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LXX 2 Samuel

Septuagint

About this book
Chapter 21

1 And there was a famine in the days of David three years, year after year; and David sought the face of the Lord. And the Lord said, There is guilt upon Saul and his house because of his bloody murder, in that he killed the Gibeonites. 2 And King David called the Gibeonites, and said to them; (now the Gibeonites are not the children of Israel, but are of the remnant of the Amorite, and the children of Israel had sworn to them: but Saul sought to strike them in his zeal for the children of Israel and Judah.) 3 And David said to the Gibeonites, What shall I do to you? and with what shall I make atonement, that you may bless the inheritance of the Lord? 4 And the Gibeonites said to him, We have no question about silver or gold with Saul and with his house; and there is no man for us to put to death in Israel. And he said, What do you say? speak, and I will do it for you. 5 And they said to the king, The man who would have made an end of us, and persecuted us, who plotted against us to destroy us, let us utterly destroy him, so that he shall have no standing in all the borders of Israel. 6 Let one give us seven men of his sons, and let us hang them up in the sun to the Lord in Gibeon of Saul, as chosen out for the Lord. And the king said, I will give them. 7 But the king spared Mephibosheth son of Jonathan the son of Saul, because of the oath of the Lord that was between them, even between David and Jonathan the son of Saul. 8 And the king took the two sons of Rizpah the daughter of Aiah, whom she bore to Saul, Armoni and Mephibosheth, and the five sons of Michal daughter of Saul, whom she bore to Azriel son of Barzillai the Meholathite. 9 And he gave them into the hand of the Gibeonites, and they hanged them up to the sun in the mountain before the Lord: and they fell, even the seven together: moreover they were put to death in the days of harvest at the commencement, in the beginning of barley harvest. 10 And Rizpah the daughter of Aiah took sackcloth, and fixed it for herself on the rock in the beginning of barley harvest, until water dropped upon them out of heaven: and she did not allow the birds of the air to rest upon them by day, nor the beasts of the field by night. 11 And it was told David what Rizpah the daughter of Aiah the concubine of Saul had done, and they were faint, and Dan, the son of Joah of the offspring of the giants overtook them. 12 And David went and took the bones of Saul, and the bones of Jonathan his son, from the men of the sons of Jabesh Gilead, who stole them from the street of Beth Shan; for the Philistines set them there in the day in which the Philistines struck Saul in Gilboa. 13 And he carried up from there the bones of Saul and the bones of Jonathan his son, and gathered the bones of those who had been hanged. 14 And they buried the bones of Saul and the bones of Jonathan his son, and the bones of those who had been hanged, in the land of Benjamin in the hill, in the tomb of Kish his father; and they did all things that the king commanded: and after this God listened to the prayers of the land. 15 And there was yet war between the Philistines and Israel: and David went down and his servants with him, and they fought with the Philistines, and David grew faint. 16 And Ishbi, who was of the progeny of Rapha, and the head of whose spear was three hundred shekels of brass in weight, who also had a club fastened about him, even he thought to strike David. 17 And Abishai the son of Zeruiah helped him and struck the Philistine, and killed him. Then the men of David swore, saying, You shall not any longer go out with us to battle, and you shall not quench the lamp of Israel. 18 And after this there was a battle again with the Philistines in Gath: then Sibbekai the Hushathite killed Saph of the progeny of Rapha. 19 And there was a battle in Gob with the Philistines; and Elhanan son of Jaare-Oregim the Bethlehemite killed Goliath the Gittite;⁠ and the staff of his spear was as a weaver's beam. 20 And there was yet a battle in Gath: and there was a man of stature, and the fingers of his hands and the toes of his feet were six on each, four and twenty in number: and he also was born to Rapha. 21 And he defied Israel, and Jonathan son of Shimei brother of David, struck him. 22 These four were born descendants of the giants in Gath, the family of Rapha; and they fell by the hand of David, and by the hand of his servants.

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Did David or Elhanan Kill Goliath?

Hebrew Bible · Septuagint

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Summary

2 Samuel 21 says Elhanan killed Goliath, which conflicts with 1 Samuel 17 where David kills him. 1 Chronicles resolves this by saying Elhanan killed Goliath’s brother, and the Greek Septuagint harmonizes them by removing details from 1 Samuel.

Passages

2 Samuel 21:19

Hebrew Bible
18 Later there was another battle with the Philistines, this time in Gob. On that occasion Sibbekai the Hushathite killed Saph, who was one of the descendants of Rapha. 19 Yet another battle occurred with the Philistines in Gob. On that occasion Elhanan the son of Jair the Bethlehemite killed the brother of Goliath the Gittite, the shaft of whose spear was like a weaver’s beam. 20 Yet another battle occurred in Gath. On that occasion there was a large man who had six fingers on each hand and six toes on each foot, twenty-four in all! He too was a descendant of Rapha.
600–501 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in 2 Samuel

LXX 2 Samuel 21:19

Septuagint
18 And after this there was a battle again with the Philistines in Gath: then Sibbekai the Hushathite killed Saph of the progeny of Rapha. 19 And there was a battle in Gob with the Philistines; and Elhanan son of Jaare-Oregim the Bethlehemite killed Goliath the Gittite; and the staff of his spear was as a weaver's beam. 20 And there was yet a battle in Gath: and there was a man of stature, and the fingers of his hands and the toes of his feet were six on each, four and twenty in number: and he also was born to Rapha.
100–1 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in LXX 2 Samuel

References

"... What is unusual about the LXX translation to 1 Samuel 17-18 is the way in which the text was reworked: unlike the Masoretic text, it was not harmonized by means of explanatory additions; instead, it was boldly and thoroughly abridged. Although such a reworking might appear highly irregular, an examination of its components makes it quite understandable. Drastic interventions for the sake of harmonization are extant in the Book of Chronicles. 1 Chronicles 20:5 relates that Elhanan son of Ya‘or killed “Lahmi the brother of Goliath the Gittite”, thereby removing the contradiction between our story and the passage in 2 Samuel 21:19, which attributes the victory over Goliath to Elhanan of Ya‘re the Bethlehemite. And one by one, 1 Chronicles 21 does away with the three contradictions found in the story of the pestilence in 2 Samuel 24. First it deals with the duration of the plague, then the way in which it was halted, and finally the reason why Araunah’s threshing floor was consecrated as a place of worship. Chronicles also shows examples of drastic abridgement: it omits the entire reign of Ish-boshet (2 Samuel 1-4) and the scandals at David’s court (2 Samuel 9-20), all in order to enhance David’s image. What is new about the shorter version of 1 Samuel 17-18 is neither that it was harmonized nor that it was abridged, but that here, the two processes went hand in hand: the harmonization was achieved by means of a comprehensive abridgement. This sort of phenomenon should not be considered a completely unreasonable freak occurrence in scripture, and we may safely reach the conclusion that the mt is closer to the original, whereas the shorter LXX version consists of a later abridgement. From all indications, what was abridged was a Hebrew text which later became the vorlage of the Greek translator ..."
Alexander Rofé, David Overcomes Goliath (1 Samuel 17): Genre, Text, Origin, and Message of the Story (Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 2015), 66–100.

References are not endorsements of their contents. Read each reference in full to understand its author's intentions in using these texts.

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2 Samuel 21:19 and LXX 2 Samuel 21:19

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