2 Samuel 21:20

20 Then there was another battle at Gath, where there was a giant who loved to fight. He had six fingers on each hand and six toes on each foot.

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 After this there was a battle with the Philistines at Gob, during which Sibbecai from Hushah killed a giant named Saph.
19 There was another battle with the Philistines at Gob, and Elhanan son of Jair from Bethlehem killed Goliath from Gath, whose spear had a shaft as thick as the bar on a weaver's loom.
20 Then there was another battle at Gath, where there was a giant who loved to fight. He had six fingers on each hand and six toes on each foot.
21 He defied the Israelites, and Jonathan, the son of David's brother Shammah, killed him.
22 These four were descendants of the giants of Gath, and they were killed by David and his men.
Scripture taken from the Good News Translation - Second Edition, Copyright 1992 by American Bible Society. Used by Permission.