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el-hā´nan (××œ×—× ×Ÿ, 'elhÌ£aÌ„naÌ„n, “whom God gaveâ€):
(1) A great warrior in the army of David who slew a Philistine giant. There is a discrepancy between and . In the former passage we read, “And there was again war with the Philistines at Gob; and Elhanan, the son of Jaare-oregim the Beth-lehemite, slew Goliath the Gittite, the staff of whose spear was like a weaver's beamâ€; while in the latter we are told, “And there was again war with the Philistines; and Elhanan the son of Jair slew Lahmi the brother of Goliath the Gittite, the staff of whose spear was like a weaver's beam.†Most modern critics prefer as the original text of the latter part of the two discrepant statements the following: “and Elhanan the son of Jair the Beth-lehemite slew Goliath the Gittite, the staff of whose spear was like a weaver's beam.†It is contended that the Chronicler slightly modified the text before him, in order to bring it into harmony with 1 Sam 17, where David is said to have slain a Philistine giant Goliath. There is almost unanimous agreement that “Jaare-oregim†is a corrupt reading, and the “Jair†in 1 Ch is to be preferred. From Jerome to the present some scholars identify Elhanan with David, and thus remove the discrepancy. Ewald (Hist, III, 70) argued that the name “Goliath†was inserted in 1 Sam 17 and -15 by the narrators whose compositions are embodied in Samuel, Elhanan being the real victor over Goliath, while David's antagonist was simply called “the Philistine.â€
(2) The son of Dodo of Bethlehem, one of David's mighty men (; ). Some moderns think that there was only one Elhanan, and that he was the son of Dodo of the clan of Jair.