The Chosen Key Word in this Chapter is “Giants” it comes from the Hebrew Word “rapha” which means “giants, a race of large warriors.”
David’s army finally conquers Ammon’s capital city, and defeats several remaining Philistine giants. Welcome to Bible Life Basics Chapter Reviews, I am Chris and this is 1 Chronicles 20.
At the time when kings normally go out to battle, Joab leads Israel’s army to besiege Rabbah, the Ammonite capital, and destroys the surrounding country, while David remains in Jerusalem, a detail Chronicles records without the extensive account of David’s sin with Bathsheba that the parallel passage in Samuel includes in such painful detail. Joab eventually captures the city, and David takes the crown of the Ammonite king, weighing a talent of gold, setting it upon his own head, and brings out great spoil from the city.
David brings out the people who were in Rabbah and puts them to labor with saws, iron picks, and axes, dealing similarly with all the cities of Ammon, before returning with his entire army to Jerusalem. The chapter then shifts to describe several battles against the Philistines and their remaining “giants,” “rapha” in Hebrew, descendants of a race of unusually large warriors long associated with that region.
Sibbechai kills Sippai, one of these giant descendants, and later, Elhanan kills the brother of Goliath the Gittite, whose spear staff was like a weaver’s beam. In yet another battle at Gath, a man of extraordinary size with six fingers on each hand and six toes on each foot, also descended from the giants, defies Israel, but is killed by Jonathan, David’s nephew. The chapter closes noting these giants fell by the hand of David and his servants, confirming Israel’s decisive military supremacy over their longtime Philistine adversaries.
Chronicles’ notable omission of David’s sin with Bathsheba here, focusing instead purely on military victory, reflects this book’s particular purpose, emphasizing the positive, faithful aspects of David’s legacy for a struggling post-exilic community that needed encouragement and hope rather than a complete, unflinching account of every failure already recorded elsewhere.
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