2 Samuel 21:20

20 Still another fight broke out in Gath. There was a giant there with six fingers on his hands and six toes on his feet - twenty-four fingers and toes! He was another of those descended from Rapha.

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.

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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 Later there was another skirmish with the Philistines at Gob. That time Sibbecai the Hushathite killed Saph, another of the warriors descended from Rapha.

19 At yet another battle with the Philistines at Gob, Elhanan son of Jaar, the weaver of Bethlehem, killed Goliath the Gittite whose spear was as big as a flagpole.

20 Still another fight broke out in Gath. There was a giant there with six fingers on his hands and six toes on his feet - twenty-four fingers and toes! He was another of those descended from Rapha.

21 He insulted Israel, and Jonathan son of Shimeah, David's brother, killed him.

22 These four were descended from Rapha in Gath. And they all were killed by David and his soldiers.