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20 The following spring (spring was the season when wars usually began) Joab led the Israeli army in successful attacks against the cities and villages of the people of Ammon. After destroying them, he laid siege to Rabbah and conquered it. Meanwhile, David had stayed in Jerusalem. When David arrived on the scene, he removed the crown from the head of King Milcom[a] of Rabbah and placed it upon his own head. It was made of gold inlaid with gems and weighed seventy-five pounds! David also took great amounts of plunder from the city. He drove the people from the city and set them to work with saws,[b] iron picks, and axes, as was his custom with all the conquered Ammonite peoples. Then David and all his army returned to Jerusalem.

The next war was against the Philistines again, at Gezer. But Sibbecai, a man from Hushath, killed one of the sons of the giant, Sippai, and so the Philistines surrendered. During another war with the Philistines, Elhanan (the son of Jair) killed Lahmi, the brother of Goliath the giant; the handle of his spear was like a weaver’s beam! 6-7 During another battle, at Gath, a giant with six fingers on each hand and six toes on each foot (his father was also a giant) defied and taunted Israel; but he was killed by David’s nephew Jonathan, the son of David’s brother Shimea. These giants were descendants of the giants of Gath, and they were killed by David and his soldiers.

Footnotes

  1. 1 Chronicles 20:2 Milcom, implied, see 1 Kings 11:5.
  2. 1 Chronicles 20:3 He . . . set them to work with saws, literally “He conducted them to the saw.” Whether this means that he made them labor with saws or that he sawed them to pieces is uncertain.

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