1 Chronicles 20

In the spring, at the time of year when kings march out to war, Joab led out the army. He ruined the land of the Ammonites, then came and surrounded the city of Rabbah to cut it off. But David stayed in Jerusalem. Joab attacked Rabbah and tore it down.

1And it came to pass, that after the year was expired, at the time that kings go out to battle, Joab led forth the power of the army, and wasted the country of the children of Ammon, and came and besieged Rabbah. But David tarried at Jerusalem. And Joab smote Rabbah, and destroyed it.

Note"In the spring" is literally "at the turn of the year." Ancient armies campaigned after the winter rains stopped: roads were passable, and the new harvest meant food could be found in the field. Rabbah was the Ammonite capital, on the site of modern Amman in Jordan; the Ammonites lived east of the Jordan River and were long-standing rivals of Israel. The detail that David stayed behind is where the parallel account in 2 Samuel 11 places the episode with Bathsheba and Uriah, which Chronicles does not include.

2David took the crown off the head of their king. It was found to weigh a talent of gold, and it had precious stones set in it. The crown was placed on David's head. He also carried a huge amount of plunder out of the city.

2And David took the crown of their king from off his head, and found it to weigh a talent of gold, and there were precious stones in it; and it was set upon David’s head: and he brought also exceeding much spoil out of the city.

NoteA talent was roughly 75 pounds (about 34 kilograms), far too heavy to wear for any length of time, so the weight is being given as a measure of value, or the crown was held above David's head rather than worn. The Hebrew behind "their king" (malkam) can equally be read as the name Milcom, the chief god of the Ammonites, in which case the crown was taken from an idol's head rather than a man's. Both readings are old and neither can be ruled out.

3He brought out the people who were in the city and set them to labor with saws, iron picks, and axes. David did the same thing to all the Ammonite cities. Then David and all his troops went back to Jerusalem.

3And he brought out the people that were in it, and cut them with saws, and with harrows of iron, and with axes. Even so dealt David with all the cities of the children of Ammon. And David and all the people returned to Jerusalem.

NoteThe Hebrew here is disputed. The consonants can be read as "he sawed them" (a form of execution) or "he set them to saws" (forced labor with the tools named). The parallel verse in 2 Samuel 12:31 has the same ambiguity. Older English versions, including the King James, took it as mutilation; most modern translations take it as conscripted labor.

4Some time after this, war broke out with the Philistines at Gezer. In that battle Sibbecai from Hushah killed Sippai, who was a descendant of Rapha, and the Philistines were beaten down.

4And it came to pass after this, that there arose war at Gezer with the Philistines; at which time Sibbechai the Hushathite slew Sippai, that was of the children of the giant: and they were subdued.

NoteGezer was a fortified town in the lowlands on the border between Israelite and Philistine territory, controlling a main road. The Philistines were a people settled along the coastal plain southwest of Israel, organized around five cities, and Israel's principal military rival in this period. "Rapha" (plural Rephaim) is the name of a people remembered in Israelite tradition as unusually large; the King James renders it simply "the giant," but the Hebrew is a proper name or clan name, not a description.

5There was war with the Philistines again, and Elhanan son of Jair killed Lahmi, the brother of Goliath from Gath. The shaft of Lahmi's spear was as thick as the wooden beam on a weaver's loom.

5And 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.

NoteThe parallel verse at 2 Samuel 21:19 says Elhanan killed "Goliath the Gittite", not Goliath's brother. Chronicles either preserves an older reading or resolves the clash with the famous account of David and Goliath in 1 Samuel 17. Scholars have argued both ways. "Gittite" means a man from Gath. A weaver's beam was the thick wooden roller on an upright loom; comparing a spear shaft to one was a stock way of saying it was enormous.

6There was still another battle, at Gath. A very tall man was there who had six fingers on each hand and six toes on each foot, twenty-four in all. He too was a descendant of Rapha.

6And yet again there was war at Gath, where was a man of great stature, whose fingers and toes were four and twenty, six on each hand, and six on each foot and he also was the son of the giant.

NoteGath was one of the five main Philistine cities and, in 1 Samuel 17, Goliath's home town. Six fingers and six toes (polydactyly) is a real and inherited trait; the writer records it as a distinguishing mark of this family, alongside the man's height.

7When that man mocked and challenged Israel, Jonathan killed him. Jonathan was the son of Shimea, David's brother.

7But when he defied Israel, Jonathan the son of Shimea David’s brother slew him.

NoteShimea is a variant spelling of Shammah, one of David's older brothers (1 Samuel 16:9), so Jonathan is David's nephew. To "defy" or taunt Israel, as the King James puts it, describes a formal battlefield challenge, a champion insulting the opposing army to provoke single combat, exactly as Goliath does in 1 Samuel 17.

8These men were born to Rapha's line in Gath, and they died at the hands of David and his men.

8These were born unto the giant in Gath; and they fell by the hand of David, and by the hand of his servants.

Note"Born unto the giant" translates a phrase meaning born to Rapha, treating Rapha as the ancestor of a lineage rather than as one individual. The short list in verses 4–8 functions as a record of Israel's warriors who ended that line, crediting the kills both to the named men and to David as the king under whom they served.