1 Chronicles 20:4-8--Philistine Giants Killed

1 Chronicles 20:4-8
English Standard Version
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Philistine Giants Killed
4 And after this there arose war with the Philistines at Gezer. Then Sibbecai the Hushathite struck down Sippai, who was one of the descendants of the giants, and the Philistines were subdued. 5 And there was again war with the Philistines, and Elhanan the son of Jair struck down Lahmi the brother of Goliath the Gittite, the shaft of whose spear was like a weaver's beam. 6 And there was again war at Gath, where there was a man of great stature, who had six fingers on each hand and six toes on each foot, twenty-four in number, and he also was descended from the giants. 7 And when he taunted Israel, Jonathan the son of Shimea, David's brother, struck him down. 8 These were descended from the giants in Gath, and they fell by the hand of David and by the hand of his servants.

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The Philistines have continued to be a problem for the Israelites, even though they only occupied a small piece of what was the Promised Land (pretty much equivalent to what we could call the Gaza Strip right now).  One of their advantages is that they had a family of people that were giants (some up to nine feet tall) that had six fingers on each hand and six toes on each foot--so this is something genetic.  These giants were trained to be champion warriors who seemed to be unbeatable.  These giants that were in the land scared the Israelites into saying that they could not conquer and take the Promised Land when they first sent the spies into the Land.  David's mighty men don't seem to think twice about fighting these giants though.

We see here records of Sibbecai the Hushathite striking down Sippa (one of these giants).  Once their champion was defeated, the Philistines were once again subdued by the Israelites.  Then, another giant warrior stepped forward--this time it was Lahmi, the brother of Goliath (the one whom David killed who had a shaft for his spear that was like a weaver's beam).  Elhanan the son of Jair is the one who struck down Lahmi.

The Philistines don't learn, and the people of Gath put forward another six-fingered, six-toed giant and tried to make war with Isarel, and Jonathan, the son of Shimea, David's brother, killed this nameless giant.  All these giants were descended from the giants of Gath (Goliath's family), and they all fell by the hand of David and his servants.  The entire bloodline of giants was wiped out so that the genetic trait no longer existed there.  We still have some "giants" today, and we still have some people that have the trait of having six fingers and six toes (having 24 digits), but we don't come close to having a family of giants where people were regularly 9 feet tall or more and always had 24 digits because these recessive traits had become dominant in that family by what was probably "selective breeding" by the Philistines.  With their champion warriors gone, the Philistines will pose much less of a threat to Israel and the time will come soon when the Philistines will be completely wiped out (though the LORD is going to use another pagan nation to do that--the Babylonians will completely destroy them at the time of Nebuchadnezzar.  We'll reach that timeframe around the end of the book of 2 Chronicles, and we will never hear of the Philistines again after that point.