SUMMARY
David’s mighty men finish the task that David began decades earlier, and kill the last of the giants that inhabited Canaan.
ANALYSIS
David had picked up five smooth stones before going to kill Goliath with one of them. This section of Scripture tells about the killing of Goliath’s four remaining relatives at the hands of David’s warriors. The Israelites had encountered giants while spying on the land during their wilderness wanderings. It was the sight of the giants that disinclined the Israelites to try to conquer the land of Canaan, and led to the 40 years of wilderness wandering (Numbers 13-14). According to the narrative timeline, hundreds of years later, the last of the Gath giants are killed.
One textual difficulty here, in naming Goliath as killed by Elhanan, rather than David, is addressed in 1 Chronicles 20:5, which adds “Lahmi, the brother [of Goliath]…”.
