1 Chronicles 20:5

20:1-8 David's wars. - Though the Lord will severely correct the sins of his believing people, he will not leave them in the hands of their enemies. His assistance will overcome all advantages of number and strength of those that defy his Israel. All that trust in Christ, shall be made more than conquerors through him that loveth them.

Verse 5. - Elhanan the son of Jair . In Samuel Jair appears as Jaare. This Elhanan is probably different from him of 1 Chronicles 11:26 . There is a strange confusion in the reading of this and its parallel verse. If our present verse is to stand corrected by accepting from its parallel "the Bethlehemite" in place of our Lamhi , then either we have no name given for the brother of Goliath, the Gittite; or, if we drop the word "brother" (changing the אֲחי of Chronicles into the אֵת of Samuel), and make Goliath the Gittite the man slain by Elhanan, then of such a Goliath we know nothing, and it is a most unlikely coincidence of name with the conquered of David's sling.. Kennicott's seventy-eighth dissertation is occupied, and ably, with the pros and cons of this question; and the curiosities of Jerome on the passage may be found in his 'Quaestiones Hebraicae.' There seems no sufficient reason to depart from our reading here, to which it were preferable to adjust the reading in the parallel place, which exhibits almost certainly a glaring corruption of text in another respect. 1 Chronicles 20:5

5 . Elhanan … slew Lahmi the brother of Goliath ] In 2 Samuel 21:19 Elhanan … the Beth-lehemite slew Goliath (R.V.). The difference between the two sentences in Heb. is very small, and the Chronicler, or any copyist, might feel that he was making a certain emendation in substituting the brother of Goliath for Goliath himself, who, according to 1 Samuel 17, was slain by David before he became king. But it is not certain that there is a discrepancy between 2 Samuel 21 and 1 Samuel 17, for Goliath may be, not a personal name, but a descriptive title of some kind; e.g. “Goliath the Gittite” might mean “the Gittite champion.” “Tartan,” “Rabsaris” and “Rabshakeh” ( 2 Kings 18:17 ) were once taken as proper names, but are now known to be descriptions of Assyrian officers. whose spear staff ) R.V. the staff of whose spear .

(5) There was war again. —Samuel adds, “in Gob.” The proper name is probably a transcriber’s repetition; the Syriac and Arabic there are without it. Elhanan the son of Jair slew Lahmi the brother of Goliath the Gittite.—The Hebrew text and LXX. of Samuel have the very different statement: “And Elhanan son of Jaare-oregim the Bethlehemite slew Goliath the Gittite.” There are good critics who maintain that we must recognise here a proof that popular traditions fluctuated between David and the less famous hero Elhanan as slayer of Goliath: an uncertainty, supposed to be faithfully reflected in the two accounts preserved by the compiler of Samuel (1 Samuel 17; 2Samuel 21:19). Other not less competent scholars believe that the text of Samuel should be corrected from the Chronicles. As regards the name Jaarê-oregim (forests of weavers—an absurdity), this is plausible. Whether we proceed further in the same direction must depend on the general view we take of the chronicler’s relation to the Books of Samuel. It is easy, but hardly satisfactory, to allege that he felt the difficulty, which every modern reader must feel, and altered the text accordingly. The real question is whether he has done this arbitrarily, or upon the evidence of another document than his MS. of Samuel. Now, it is fair to say that (1) hitherto we have observed no signs of arbitrary alteration; (2) we have had abundant proof that the chronicler actually possessed other sources besides Samuel.

There is no apparent reason why “Lahmi” (i.e., Lahmijah) should not be a nomen individui. (Comp. Assyrian Lahmû, the name of a god, Tablet I., Creation Series.) It is, however, quite possible that Elhanan is another, and, in fact, the original name of David. The appellative David. “the beloved” (comp. Dido), may have gradually supplanted the old Elhanan in the popular memory. Solomon we know was at first named Jodidiah, and it is highly probable that the true designation of the first king of Israel has been lost, the name Saul (“the asked”) having been given in allusion to the fact that the people had ashed for a king. We may compare, besides, the double names Jehoahaz-Shallum, Mattaniah-Zedekiah, and perhaps Uzziah-Azariah. The Targum on Samuel partly supports this suggestion (see the Note there). I would add that Jaare in Hebrew writing is an easy corruption of Jesse; so that the original reading of 2Samuel 21:19 may have been, “And Elhanan the son of Jesse the Bethlehemite, slew Goliath,” &c. In that case, the reading of Chronicles must be considered an unsuccessful emendation, due probably to the compiler whose work the chronicler followed.

The events recorded in these three chapters are all narrated in the second book of Samuel also, and in the same order. First, there are grouped together in our 18th chapter, and in 2 Samuel 8 , in such a manner as to afford a general view of the whole, all the wars which David carried on victoriously against all his enemies round about in the establishment of the Israelitish rule, with a short statement of the results, followed by a catalogue of David's chief public officials. In 1 Chronicles 19 and in 2 Samuel 10 we have a more detailed account of the arduous war against the Ammonites and Syrians, and in 1 Chronicles 20:1-3 and 2 Samuel 12:26-31 the conclusion of the war with the capture of Rabbah, the capital of the Ammonites; and finally, in 1 Chronicles 20:4-8 , we have a few short accounts of the victories of the Israelitish heroes over giants from the land of the Philistines, which are inserted in 2 Samuel 21:18-22 as a supplement to the last section of David's history. Apart from this last section, which is to be regarded even in the Chronicle as an appendix, we find the arrangement and succession of the events to be the same in both books, since the sections which in 2 Samuel 9:1-13 and 2 Samuel 11:1-12 , 2 Samuel 11:25 , stand between the histories of the wars, contain sketches of David's family life, which the author of the Chronicle has, in accordance with his plan, omitted.

Even as to individual details the two narratives are perfectly agreed, the divergences being inconsiderable; and even these, in so far as they are original, and are not results of careless copying, - as, for instance, the omission of the word נציבים, 1 Chronicles 18:6 , as compared with 1 Chronicles 18:13 and 2 Samuel 8:6 , and the difference in the numbers and names in 1 Chronicles 18:4 , 1 Chronicles 18:8 , as compared with 2 Samuel 4:4 , 2 Samuel 4:8 , are, - partly mere explanations of obscure expressions, partly small additions or abridgments. For the commentary, therefore, we may refer to the remarks on 2nd Samuel, where the divergences of the Chronicle from the record in Samuel are also dealt with. With 1 Chronicles 18:1-13 cf. 2 Samuel 8:1-14 ; and with the register of public officials, 2 Samuel 18:14-17 , cf. 2 Samuel 8:15-18 . Examples of paraphrastic explanation are found in 1 Chronicles 18:1, where the figurative expression, David took the bridle of the mother out of the hands of the Philistines, i.e., deprived them of the hegemony, is explained by the phrase, David took Gath and her cities out of the hands of the Philistines, i.e., took from the Philistines the capital with her daughter cities; and in 1 Chronicles 18:17, כּהנים is rendered by, the first at the king's hand.