2 Samuel 21:20

20 quartum bellum fuit in Geth in quo vir excelsus qui senos in manibus pedibusque habebat digitos id est viginti et quattuor et erat de origine Arafa

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 secundum quoque fuit bellum in Gob contra Philistheos tunc percussit Sobbochai de Usathi Seph de stirpe Arafa
19 tertium quoque fuit bellum in Gob contra Philistheos in quo percussit Adeodatus filius Saltus polymitarius bethleemites Goliath Gettheum cuius hastile hastae erat quasi liciatorium texentium
20 quartum bellum fuit in Geth in quo vir excelsus qui senos in manibus pedibusque habebat digitos id est viginti et quattuor et erat de origine Arafa
21 blasphemavit Israhel percussit autem eum Ionathan filius Sammaa fratris David
22 hii quattuor nati sunt de Arafa in Geth et ceciderunt in manu David et servorum eius
The Latin Vulgate is in the public domain.