אֶלְחָנָן
Elhanan
BDB lists 3 entries for ‘Elhanan’ fuller range ↓
Full lexicon entry — Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB)
From Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB)
Where this word appears
Grammar key — what these labels mean
Part of speech
- Noun
- A naming word — a person, place, thing, or idea.
Noun type
- Proper
- A name of a specific person, place, or people (e.g. Abraham, Zion, Israel).
Every verse where H445 appears — 4 distinct verses across 2 books. Click any verse to open its interlinear word-by-word view. Verse text shown in the World English Bible for context — . Each verse’s Hebrew form is shown with its reference; the English is not keyword-highlighted, since the data carries no word-level English alignment. Use “Compare translations” on any verse to read it across multiple English versions. This concordance covers the Hebrew Bible; Septuagint (Greek Old Testament) occurrences are not indexed here.
2 Samuel 2 verses
- 2 Samuel 21:19 אֶלְחָנָן֩ n Proper There was again war with the Philistines at Gob; and Elhanan the son of Jaareoregim the Bethlehemite killed Goliath the Gittite's brother, the staff of whose spear was like a weaver's beam.
- 2 Samuel 23:24 אֶלְחָנָ֥ן n Proper Asahel the brother of Joab was one of the thirty; Elhanan the son of Dodo of Bethlehem,
1 Chronicles 2 verses
- 1 Chronicles 11:26 אֶלְחָנָ֥ן n Proper Also the mighty men of the armies: Asahel the brother of Joab, Elhanan the son of Dodo of Bethlehem,
- 1 Chronicles 20:5 אֶלְחָנָ֣ן n Proper There was again war with the Philistines; and Elhanan the son of Jair killed Lahmi the brother of Goliath the Gittite, the staff of whose spear was like a weaver's beam.
About this entry
At a glance — auto-summarized from this page’s data, not written by a person. Every figure links to its source below. This summary describes the numbers; it doesn’t interpret them.
אלחנן — transliterated ʼElchânân — is a Hebrew name carrying the sense “Elhanan.” It is rare — just 4 verses in the entire Hebrew Bible. More than half of its appearances fall in 2 Samuel. Debuting at 2 Samuel 21:19, it then recurs through the corpus. Each statement above links to its evidence; the full detail follows below.
Gloss history
Strong's 1890 vs modern scholarship
About this word
Strong's H445 catalogs a Hebrew word from the Hebrew Old Testament.
These counts are not copied from any lexicon or concordance. They are computed here, from the morphology-tagged Hebrew Old Testament. What Lemma adds →
- 4
- distinct verses
- The word appears in 4 distinct verses.
- 2 / 39
- OT books
- The word appears in 2 of 39 Old Testament books.
- #3,696
- by frequency
- Top 5000 most frequent Hebrew words (rank 3,696 of 8,640 Hebrew words by occurrence).
View all 4 occurrences in the concordance →
Most concentrated in
- 2 Samuel 2 verses 50%
- 1 Chronicles 2 verses 50%
By section of the Old Testament
By traditional corpus
Conventional, traditional groupings — biblical authorship is debated, so this is a traditional corpus grouping, not an authorship claim. Each share is this word’s portion of its verses in that division of the Hebrew canon. Each figure is a share of the word’s 4 distinct verses.
- Prophets (Nevi'im) 2 verses · 50%
- Writings (Ketuvim) 2 verses · 50%
How translations render this word
Counts come from each version’s own published word-to-Strong’s tagging or interlinear alignment — an approximate guide to how each version renders this word, not a word-level alignment the data otherwise carries. Because each total is that version’s own tagged count, the per-version totals vary from one another and need not match the appearance or distinct-verse counts above. These counts may also differ from a printed concordance because Lemma counts each distinctly tagged rendering and does not collapse phrase taggings into a single head-word total. This is a fixed set of word-tagged versions (KJV, ASV, BSB, ULT) and does not change with the reading translation you choose elsewhere. Each version’s license is shown beside its name below (and on Sources).
- King James Version: Elhanan 4×
- American Standard Version: Elhanan 4×
- Berean Standard Bible: Elhanan 4×
- unfoldingWord Literal Text: Elhanan 4×
King James Version Public Domain
Renders H445 across 4 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
American Standard Version Public Domain
Renders H445 across 4 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Berean Standard Bible Public Domain
Renders H445 across 4 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
Renders H445 across 4 tagged occurrences — most commonly:
Senses in BDB
The 3 senses BDB distinguishes for this word, in lexicon order (not ranked by frequency or importance). The full entry — with sub-senses — is in the Lexicon Entry tab.
- Elhanan = "God has been gracious"
- Jair's son who fought the Gittites
- Dodo's son who was a chief of David
Word origin
n.pr.m. (God has been gracious, cf. Ph. אלחנן, בעלחנן, in Assyrian Baʾalḫanunu COT Gn 10:18) two of David’s chiefs 2 S 21:19 = 1 Ch 20:5; 2 S 23:24 = 1 Ch 11:26.
— Brown-Driver-Briggs (Oxford 1906, public domain), digitized via Sefaria, supplemented by the OpenScriptures HebrewLexicon (CC BY 4.0). See Sources.
Derived from אל (ʼêl) (H410) — God.
Forms in the corpus
The 3 distinct written forms H445 takes in the Hebrew Bible, most frequent first — each parse links to that state’s occurrences in the concordance. Hebrew forms include their vowel points and cantillation, so a single lemma takes many written forms.
| Form | Parsing | Example | Uses |
|---|---|---|---|
| אֶלְחָנָ֥ן | Noun, Proper | 1 Chronicles 11:26 | 2 |
| אֶלְחָנָ֣ן | Noun, Proper | 1 Chronicles 20:5 | 1 |
| אֶלְחָנָן֩ | Noun, Proper | 2 Samuel 21:19 | 1 |
Same root — word family
Other BDB entries built from the same root as H445, grouped by Strong’s listed origin. These share a root / origin per the lexicon — not necessarily a shared meaning. Each links to that word’s own entry.
Derives from
Shares the same root
Proper names from this root
People and places named from this root — a name, not an additional meaning of the word.
- אל אלהי ישראל ʼÊl ʼĕlôhêy Yisrâʼêl H415 Elelohe-israel
- אל ביתאל ʼÊl Bêyth-ʼÊl H416 El-beth-el
- אלדד ʼEldâd H419 Eldad
- אלדעה ʼEldâʻâh H420 Eldaah
- אלוה ʼĕlôwahh H433 God
- אלזבד ʼElzâbâd H443 Elzabad
- אליאב ʼĔlîyʼâb H446 Eliab
- אליאל ʼĔlîyʼêl H447 Eliel
- אליאתה ʼĔlîyʼâthâh H448 Eliathah
- אלידע ʼElyâdâʻ H450 Eliada
- אליה ʼÊlîyâh H452 Elijah
- אליהו ʼĔlîyhûw H453 Elihu
- אליחבא ʼElyachbâʼ H455 Eliahba
- אליחרף ʼĔlîychôreph H456 Elihoreph
- אלימלך ʼĔlîymelek H458 Elimelech
- אליסף ʼElyâçâph H460 Eliasaph
- אליעזר ʼĔlîyʻezer H461 Eliezer
- אליעם ʼĔlîyʻâm H463 Eliam
- אליפז ʼĔlîyphaz H464 Eliphaz
- אליפל ʼĔlîyphâl H465 Eliphal
- אליפלהו ʼĔlîyphᵉlêhûw H466 Elipheleh
- אליפלט ʼĔlîypheleṭ H467 Eliphelet
- אליצור ʼĔlîytsûwr H468 Elizur
- אליצפן ʼĔlîytsâphân H469 Elizaphan
+24 more proper names from this root (not shown).
Compare all same-root words → Showing 4 of 51 — not the complete family. 49 of the same-root words are proper names (people or places). They share a root, not necessarily a meaning.
Bible dictionary
Public-domain dictionary articles matched to this entry by name (Elhanan). A biblical name can be shared by more than one person or place, so an article may treat several.
Easton's Bible Dictionary · M. G. Easton, 1897
Whom God has graciously bestowed. (1.) A warrior of the time of David famed for his exploits. In the Authorized Version (2 Sam. 21:19) it is recorded that "Elhanan the son of Jaare-oregim, a Bethlehemite, slew the brother of Goliath." The Revised Version here rightly omits the words "the brother of." They were introduced in the Authorized Version to bring this passage into agreement with 1 Chr. 20:5, where it is said that he "slew Lahmi the brother of Goliath." Goliath the Gittite was killed by David (1 Sam. 17). The exploit of Elhanan took place late in David's reign.
(2.) The son of Dodo, and one of David's warriors (2 Sam. 23:24).
Smith's Bible Dictionary · William Smith, 1863
(the grace of God).
+ A distinguished warrior in the time of King David, who performed a memorable exploit against the Philistines. (2 Samuel 21:19; 1 Chronicles 20:5) (B.C. about 1020.) + One of "the thirty" of David's guard, and named first on the list. (2 Samuel 23:24; 1 Chronicles 11:26)
Hitchcock's Bible Names Dictionary · Roswell D. Hitchcock, 1869
grace, or gift, or mercy of God
Classic public-domain reference works; full attribution on Sources.
Septuagint verse parallels
This word appears in 4 verses that also exist in the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), out of the 4 Hebrew verses it occurs in. You can read those verses in Greek by switching the Old Testament edition to the Septuagint.
Read these verses in the Septuagint
This is a verse-level parallel only — the same verses exist in both the Hebrew and Greek Old Testaments. No word-level Hebrew↔Greek correspondence is claimed: the data carries no such alignment, so no Greek word is shown as this Hebrew word’s translation. Coverage is not total — the Septuagint omits the deuterocanon and renumbers the Psalms, so some Hebrew verses have no direct Greek parallel.
