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Depends on what "canonical" is. The sources are: QSam 4 (Qumeran text) Septuagint Masoretic QSam 4 and the Septuagint read "four cubits" in Hebrew and Greek respectively. The Masoretic Hebrew texts on which the King James and later translations are based all have "six cubits". Most people do not consider either QSam 4 or the Septuagint as "canonical". ...

According to a NET Bible note: Heb “his height was six cubits and a span” (cf. KJV, NASB, NRSV). A cubit was approximately eighteen inches, a span nine inches. So, according to the Hebrew tradition, Goliath was about nine feet, nine inches tall (cf. NIV, CEV, NLT “over nine feet”; NCV “nine feet, four inches”; TEV “nearly 3 metres”). However, some Greek ...

A detailed study on this issue by Daniel B. Wallace of the Evangelical Theological Society discusses five possibilities: Text-Critical: The text as it stands is incorrect and needs to be emended. Dominical: Jesus himself made a mistake or was intentionally midrashic (i.e., he embellished the OT story to make his point). Source-critical: Mark’s source ...

I Sam 31 is written in the voice of the anonymous narrator. This narrator writes with the authority of prophecy and so his version of events is the version that we should accept as correct - Saul fell on his own sword as did his armorer. The story told by the Amaleki kid in 2 Sam 1:8 is obviously a lie - the kid claims to David that he identified himself to ...

David, in convincing Saul why he should be allowed to be Israel's representative on the battlefield says, "Your servant has struck down both lions and bears, and this uncircumcised Philistine shall be like one of them, for he has defied the armies of the living God." And to Goliath he says, You come to me with a sword and with a spear and with a ...

It's important to realize that Saul is unambiguously violating a biblical prohibition in seeking out Samuel: There shall not be found among you any one who maketh his son or his daughter to pass through the fire, or who useth divination, or an observer of times, or an enchanter, or a witch, or a charmer, or a consulter with familiar spirits, ...

Note that the people wondering at Saul’s prophecy called him “the son of Kish”; i.e., they were wondering, “how can it be that the son of such an ordinary man is suddenly ‘among the prophets’?” The answer to their question is simple: Look at the other prophets; did they inherit this position from their fathers? Some, perhaps—but where did their fathers get ...

There are two plausible scenarios: It happened as the Amalekite said. The Amalekite embellished the story thinking he would be rewarded for helping David become king. In scenario 1, though Saul's armourbearer presumed Saul was dead, Saul was 'still kickin' and revived when the Amalekite came by. In scenario 2 the Amalekite came upon the scene and ...

David attacks the Geshurites, the Gezerites and the Amelikites, all traditional enemies of Judah and Israel and potential allies of Achish to the southwest. He left no one alive so that no prisoners would tell Achish who David was really attacking, that's the trick. When asked, David says that he attacked to the south (actually southwest) of Judah, south of ...

Here is a list of possible answers: The author has to integrate a lot of oral tradition from opposing sides in what was in fact a civil war; northern anti-monarchy tribal federalists backed by some heavy hitting prophets, pro-monarchy Kish clan proponents, and pro-monarchy Ishai clan proponents. No one comes out of I Samuel smelling like roses. The author ...

Is there a canonical reference to Goliath's height? As others have said, there cannot be a canonical reference to Goliath's height because measures were not standardized and there is no conclusive evidence to calibrate the measurements given beyond giving us a rough range. As a matter of speculation, however, I favour understanding Goliath to be ...

I Sam 12:11 in 4QSam Frg.d has only the word "Jerubal", the rest of the verse is missing. Leningrad and Allepo have "...Jerubbaal and Bedan and Jephthah and Samuel...", same in Brenton's English LXX. RASHI says Bedan is Samson as he was "in [the tribe of] Dan" ("b'Dan") or "of the tribe of Dan" ("ben Dan"). The targum has "...Gideon and Samson and Jephtah ...

It is important to remember that the "historical books" of Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings are better called "the earlier prophets." They teach from the prophetic point of view, not simply chronological events. From Hard Sayings of the Bible. It is more important to group things by importance than it is to lay it out chronologically. 17:55–58 Why ...

I think this question must be broken down in two: Why did Jonathan and David make up this plan? Why did the author of the book include this detail in the narrative? The first question has never really bothered me, thus this answer is not the result of extensive study, nor have I consulted any commentaries. I have always envisioned that they made the plan ...

The layers of abstraction increase as you move through the sources. Masoretic Text/Dead Sea Scrolls are generally perceived as closest to the source The LXX, as a Greek translation of the HOT is the first layer of abstraction since it is a translation. However, when dealing with the NT usage of the OT, the LXX is preferred since that is the "Scripture" ...

I would identify at least two purposes: The author shows that in all of David's endeavors leading up to his becoming king, he attempted to avoid bloodshed, particularly with the house of Saul. His enemies were not his kinsmen; but his enemies were those who attacked his kinsmen (i.e. the Philistines and the Amalekites). David uses trickery to avoid ...

"Jonathan, you are shaming your own mother (i.e. violating commandment 5 of the decalogue), not that I think that she is anything but a perverse and rebellious woman (who would produce a child like you)." That is, when stating "to the shame of your mother's nakedness" Saul is speaking to Jonathan in Jonathan's frame of reference of a child to his mother, ...

What an excellent question! Aaron had four sons: two died an early death with no survivors, and the other two sons survived:-- Eleazar and Ithamar. Thus the Levites who served as priests at the time of David are all descended from one of these two priestly lines. In the Hebrew Bible, when we see the Ahimelech(father)/Abiathar(son) team, these two are the ...

God is a loving God, but He is also just. In the case of Sha'ul, it seems that God permitted a demon ("evil spirit") to possess Sha'ul in punishment of his transgressions. Satan does not possess any authority or power besides that which is expressly permitted by God (cp. Job 1:12). In fact, neither do humans. When Pilate asked Jesus, "Don't you know that I ...

Gideon's name in Hebrew, גדעון (<H1439>), is derived from גָּדַע (<H1438>): to cut, hew, chop, cut down, hew down, hew off, cut off, cut in two, shave off Therefore, it has a strong connotation with violence and destruction. It's the verb used in Isaiah 10:33 to describe the destruction God will inflict on Israel's enemies: Lo! The Sovereign ...

Robert Alter deals with this question in his translation and commentary of the Book of Psalms: "...when he altered his good sense before Abimelech." The superscription refers directly to 1 Samuel 21:14, where David, surrounded before the city of Gath by the Philistine king and his men, saves himself by playing the madman. The same unusual idiom ...

In the books of Kings, there is a group of prophets called "the sons of the prophets." They are mentioned in 9 verses (1 Kin 20:35; 2:3, 5, 7, 15; 4:1, 38; 5:22; 6:1). We don't know much about them except that Elisha and Elijah both interacted with them and never condemned them as false prophets. Now fifty men of the sons of the prophets went and stood ...

Firstly, I believe in the inerrancy of God's Word, but I don't believe it is always helpful to bend over backwards making things 'fit' - sometimes we have to just accept that we don't have the knowledge to do so (and in those cases I'd say the things that have been revealed are the things that matter - and also go along with jrdioko's quote against the ...

It seems to me that multiple similar events could both contribute to a phrase becoming a proverb, and that's whats happened here. For example we have the phrase "smart aleck," supposedly derived from the actions of a con-man Aleck Hoag: http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/smart_aleck. Aleck did not enter our lectionary for a single action but for repeated ...

Reading Anne Rice's rather intriguing Christ the Lord: The Road to Cana, I came across this interpretation which was put in the mouth of a 12-year-old Yeshua bar Joseph: It was an insult from those who had never known ecstasy or the power of the Spirit, those who envied the ones who did. The man who mocked was saying, 'Who are you, Saul, and what is ...

@jrdioko lists five possibilities in his answer. Others have made the case for this not being an error. I'll consider the other options. If "in the time of Abiathar the high priest" is intended to mean "while Abiathar was high priest," who introduced the error? But first, my assumptions. I believe the Bible is infallible but not inerrant. That is, God chose ...

The name was probably "Nevel", meaning "Harp". He was apparently a loyalist to the House of Saul living in Judah, which shows you how successful Saul was in maintain discipline in the kingdom, but which did not endear him to the author of I Samuel, who clearly sides with David and sees Nevel as a traitor to the tribe of Judah and calls him Naval. A Saul ...

This whole section of Samuel is fraught with intrigue. It starts with 1st Samuel 27 where David takes his family, 600 men, and their families over to join Achish. But David's relationship with Achish is built on a lie: he did not switch loyalty away from his fellow Israelites. As you point out, David keeps his options open when Achish prepared to join ...

Great question. By indicating that he had killed the lion and bear, David was telling Saul that he had experienced the power of God as delineated in the Torah (Please compare Lev 26:21-22, which is a judgment of God, with Ex 23:28-30 and its parallel in Deut 7:22-23) -- that is, the Lord would defeat the uncircumcised Gentiles, who are equated with animals. ...

As to Question #3. The KJV has it written a curse would come from a man eating any food. SO that explains at least that question for you. And the men of Israel were distressed that day: for Saul had adjured the people, saying, Cursed be the man that eateth any food until evening, that I may be avenged on mine enemies. So none of the people tasted any ...