Catholic Commentary
Four Giants Slain by David's Champions
18After this, there was again war with the Philistines at Gob. Then Sibbecai the Hushathite killed Saph, who was of the sons of the giant.19There was again war with the Philistines at Gob, and Elhanan the son of Jaare-Oregim the Bethlehemite killed Goliath the Gittite’s brother, the staff of whose spear was like a weaver’s beam.20There was again war at Gath, where there was a man of great stature, who had six fingers on every hand and six toes on every foot, twenty-four in number, and he also was born to the giant.21When he defied Israel, Jonathan the son of Shimei, David’s brother, killed him.22These four were born to the giant in Gath; and they fell by the hand of David and by the hand of his servants.
2 Samuel 21:18–22 recounts four separate battles in which David's warriors defeat giant Philistines descended from the Rephaim, demonstrating that the oversized warrior-peoples who once threatened Israel fall before the champions of the LORD. Though David does not fight directly, his kingship empowers his servants to achieve victory, establishing a theological model of representative strength through which the king rules and protects his nation.
The final giants fall not in one epic duel but through repeated, unglamorous strikes by David's nameless warriors — the pattern of spiritual victory in a Christian life.
Commentary
2 Samuel 21:18 — Sibbecai kills Saph at Gob. The phrase "After this" signals that we are reading a collection of war-memories grouped by theme rather than strict chronology (cf. the parallel in 1 Chr 20:4–8). "Gob" is otherwise unknown; the Chronicler substitutes "Gezer," likely a scribal variant or the same general region. Sibbecai the Hushathite appears in David's list of mighty men (2 Sam 23:27; 1 Chr 11:29), one of the "Thirty," and here earns the honor of opening the catalogue. His victim, Saph (called Sippai in 1 Chr 20:4), is identified as one of "the sons of the giant" (Hebrew: yaldê hārāpāh) — a term pointing to the Rephaim, the ancient race of oversized warrior-peoples whose presence in Canaan is documented from the time of Abraham (Gen 14:5) and Moses (Deut 3:11). The matter-of-fact brevity of Saph's end — he is named, identified, and eliminated in a single clause — reflects the literary rhythm of the whole passage: these once-terrifying figures fall quickly before Israel's men of God.
2 Samuel 21:19 — Elhanan kills Goliath's brother at Gob. This verse has generated enormous critical discussion because of an apparent contradiction with 1 Sam 17, where David himself kills Goliath. The Chronicler resolves the tension explicitly: "Elhanan the son of Jair killed Lahmi the brother of Goliath" (1 Chr 20:5), indicating that the 2 Samuel text suffered a scribal compression in transmission — "Lahmi the brother of" was accidentally dropped, leaving the sentence ambiguous. The detail of the spear-staff "like a weaver's beam" is shared verbatim with 1 Sam 17:7's description of Goliath himself, strongly suggesting that "Goliath" here is a clan or title designation, or that the family wielded identically outfitted weapons as a mark of their warrior identity. In either case, the weaver's-beam spear is a vivid synecdoche for brute, oversized power — the kind of force that ought to be overwhelming but is not, before a champion of the LORD.
2 Samuel 21:20 — The six-fingered giant of Gath. The third adversary is unnamed, which may be deliberate: his monstrousness is his only identity. Polydactyly — six fingers and six toes, twenty-four in total — is here presented not as a curiosity but as a marker of otherness, of something that has overstepped the boundaries of created order. The number twenty-four will resonate for alert readers: twenty-four elders surround the throne in Revelation (Rev 4:4), but here the count marks a creature of chaos. "Born to the giant" (yullad lārāpāh) repeats the phrase of verse 18, binding the four accounts into a unified genealogy of menace. Gath, named now for the first time in the cluster, is the hometown of the original Goliath (1 Sam 17:4) and a persistent center of Philistine opposition to Israel throughout 1–2 Samuel.
2 Samuel 21:21 — Jonathan son of Shimei kills the giant. Jonathan is David's nephew (Shimei/Shimeah is David's brother, cf. 1 Sam 16:9; 1 Chr 2:13). The verb "defied" (ḥārap) is the same word used of Goliath taunting Israel for forty days in 1 Sam 17:10, 25, 26, 36, 45 — a deliberate echo anchoring this entire passage to the foundational Goliath narrative. The pattern insists: the spirit that moved Goliath to taunt the armies of the living God reappears again and again, and again and again it is met by a man of Israel armed with the LORD's strength.
2 Samuel 21:22 — Summary: they fell by the hand of David and his servants. The closing summary is theologically precise. Four giants, four victories — the number four in Hebrew literature often signals totality and completeness. More significantly, the victories are attributed jointly to David and his servants: David does not personally fight any of these battles (he is explicitly protected from combat in 21:17), yet his kingship is the organizing source of his warriors' power. The king fights through his champions; the champions fight in the king's name. This structure of vicarious, representative victory will become a theological template of enormous importance.
Catholic Commentary
Catholic tradition reads this passage within the great arc of Genesis 3:15 — the promise that the offspring of the woman will crush the head of the serpent. The Rephaim (giants) function in the Old Testament as embodiments of the primordial chaos-power that opposes God's people and God's land. St. Augustine, in The City of God (XV.23), addresses the giants of antiquity as symbols of the pride that inflates itself against God — "the proud, who seek earthly dominance" — and notes that their defeat is always a divine work, not merely a human one.
The structure of verse 22 — "they fell by the hand of David and his servants" — is typologically rich from a Catholic perspective. The Catechism teaches that Christ, the new and eternal King-Priest, does not act in isolation but incorporates His Body, the Church, into His redemptive action (CCC §§787–795). David's warriors are extensions of the royal power they serve; similarly, the Church shares in Christ's definitive victory over sin and death not as a passive recipient but as an active participant. Pope St. John Paul II drew on precisely this theme in Christifideles Laici (§14), describing the lay faithful as warriors in the spiritual combat of the Kingdom.
St. Thomas Aquinas (STh II-II, q. 123, a. 1) identifies fortitude as the virtue that "strengthens the soul against the greatest dangers," and names battle as its paradigmatic context. The four champions here display precisely this infused fortitude — each one presses into mortal contest against an apparently superior foe and prevails, not by their own stature, but by standing under the authority of a legitimate king. For Catholics, this points directly to the sacramental and ecclesial context of spiritual warfare: we fight not alone but as members of the Body, under the headship of Christ the King.
For Today
Contemporary Catholics often experience spiritual opposition as something monolithic and overwhelming — an addiction that keeps returning, a cultural pressure that never relents, a besetting sin that wears the face of Goliath. This passage insists that such enemies do not fall in a single dramatic confrontation but in a series of unglamorous, repeated engagements: four battles, four champions, no fanfare. Sibbecai, Elhanan, and Jonathan are not the heroes of the story — David is barely present — yet their fidelity and courage accomplish the mission.
This is a pattern Catholics can concretely inhabit. The Sacrament of Confession is precisely this kind of repeated, unglamorous engagement: returning again and again to strike down the same giants that reassemble themselves in our lives. The Rosary is a weaver's beam wielded in intercession. Parish life, family prayer, works of mercy — these are the "servants of David" through whom the victory of Christ is enacted in history. The passage also challenges any spirituality of individualism: these men fight as part of David's covenant community, identified by his name and authority. We do not fight alone; we fight as members of the Church, in the name of Christ the King.
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