Elhanan

Biblical Record

The Hebrew name is understood to mean "God has been gracious."

2 Samuel 21:15–22 recounts how, in the wars against the Philistines during David's reign, David's servants killed four Philistine giants. Within this passage, 2 Samuel 21:19 records that during a battle at Gob, Elhanan the son of Jaare-oregim, a Bethlehemite, killed a giant. The shaft of the giant's spear is said to have been like a weaver's beam, the heavy bar of a loom. The parallel account in 1 Chronicles 20:5 states that "Elhanan the son of Jair slew Lahmi the brother of Goliath the Gittite."

The list of David's mighty men (2 Samuel 23:24; 1 Chronicles 11:26) also includes "Elhanan the son of Dodo of Bethlehem." Whether this man is the same Elhanan who killed the giant is difficult to determine from the text alone.

Significance Within Scripture

The account of Elhanan belongs to a passage that records not only the exploits of David himself but also the achievements of the warriors who served him. 2 Samuel 21:22 concludes that the Philistine giants "fell by the hand of David, and by the hand of his servants." Elhanan is not mentioned in the New Testament.

Interpretation and Debate

Read literally, 2 Samuel 21:19 in the Hebrew Masoretic Text states that Elhanan killed "Goliath the Gittite." For this reason, how to reconcile the verse with the David and Goliath narrative in 1 Samuel 17 has long been debated. The New Korean Revised Version renders the verse as "the brother of Goliath," harmonizing it with 1 Chronicles, and other translations handle the verse in various ways.

The principal views on the issue are as follows:

• Scribal error view: This view holds that 1 Chronicles preserves the original reading and that the text of 2 Samuel was altered in the course of copying. In Hebrew, "the Bethlehemite" and "Lahmi" are similar in spelling. Some also suggest that "oregim" in the name "Jaare-oregim," which means "weavers," was mistakenly copied from "weaver's beam" at the end of the same verse. This view is widely held among conservatives who emphasize biblical inerrancy.
• Same-name view: This view holds either that there were two giants named Goliath or that "Goliath" designated a family of giants from Gath.
• Identification with David: Some strands of Jewish tradition are reported to have understood Elhanan as another name for David.
• Transferred tradition view: Some historical-critical scholars hold that the Goliath story was originally an exploit of Elhanan that was later attributed to the more famous David. Conservative scholars counter that this view reads too much into the textual evidence.

In the Korean Church

Elhanan is seldom treated as a subject in his own right in sermons or Sunday school. He is mentioned mainly alongside the Goliath passages in Bible studies and apologetics materials that address difficult passages of Scripture.