2 Samuel 21:20

20 There was again war at Gat, where there was a belligerent man with six fingers on each hand and six toes on each foot - twenty-four in all - and he too was a son of the giant.

2 Samuel 21:20 Meaning and Commentary

2 Samuel 21:20

And there was yet a battle in Gath
Besides the battles in the above place or places; for this does not necessarily suppose that one of the said battles had been there, only that this, which was another battle, had been there:

where was a man of [great] stature;
for so the sense of the word appears to be from ( 1 Chronicles 20:6 ) ; though here it signifies a man of strife and contention, a man of war, and both were true of him:

that had on every hand six fingers, and on every foot six toes, four
and twenty in number;
twelve fingers on his two hands, and twelve toes on his two feet. Pliny F1 speaks of one M. Curiatius, a patrician, who had two daughters that had six fingers on an hand, and were called "Sedigitae", six-fingered; and of Volcatius, a famous poet, called "Sedigitus", or six-fingered, for the same reason; and elsewhere, from other writers F2 he makes mention of a people that had eight toes each foot; so Ctesias F3 speaks of a people in the mountains of India, which have eight fingers on each hand, and eight toes on each foot, both men and women:

and he also was born to the giant;
a son of a giant.


FOOTNOTES:

F1 Nat. Hist. l. 11. c. 43.
F2 Megasthenes apud ib. l. 7. c. 2.
F3 In Indicis, c. 31.

2 Samuel 21:20 In-Context

18 A while after this there was again war with the P'lishtim, at Gov. Sibkhai the Hushati killed Saf, one of the sons of the giant.
19 There was more war with the P'lishtim at Gov; and Elchanan the son of Ya'arei-Orgim, the Beit-Lachmi, killed Golyat the Gitti, who had a spear with a shaft like a weaver's beam.
20 There was again war at Gat, where there was a belligerent man with six fingers on each hand and six toes on each foot - twenty-four in all - and he too was a son of the giant.
21 When he mocked Isra'el, Y'honatan the son of Shim'ah David's brother killed him.
22 These four were sons of the giant in Gat; they fell at the hands of David and his servants.
Complete Jewish Bible Copyright 1998 by David H. Stern. Published by Jewish New Testament Publications, Inc. All rights reserved. Used by permission.