2 Samuel 21:19

The Hebrew text is manifestly very corrupt. First, for “Jaare-oregim,” 1 Chronicles 20:5 gives us the reading Jair. “Oregim” has evidently got in by a transcriber’s error from the line below, where “oregim” is the Hebrew for “weavers.” Again, the word the “Bethlehemite” is very doubtful. It is supported by 2 Samuel 23:24, but it is not found in the far purer text of 1 Chronicles 20:5, but instead of it we find the name of the Philistine slain by Elhanan, “Lahmi the brother of Goliath the Gittite.” It is probable, therefore, that either the words “the Bethlehemite,” are a corruption of “Lahmi,” or that the recurrence of “Lahmi,” and the termination of “Beth-lehemite” has confused the transcriber, and led to the omission of one of the words in each text.