2 Samuelchapter 21
22 verses · Samuel, Nathan and Gad, by tradition · 10th century BC · History
And there was yet a battle in Gath, where was a man of great stature, that had on every hand six fingers, and on every foot six toes, four and twenty in number; and he also was born to the giant.
Introduction
Samuel, Nathan and Gad, by tradition, History, 2 Samuel Overview.
This chapter opens the last section of 2 Samuel, where the writer gathers episodes from across the reign and arranges them by theme. None of it is dated, and it reaches back behind the troubles of the preceding chapters. The first hearers understood that an oath sworn in the LORD's name bound the whole nation for generations. The chapter joins a national famine to a promise made in Joshua's day, and then turns to battles with Philistine champions. Listen for who names the terms of justice, and for the one woman whose patience moves the king. The chapter asks how long an old promise keeps its force.
Context
- Who
- Israelites who understood that a broken oath was a national debt
- What
- An account of a famine traced to Saul's broken oath with the Gibeonites, Rizpah's vigil, the burial of Saul's house, and four Philistine champions killed.
- Where
- Gibeon, the hill at Gibeah where Rizpah kept watch, Zela in Benjamin, and Philistine battlefields at Gob and Gath.
- When
- Undated within the reign; the famine probably early, and the Philistine wars earlier still.
- Why
- To show that an oath sworn by the LORD still binds the nation, and that the dead of Saul's house were honoured.
Historical context
The last four chapters of 2 Samuel are an appendix, arranged by theme rather than date. This one opens with a three-year famine and a king asking why, inquiring of God about a national disaster was the normal first step, and the answer points back to an oath sworn in Joshua's day.
Show the rest of the historical context, 3 more paragraphs
The Gibeonites were Canaanites who had tricked Israel into a treaty, and Israel had sworn by the LORD to spare them. Saul broke it. In that world an oath sworn in a god's name bound the whole nation, and the injured party, not the king, named the terms of settlement. They refuse money and ask for seven of Saul's male descendants.
Rizpah's vigil is the heart of the chapter and it is measured in months. The bodies are exposed at the beginning of barley harvest, in April, and she spreads sackcloth on the rock and drives off birds by day and animals by night until the rains come in October. Leaving a body unburied was the deepest disgrace available, and one woman refused to let it stand.
The Philistine notes at the end list four giant warriors of Gath, one with six fingers on each hand. One of them is called Goliath the Gittite, killed by Elhanan, which sits awkwardly beside the famous duel of David's youth. The parallel in Chronicles reads 'Lahmi the brother of Goliath,' and the two common explanations are a copying slip in one line or that Goliath was a title borne by more than one champion of Gath. The text is not hiding the tension.
Significance
For the first hearers this said that a promise made three centuries earlier still had force, even a promise obtained by deception, even one made to Canaanites.
Show the rest of the significance, 1 more paragraph
And it ends with a king moved by a grieving woman to gather the bones of the man who hunted him, and bury Saul and Jonathan in their father's tomb. The famine lifted after the debt was paid and the dead were honored.
This chapter in Jewish lifeWhat this chapter is in Jewish life and reading.
How it is read
This is the fullest chapter of the twelve in the corpus. Twenty of Rashi's notes stand here with their English text and only four refs stand without it. He begins by naming two sins behind the famine. The first is that Saul was buried at once and in secret by the men of Jabesh Gilead, so he was never eulogized with the honour due him. The second is the killing of Nob, the city of the priests (Rashi on II Samuel 21:1:1 and 21:1:2, the Metsudah Tanach series, Lakewood, N.J., CC-BY).
The reading of the Gibeonites at the second verse is hard, and it is reported here as Rashi's and as the tradition's. He says their refusal showed them cruel, and that David ruled they could not marry into Israel. The reason he gives is that Israel has three marks, mercy, shame and the doing of kindness, and that a people without them is unfit to join it. He names Yevamot 79a for it (Rashi on II Samuel 21:2:2). At the fourth he explains why the Hebrew of their answer is written in the singular and read in the plural. David tried to appease them together and then each man alone, and he says he saw this in the Jerusalem Talmud (Rashi on II Samuel 21:4:1).
Two notes explain how the seven were chosen and why Mephibosheth was spared. At the seventh verse Rashi says David had Saul's descendants pass before the ark, and those the ark detained were given up. The king's pity was a prayer that the ark should not detain Mephibosheth, and Yevamot 79a is named again (Rashi on II Samuel 21:7:1). At the eighth he meets the problem that the text names Michal as the mother of five sons of Adriel. He answers that Merab bore them and Michal raised them, and that one who raises an orphan is reckoned as the parent. He names Sanhedrin 19a for the rule (Rashi on II Samuel 21:8:1).
The long note at the tenth verse is about Rizpah's vigil and the law. Bodies were left hanging from the barley harvest to the rains, and the law of Deuteronomy says a body must not remain overnight. Rashi answers that they judged it better for one letter of the Torah to be uprooted so that the Name should be sanctified in public. Travellers would ask why the men had died, hear that they were royal sons who had wronged defenceless foreigners, and say there was no better people to join. He names Yevamot 79a a third time (Rashi on II Samuel 21:10:1). The estate's own door on the episode is /featured/rizpah.
The war notes close the chapter. At the sixteenth verse he explains the giant's spear case from a comparison in the tractate Zevachim and gives two words of old French for it (Rashi on II Samuel 21:16:1). At the seventeenth he says Abishai helped David with his prayer, naming the chapter Chelek in Sanhedrin (Rashi on II Samuel 21:17:1). At the eighteenth he says this war came before the others and is placed here to gather the deaths of the four sons of Orpah (Rashi on II Samuel 21:18:1). At the twentieth he takes the giant's name from the Targum as a man of measure and works out the root (Rashi on II Samuel 21:20:1).
The nineteenth verse is the sharpest textual problem in the book, because it says Elhanan killed Goliath. Rashi's whole note on the name reads, "Elchonon. Dovid", and the translator's footnote explains the identification from 1 Samuel 17 (Rashi on II Samuel 21:19:1). This site states no verdict on the question here. It is argued in full at /featured/david-and-goliath, and how this material is handled at /featured/reading-rabbinic-sources-as-a-christian.
Metzudat David and Radak carry four refs. The corpus holds them with the reason that Sefaria holds no English version of them, so they stand cited and unquoted. They are Metzudat David on II Samuel 21:3:1 and 21:21:1, and Radak on II Samuel 21:11:1 and 21:15:1.
What the rabbis say
The corpus carries forty rabbinic locators for this chapter and the text of none, so each is cited and linked here rather than quoted. The famine and its cause draw four, Bava Kamma 119a:14, Bamidbar Rabbah 5:3 and 8:4, and Bereshit Rabbah 25:3. The standing of the Gibeonites draws three more, Jerusalem Talmud Kiddushin 4:1:3, Jerusalem Talmud Yevamot 2:4:1 and Midrash Lekach Tov, Genesis 50:17:4. Vayikra Rabbah 22:6 stands on the fifth verse.
The seven sons and the vigil gather the largest run. On the demand at the sixth verse the corpus carries Berakhot 12b:13, Avot DeRabbi Natan, Recension B 43:19 and Ein Yaakov (Glick Edition), Berakhot 1:55. On the sparing of Mephibosheth it carries Yevamot 79a:5 with Ein Yaakov (Glick Edition), Yevamot 8:6 and Ein Yaakov, Yevamot 8:8. On the five sons of the eighth verse it carries Ein Yaakov (Glick Edition), Sanhedrin 2:2, Ein Yaakov, Sanhedrin 2:4 and Midrash Tanchuma Buber, Ki Teitzei 1:1. On the harvest days it carries Tractate Soferim 7:2. On Rizpah's watch it carries Jerusalem Talmud Kiddushin 4:1:8, Ein Yaakov (Glick Edition), Yevamot 8:7 and Ein Yaakov, Yevamot 8:9. On the burial of the bones it carries Midrash Tanchuma, Achrei Mot 7:1, Midrash Tanchuma Buber, Achrei Mot 10:1 and Pesikta DeRav Kahana 26:11.
The Philistine wars close the list. On the battle at the fifteenth verse the corpus carries Bekhorot 45b:1, Aggadat Bereshit 38:3 and Midrash Tanchuma Buber, Vayetzei 8:1. On the giant and his spear it carries Bereshit Rabbah 59:11, Ein Yaakov (Glick Edition), Sanhedrin 11:31 and Introductions to Tanaitic Literature, Introductions to Tractates of the Mishnah, Kelim 463. On Abishai's rescue it carries Midrash Tehillim 7:2 and 18:30, with Otzar Midrashim, Midrash Al Yit'hallel 1:4. On the war at the eighteenth verse it carries Otzar Midrashim, Midrashim on Missing and Extra Letters 1:31. On the nineteenth it carries Ruth Rabbah 2:2 and Ruth Rabbah (Lerner) 2:2:1, which is where the tradition reads the giants back to Orpah. On the man of great measure it carries Midrash Tehillim 18:4, and on the four giants at the last verse, Aggadat Bereshit 60:1 with Ein Yaakov (Glick Edition), Sotah 8:4 and Ein Yaakov, Sotah 8:3. What each of them teaches is a saying of the rabbis, and is reported as theirs wherever this site quotes one. The quotations wait on a fetch that carries the text.
Sources: Rashi, Rashi on II Samuel 21:1:1 to 21:20:1, the Metsudah Tanach series, Lakewood, N.J., CC-BY; Metzudat David, Metzudat David on II Samuel 21:3:1 and 21:21:1, cited by ref because the corpus carries no English text; Radak, Radak on II Samuel 21:11:1 and 21:15:1, cited by ref because the corpus carries no English text; The Babylonian Talmud, Yevamot 79a:5, Berakhot 12b:13, Bava Kamma 119a:14 and Bekhorot 45b:1, with Jerusalem Talmud Kiddushin 4:1:3 and 4:1:8 and Yevamot 2:4:1, cited by locator from the Sefaria corpus for 2 Samuel 21; The Midrash, Bamidbar Rabbah 5:3 and 8:4, Bereshit Rabbah 25:3 and 59:11, Vayikra Rabbah 22:6, Ruth Rabbah 2:2 and Ruth Rabbah (Lerner) 2:2:1, Midrash Tehillim 7:2, 18:4 and 18:30, and Pesikta DeRav Kahana 26:11, cited by locator from the Sefaria corpus for 2 Samuel 21.
The heads below are this chapter's scenes. The numbered points under each are its verses.
Three years of famine and the Gibeonites' price
2 Samuel 21:1-2
for Saul, and for his bloody house: Three years of famine drive David to enquire of the Lord rather than assume a cause, continuing the pattern of a king who asks before he acts. The answer reaches back to Joshua 9, where Israel swore an oath to the Gibeonites and was bound to keep it even though the Gibeonites had gained it by deceit. Saul's zeal against them, an act nowhere else told in Scripture, breaks that sworn oath a generation later, and the guilt falls on the whole land for one king's private violence. The parenthesis in verse 2 names the Gibeonites for what they were, not Israelites but the remnant of the Amorites, spared only by a promise Israel could not honestly break.
2 Samuel 21:1
“There is no note of time whatever, nor any clue as to what part of David’s reign the events of this chapter ought to be assigned. Enquired of the Lord - Hebrew “sought the face of the Lord,” quite a different phrase from that so often used in Judges (e. g. Jdg 1:1) and the Books of Samuel, and probably indicating that this chapter is from a different source; an inference agreeing with the indefinite “in the days of David,” and with the allusion to the slaughter of the Gibeonites, which has not anywhere been narrated.”
2 more voices on this verseWhat preachers and commentators have said about this verse, in their own words.
2 Samuel 21:1
“And indeed that this was done, and Saul's seven sons hanged by David's order before that time, seems to be intimated by that passage, chap. xvi, 8, where he is charged with the blood of the house of Saul: for which there was not the least colour 'till this time.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
2 Samuel 21:1
“The Gibeonites met the children of Israel, and although other nations were slaughtered, they were kept for hewers of wood and drawers of water. And of such value were they in God's eyes that the family of Saul was destroyed for the wrong done to them. Where would you put them? Among the goats? But they were not slain, and they were avenged by the determination of God. Among the sheep? But holy Scripture says they were not of the same merit as the Israelites.”
Jerome · written before 420 · Against Jovinianus 2.33patristic
The Gibeonites were Hivites by descent (Joshua 9:7). Adam Clarke and Albert Barnes take the Amorites here as a name for all the Canaanite peoples. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown read the zeal of Saul for Israel and Judah as a show of the law against the Canaanites, turned to kill the one remnant the Israelites had taken an oath to spare.
2 Samuel 21:2
“The remnant of the Amorites - The Gibeonites were Hivites, not Amorites, as appears from Jos 11:19: but Amorites is a name often given to the Canaanites in general, Gen 15:16; Amo 2:9, and elsewhere.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
2 Samuel 21:3-4
wherewith shall I make the atonement: David treats the famine as guilt requiring atonement rather than a misfortune to wait out, and he leaves the terms to the party that was wronged instead of setting them himself. The Gibeonites refuse silver and gold, for money was never the ancient payment for shed blood, and the law of Numbers 35 forbids ransoming a life for a price. What they ask is not vengeance on the nation but on Saul's own house, and they say so plainly, that no man in Israel besides Saul's line need answer for it. The distinction holds the rest of the chapter together, for this is Saul's house answering for Saul, not Israel punished in Saul's place.
2 Samuel 21:3
“Wherewith shall I make the atonement - It is very strange that a choice of this kind should be left to such a people. Why not ask this of God himself?”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
2 Samuel 21:3
“It is sad for any family or nation to have the prayers of oppressed innocency against them, and therefore the expense of a just restitution is well bestowed for the retrieving of the blessing of those that were ready to perish, Job xxix.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
The Gibeonites need no silver or gold from Saul. Albert Barnes observes that the law of Numbers 35:31-32 forbids silver for blood, so such an offer was usual among the nations. Matthew Henry reads their words to David as a right value on life, for blood calls for blood (Genesis 9:6).
2 Samuel 21:4
“No silver, nor gold ... - Money payments as a compensation for blood-guilt were very common among many nations. The law, too, in Num 35:31-32, presupposes the existence of the custom which it prohibits. In like manner the speech of the Gibeonites implies that such a payment as they refuse would be a not unusual proceeding. Neither ... shalt thou kill any man in Israel - They mean that it is not against the nation of Israel, but against the individual Saul, that they cry for vengeance.”
1 more voice on this verse
2 Samuel 21:4
“Note, Money is no satisfaction for blood, see Num. xxxv. It is the ancient law that blood calls for blood ( Gen. ix. 6 ); and those over-value money and under-value life, that sell the blood of their relations for corruptible things, such as silver and gold.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
2 Samuel 21:5-7
The man that consumed us: The Gibeonites name the offense precisely, a plan to remove them from every part of Israel's land, the same complete destruction Israel itself had once been bound by oath not to bring on them. Seven of Saul's line are handed over to be hanged at Gibeah, Saul's own town, before the Lord, and David grants the number without argument. Verse 7 then draws a line the chapter will not cross: Mephibosheth, Jonathan's son, is spared, and the reason is given in full, the Lord's oath that stood between David and Jonathan. One oath sworn to enemies costs seven lives to keep, and one oath sworn to a friend saves a life from the same reckoning, and the text lets both oaths bind the king equally.
Albert Barnes reads seven as a sacred number, fitting a judicial death meant to answer God's wrath over a broken oath, as at Numbers 25:4. Adam Clarke takes sons to mean grandsons or near kin. Some suppose the seven had helped Saul against Gibeon, and Clarke replies that the text gives no proof of it.
2 Samuel 21:6
“Let seven men of his sons be delivered unto us, and we will hang them up unto the Lord in Gibeah of Saul--The practice of the Hebrews, as of most Oriental nations, was to slay first, and afterwards to suspend on a gibbet, the body not being left hanging after sunset.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
the king spared Mephibosheth: Two men of Saul's house bore this name. Verse 8 names another Mephibosheth, a son of Rizpah, and John Wesley reads son of Jonathan as the mark that keeps the two apart. Albert Barnes adds that the famine caused by Saul's broken oath would make David doubly careful to keep his own, sworn at 1 Samuel 20:15-17.
2 Samuel 21:7
“The Lord’s oath - The calamity brought upon Israel by Saul’s breach of the oath to the Gibeonites would make David doubly careful in the matter of his own oath to Jonathan.”
1 more voice on this verse
2 Samuel 21:7
“Spared - For the Gibeonites desiring only such a number, it was at David's choice whom to spare. Of Jonathan - This is added, to distinguish him from the other Mephibosheth, ver. 8.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
2 Samuel 21:8-9
whom she bare unto Saul, Armoni and Mephibosheth: The seven are named by mother, two sons of Rizpah, Saul's concubine, and five sons of Michal, though Clarke points out that Michal was never given to Adriel and that 1 Samuel 18:19 names her sister Merab as his wife, so the text likely means Michal raised sons she did not bear. Handed to the Gibeonites, all seven are hanged in the hill before the Lord and die together at the start of barley harvest, the same season in which Ruth once gleaned this land. The narrator fixes the date with a precision the rest of the chapter does not need, because the season is about to matter again.
2 Samuel 21:8
“Five sons of Michal - whom she brought up - Michal, Saul’s daughter, was never married to Adriel, but to David, and afterwards to Phaltiel; though it is here said she bore ילדה yaledah, not brought up, as we falsely translate it: but we learn from 1Sa 18:19, that Merab, one of Saul’s daughters, was married to Adriel.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Deuteronomy 21:22-23 required burial the same day. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown hold that the Gibeonites counted themselves outside that law and meant the bodies to hang until God sent rain. Albert Barnes places barley harvest in April, which sets the vigil of verse 10 in the dry months.
2 Samuel 21:9
“In the first days - The barley harvest (about the middle or toward the end of April) was earlier than the wheat harvest Exo 9:31; Rth 1:22.”
Rizpah's sackcloth on the rock, from harvest until rain
2 Samuel 21:10-11
spread it for her upon the rock: Rizpah pitches sackcloth on the bare rock and keeps a vigil the law did not require of her, driving off carrion birds by day and wild animals by night across the months from barley harvest until the autumn rain finally falls. Wesley reads her vigil as evidence the bodies had to stay exposed rather than be buried at once, until God's judgment against the land was answered. Word of her watch reaches David, and Gill reads the report as moving him to compassion rather than offense, since a grieving mother's faithfulness could not be mistaken for a grudge against the throne. One woman's unbroken watch over the dead becomes the reason a king finally remembers the unburied bones of a whole family.
2 Samuel 21:10
“Rizpah - took sackcloth - Who can read the account of Rizpah’s maternal affection for her sons that were now hanged, without feeling his mind deeply impressed with sorrows? Did God require this sacrifice of Saul’s sons, probably all innocent of the alleged crime of their father? Was there no other method of averting the Divine displeasure? Was the requisition of the Gibeonites to have Saul’s sons sacrificed to God, to be considered as an oracle of God? Certainly not; God will not have man’s blood for sacrifice, no more than he will have swine’s blood.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
2 more voices on this verse
2 Samuel 21:10
“Spread it - As a tent to dwell in: being informed that their bodies were not to be taken away speedily, as the course of the law was in ordinary cases, but were to continue there until God was intreated, and removed the present judgment.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
2 Samuel 21:10
“He that is thus left hanged is accursed; therefore ordinary malefactors must not be so abused; but therefore these must, because they were sacrificed, not to the justice of the nation, but for the crime of the nation (no less a crime than the violation of the public faith) and for the deliverance of the nation from no less a judgment than a general famine.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
John Gill says the report told to David may have come from good will or from ill will. The text leaves the motive open. John Wesley reads David as moved by the example of Rizpah to take the bones of Saul and his son Jonathan and bury them at last.
2 Samuel 21:11
“David - Who heard it with so much approbation, that he thought fit to imitate her piety, being by her example provoked to do what hitherto he had neglected, to bestow an honourable interment on the remains of Saul and Jonathan, and, with them, upon those that are now put to death, that the honour done to them herein, might be some comfort to this disconsolate widow.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
2 Samuel 21:12-14
had slain Saul in Gilboa: David finally does what Rizpah's vigil moved him to do, closing a debt owed since Saul's death: he sends for the bones the men of Jabesh-gilead had stolen from the wall of Beth-shan the night after Gilboa, an act of loyalty told in full at 1 Samuel 31:11-13. The bones of the seven who were hanged are gathered too, and all are buried together in the family tomb of Kish at Zelah, in Benjamin's own territory rather than left where the Gibeonites' justice had put them. Clarke notes David may have sent messengers rather than travel the distance himself, since Gill records the route at some fifty miles. The chapter's last clause closes the famine that opened it in one line, after that God was intreated for the land, the oath kept and the guilt answered.
2 Samuel 21:12
“And David went and took the bones of Saul, and the bones of Jonathan his son, from the men of Jabeshgilead,.... Which, according to Bunting (t), was fifty two miles from Jerusalem; though perhaps David did not go thither in person to fetch them, but by his messengers, see 2Sa 21:14, which had stolen them from the street of Bethshan, where the Philistines had hanged them, when the Philistines had slain Saul in Gilboa; the history of all which see in 1Sa 31:8. (t) Travels, &c. p. 122, 143.”
The bones of Saul and Jonathan had lain under an oak at Jabesh, as 1 Chronicles 10:12 records. John Gill suggests the seven had hung so long that their flesh was gone and their bones had dropped to the ground. The months of Rizpah's vigil lie behind this gathering.
2 Samuel 21:13
“And he brought up from thence the bones of Saul, and the bones of Jonathan his son,.... Which had been buried there under an oak, 1Ch 10:12, and they gathered the bones of them that were hanged; the seven sons of Saul, who had been lately hanged; who either had hung so long that their flesh was consumed, and the bones dropped upon the ground, from whence they gathered them; or they took them down and burnt the flesh off of them, and took the bones to bury them, which was not usually done (u). (u) Lipsins de Cruce, l.”
John Wesley ties the answer to their prayers for the land to the death of the seven, which he says pacified God, and places the burial after it. Matthew Henry warns that guilt can pass to a family after the sinner is buried. A like answer closes the book at 24:25.
2 Samuel 21:14
“After that - After those things were done which were before related; that is, after they were hanged up: for by that God was pacified, and not by their burial.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Four giants of Gath, and the lamp of Israel kept burning
2 Samuel 21:15-16
went down, and his servants with him: War with the Philistines resumes, and this time David himself grows faint in the field, an old soldier's admission the text states without embarrassment. Ishbi-benob, one of the giant's line, moves to kill him while he is weakened, carrying a spear of three hundred shekels of brass and armed with a new sword. The threat lands at the point where David is most exposed, worn from decades of exactly this kind of war, the same war that began at Gath a generation earlier with one shepherd and one stone.
2 Samuel 21:15
“David, though old, desired not a writ of ease from the public service, but he went down in person to fight against the Philistines (Senescit, non segnescit -- He grows old, but not indolent ), a sign that he fought not for his own glory (at this age he was loaded with glory, and needed no more), but for the good of his kingdom.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
1 more voice on this verse
2 Samuel 21:15
“This, like the preceding paragraph 2Sa 21:1-14, is manifestly a detached and unconnected extract. It is probably taken from some history of David’s wars, apparently the same as furnished the materials for 2 Sam. 5; 8; 23:8-39. There is no direct clue to the time when the events here related took place, but it was probably quite in the early part of David’s reign, while he was still young and active, after the war described in 2 Sam.”
The word sword is supplied, and Adam Clarke notes that the Hebrew says only that Ishbi-benob was bearing something new when he resolved to kill David. Clarke takes it as new armour, such as mail. Albert Barnes connects this descendant of Rapha with the Rephaim, and he suspects the name Ishbi-benob comes from a corrupt reading.
2 Samuel 21:16
“Being girded with a new sword - As the word sword is not in the original, we may apply the term new to his armor in general; he had got new arms, a new coat of mail, or something that defended him well, and rendered him very formidable: or it may mean a strong or sharp sword.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
quench not the light of Israel: Abishai kills the Philistine before he can kill David, and David's men respond with an oath of their own: he will fight beside them no more. Clarke reads the light of Israel as the lamp by which the whole nation finds its way, so that David's death in a skirmish would leave the kingdom in a darkness he alone had learned to hold back. The oath marks a hinge in the king's own story, the warrior who once ran toward Goliath is now the man his own soldiers must protect from running at all.
2 Samuel 21:17
That thou quench not the light of Israel - David is here considered as the lamp by which all Israel was guided, and without whom all the nation must be involved in darkness. The lamp is the emblem of direction and support. Light is used in this sense by Homer: - Ουδε τι Πατροκλῳ γενομην φαος, αυδ’ ἑταροισι Τοις αλλοις, οἱ δη πολεες δαμεν Ἑκτορι διῳ. Iliad, lib. xviii. ver. 102. “I have neither been a Light to Patroclus nor to his companions, who have been slain by the noble Hector.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
2 Samuel 21:17
“They had easily persuaded him not to fight against Absalom ( ch. xviii. 3 ), but against the Philistines he would go, till, having had this narrow escape, it was resolved in council, and confirmed with an oath, that the light of Israel (its guide and glory, so David was) should never be put again into such hazard of being blown out.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
2 Samuel 21:18-19
Sibbechai the Hushathite slew Saph: Two more giants fall at Gob, one to Sibbechai and one to Elhanan, and the second name carries the chapter's hardest textual question. The King James reads that Elhanan slew the brother of Goliath, with the words the brother of supplied by the translators to close a gap the Hebrew does not fully explain, while 1 Chronicles 20:5 names the man Elhanan killed as Lahmi, Goliath's brother, plainly. Keil and Delitzsch and most of the bench read the Chronicles text as preserving what Samuel's own text lost in copying, while others hold that Goliath was a title borne by more than one champion of Gath. Barnes states the difficulty as plainly as any of them, that the Hebrew text at this point is corrupt, and the chapter itself settles nothing beyond naming both men dead.
2 Samuel 21:18
“A battle - at Gob - Instead of Gob, several editions, and about forty of Kennicott’s and De Rossi’s MSS., have Nob; but Gezer is the name in the parallel place, 1Ch 20:4.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
In the battle at Gob the Hebrew gives Jaare-oregim as the father of Elhanan, and Albert Barnes explains that oregim, the word for weaver, slipped in from the line below. The Berean text reads Jair and the brother of Goliath the Gittite, as 1 Chronicles 20:5 does. Adam Clarke calls it a copyist's error.
2 Samuel 21:19
“The Hebrew text is manifestly very corrupt. First, for “Jaare-oregim,” 1Ch 20:5 gives us the reading Jair. “Oregim” has evidently got in by a transcriber’s error from the line below, where “oregim” is the Hebrew for “weavers.” Again, the word the “Bethlehemite” is very doubtful.”
2 Samuel 21:20-21
on every hand six fingers: A third giant appears at Gath itself, a man of great stature with six fingers on each hand and six toes on each foot, twenty-four in all, and the text says plainly he also was born to the giant, the same phrase used of the others in this section. Jonathan, son of David's brother Shimea, kills him when he defies Israel, the same verb Goliath used at 1 Samuel 17:10 and the same word David answered there. Clarke notes the trait recurs elsewhere in later history and is not unique to this family, but the text's own interest is not the anatomy. It is that four such men stood against Israel in one generation, all out of Gath, the town Joshua had left unconquered at Joshua 11:22.
2 Samuel 21:20
“On every hand six fingers - This is not a solitary instance: Tavernier informs us that the eldest son of the emperor of Java, who reigned in 1648, had six fingers on each hand, and six toes on each foot. And Maupertuis, in his seventeenth letter, says that he met with two families near Berlin, where sedigitism was equally transmitted on both sides of father and mother.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
David's brother appears as Shammah at 1 Samuel 16:9 and as Shimma at 1 Chronicles 2:13. John Gill distinguishes this Jonathan from his brother Jonadab of 2 Samuel 13:3. One son was known for cunning, the other for courage.
2 Samuel 21:21
“And when he defied Israel,.... The armies of Israel, as Goliath had done some years ago, 1Sa 17:10, Jonathan the son of Shimea the brother of David slew him; this brother of David is called Shammah, 1Sa 16:9; and Shimma, 1Ch 2:13; this son of his is another man from Jonadab his son, who was famous for his subtlety as this was for his valour, 2Sa 13:3. The Jews say (d) this was Nathan the prophet, a son of Shammah. (d) Hieron. Trad. Heb. fol. 76. D.”
fell by the hand of David: The chapter closes a count that opened at Gath a generation before: four men born to the giant, and all four now fallen, one by David's own hand at the valley of Elah and three by the hands of his servants here. Henry reads the pairing as deliberate, David began his conquest with one giant and this record closes it with four, the hardest enemies kept for the last conflict. The line of Anakim left in Gath at Joshua 11:22 runs through Goliath to these four and ends in this verse, the last giants named in the historical books.
2 Samuel 21:22
“Four - Not necessarily meaning that they were brothers, but that they were all of the race of the Giant, all Rephaim. The word “four” is omitted in the parallel passage, only the three last being mentioned in that chapter.”
How this psalm is built
The form: Narrative, two panels of the book's closing appendix, a bloodguilt account and a war record, joined by no date, as Samuel classes it.
The patterns in this chapter
| Device | What it does | Where to see it |
|---|---|---|
| Two oaths that bind the king equally | Verse 6 and verse 7 stand together and answer each other. An oath sworn to the Gibeonites in Joshua's day costs seven of Saul's line their lives, because David will not set it aside. An oath sworn between David and Jonathan saves Mephibosheth from the same reckoning in the next verse, and the reason is given in full. The chapter lets both oaths hold the king with the same force, and it does not rank them.Jamieson, Fausset and Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible, on 2 Samuel 21:5 to 7, as the published exposition of this chapter reports them. | 2 Samuel 21:6, 2 Samuel 21:7 |
| Born to the giant in Gath | The same phrase closes each of the four short war paragraphs at verses 15 to 22. It is used of Ishbi-benob at verse 16, of the man with six fingers and six toes at verse 20, and then of all of them together in the summary at verse 22. The repetition is what makes the section a count rather than four unrelated skirmishes. Where an English version reads the giant, the Hebrew carries a definite form that reads as a named forebear rather than a description.This site's published dossier for 2 Samuel, src/components/book/dossier-content/2-samuel.ts, the difficulties section, "Who were the sons of the giant in Gath?". | 2 Samuel 21:16, 2 Samuel 21:18, 2 Samuel 21:20, 2 Samuel 21:22 |
| The famine opened and the famine answered | The first panel of the chapter begins and ends on the same subject in the same few words. Verse 1 opens with a famine of three years and a king who enquires of the LORD rather than assume a cause. Verse 14 closes with the bones buried in Kish's tomb and one clause, that after that God was entreated for the land. Everything between the two is what it took to answer the first sentence.Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible, on 2 Samuel 21:12 to 14, as the published exposition of this chapter reports him. | 2 Samuel 21:1, 2 Samuel 21:14 |
| The seven named by their mothers | Verses 8 and 9 do not give a number alone. They name two sons of Rizpah, Saul's concubine, and five sons raised in the household of Saul's daughter, and they name the man those five were given to. The naming is what makes the next scene possible, since a reader who has been told whose sons they are can follow one of those mothers onto the rock at verse 10.Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible, on 2 Samuel 21:8 to 9, as the published exposition of this chapter reports him. | 2 Samuel 21:8, 2 Samuel 21:9 |
The debated readings
8 more paragraphs on the patterns
This chapter carries more contested points per verse than any other in the book, and the site has already argued three of them on their own pages.
Who killed Goliath, at verse 19. This is the sharpest textual problem in 2 Samuel. The verse says that Elhanan killed Goliath the Gittite, and 1 Samuel 17 says David did. The parallel at 1 Chronicles 20:5 names the man Elhanan killed as Lahmi, Goliath's brother. Keil and Delitzsch and most of the bench read the Chronicles text as preserving what Samuel's own text lost in copying. The Hebrew consonants behind the two readings are close enough that a copyist's eye accounts for the difference. Others hold that Goliath was a title borne by more than one champion of Gath. Targum Jonathan renders the verse of David himself under another name. Albert Barnes states the difficulty as plainly as any of them, that the Hebrew text at this point is corrupt. The chapter settles nothing beyond naming both men dead, and this row settles nothing either. The argument in full is at /featured/david-and-goliath.
How seven could be executed for Saul's crime, at verses 5 to 9. Set against Deuteronomy 24:16, which says that children are not put to death for their fathers, this reads as a direct breach. The traditional reading, held by Keil and Delitzsch among others, is that Deuteronomy governs the ordinary court while the Gibeonite claim answers a sworn national covenant violated by the crown. A second reading notes that the text records no divine instruction to hand over the seven. It adds that the divine answer comes only after the vigil and the burial at verses 12 to 14, and that this narrator elsewhere reports royal acts he plainly does not approve. Adam Clarke presses the question further still, asking directly whether the hanging was truly required of God, and saying plainly that God does not require man's blood for sacrifice. John Wesley and Matthew Henry read the act as a lawful national sacrifice rather than as ordinary punishment. All four positions are named here and none is decided. The page is at /featured/rizpah.
Michal or Merab, at verse 8. The verse names five sons of Saul's daughter given to Adriel. Adam Clarke points out that Michal was never given to Adriel, and that 1 Samuel 18:19 names her sister Merab as his wife. The likeliest reading is that Michal raised sons she did not bear. The published exposition of this chapter carries the point, and the drafted judgment file records it as one of three textual problems in this one chapter.
Gob or Nob, at verse 18. The place where Sibbechai killed Saph stands in the witnesses under two names. The drafted judgment file records the variant as kept rather than resolved, and this row keeps it the same way.
The historical value
The chapter is unusually well anchored for an undated extract. The oath it turns on is recorded at Joshua 9, and the parenthesis at verse 2 names the Gibeonites as the remnant of the Amorites, spared by a promise Israel could not honestly break. The four giants belong to Gath, which is one of the three cities where Joshua 11:22 records Anakim still remaining after the conquest. The burial at verse 14 closes an account opened at 1 Samuel 31:11 to 13.
The text of Samuel itself is part of the historical evidence here. The dossier's manuscripts section records that Samuel is the book where the Masoretic tradition shows more copying damage than most. Short gaps and hard readings cluster here in a way they do not in the Torah. Verse 19 is the clearest example in the book. 4QSamuel-a from Qumran Cave 4 is dated about 50 to 25 BC. It repeatedly agrees with the Greek against the Masoretic Text, and it showed that many Septuagint readings in Samuel translate a genuine Hebrew text.
Keep studying
Studies5
Places1
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 context
Chuck Missler, Learn the Bible in 24 Hours and Michael Heiser, The Unseen Realm.
The form and classifications
Albert Barnes and John Wesley, Notes on the Old Testament and Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament, at 2 Samuel 21:1 and again at 21:15, as the drafted judgment file data/commentary/2-samuel-21-judgment.json records them; This site's published dossier for 2 Samuel, src/components/book/dossier-content/2-samuel.ts, the chiasms section, "The appendix (21-24), a six-part ring" and This site's published guide to 2 Samuel, src/components/book/guides/2-samuel/Book2SamuelGuide.tsx, act III, "The Appendix: a Chiasm, Not a Scrap-Heap" at 21:1 to 24:25, the beat for chapter 21.
The exposition
Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; Albert Barnes; Jamieson Fausset and Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; John Gill; John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament; Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Books of Samuel and Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible.