was set on David's head.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
1 Chronicles 20:3
“He brought out the people - See this transaction particularly explained in the notes on the parallel places, 2Sa 12:30-31 (note).”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
B. The giants of Gath fall one after another
1. (v. 4)
there arose war at Gezer: Samuel places this same fight at Gob (2 Samuel 21:18); Chronicles names the place Gezer, and the bench reads the two as either a second name for one field or a copying variant, without settling which. Sippai answers to Saph in the Samuel text, one of the children of the giant, the Rapha clan of Gath that runs through the rest of this chapter. Sibbechai the Hushathite already stands among David's mighty men at 1 Chronicles 11:29, so the victory is not left to an anonymous soldier.
2. (v. 5)
1 Chronicles 20:5
Elhanan the son of Jair - See the note on 2Sa 21:19. The Targum says, “David, the son of Jesse, a pious man, who rose at midnight to sing praises to God, slew Lachmi, the brother of Goliath, the same day on which he slew Goliath the Gittite, whose spear-staff was like a weaver’s beam.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Elhanan the son of Jair slew Lahmi: Chronicles names what 2 Samuel 21:19 leaves harder to read: there Elhanan the son of Jaareoregim slew the brother of Goliath, with the words the brother of supplied by most translators to close a reading many hold corrupt in the underlying Hebrew, while here Elhanan the son of Jair slew Lahmi the brother of Goliath the Gittite, a name and a relation stated outright. Keil and much of the bench take the Chronicles text as preserving the reading Samuel's own copying lost, while others hold that Goliath was a title carried by more than one champion of Gath. Both texts stand as they are written, and this chapter does not resolve the question beyond naming Lahmi as the man Elhanan killed.
3. (vv. 6-7)
1 Chronicles 20:6
“Fingers and toes were four and twenty - See the note on 2Sa 21:20.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 Chronicles 20:7
“None are more visibly marked for ruin that those who reproach God and his Israel. God will do great things rather than suffer the enemy to behave themselves proudly, Deut. xxxii. The victories of the Son of David, like those of David himself, are gradual.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
six on each hand, and six on each foot: The Gath giant of verse 6 carries twenty-four digits, six fingers on each hand and six toes on each foot, a mark of the same stock 2 Samuel 21:20 already describes and 2 Samuel 21:22 sums up as born to the giant in Gath. Jonathan the son of Shimea, David's own nephew, kills him when he defies Israel, the family circle widening the victory past David and his named mighty men. The bench reads these Gath giants as the Rephaim line behind Goliath himself, the stock Numbers 13:33 and Joshua 11:22 already trace into Gath's remnant after the conquest.
4. (v. 8)
1 Chronicles 20:8
“These were born unto the giant in Gath - “These were born להרפא leharapha, to that Rapha in Gath, or to Arapha.” So the Vulgate, Septuagint, and Chaldee. The compiler of these books passes by also the incest of Amnon with his sister Tamar, and the rebellion of Absalom, and the awful consequences of all these. These should have preceded the fourth verse.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
born unto the giant in Gath: The summary names the source directly, these were born unto the giant, the Hebrew behind it the sons of Rapha, a clan name rather than one man's own title, and it fell by the hand of David, and by the hand of his servants across three separate fights. Joshua 11:22 already left an Anakim remnant standing only in Gaza, Gath and Ashdod, and this verse shows that remnant still producing champions in Gath generations later. The chapter closes the giant line David's whole reign has met, from Goliath's own death at the hand of a shepherd to this last brother and this last nameless son of Rapha.
This page carries no textual note on 1 Chronicles 20. Where this site has examined a place the manuscripts differ, the examination is in the manuscripts room. Every place this site examines →
Sources for this chapter
The summary
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; John Wesley, Notes on the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary.
The exposition
Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; Albert Barnes, Notes on the Old Testament; Jamieson Fausset and Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; Keil, The Books of the Chronicles and Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible.
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