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The Contradiction Desk
Claimed Bible contradictions, stated the way they circulate, each with one diagnosis and the evidence for it: the Hebrew, the Greek, the manuscripts.
Who killed Goliath?
1 Samuel 17 says David killed Goliath. The Hebrew of 2 Samuel 21:19 says Elhanan did. 1 Chronicles 20:5 says Elhanan killed Goliath's brother, and the King James carries that reading into 2 Samuel.
2 Samuel 21:19, in every translation this tool compares.
The real question: did two men kill the same giant? The club history says Smith scored against the great striker, and the old program says Smith scored against the great striker's brother. Did one record lose three words, or were there two games?
1 Samuel 17 has David kill Goliath of Gath with a sling stone and Goliath's own sword. 2 Samuel 21:19, in most modern versions, says Elhanan the Bethlehemite struck down Goliath the Gittite, whose spear shaft was like a weaver's beam. Two men are credited with the same famous kill.
The ESV footnote at 2 Samuel 21:19 says to contrast 1 Chronicles 20:5, which may preserve the original reading. The CSB's textual note says Chronicles adds the brother of. The CSB Study Bible says that in the Hebrew only a minor alteration turns one reading into the other, and calls an early miscopying by far the most likely explanation. The ESV Study Bible says Lahmi the brother of may have dropped out before Goliath, and calls this a distinct possibility given the known difficulties with the text of Samuel; on 1 Chronicles 20:5 it says 2 Samuel 21:19 has apparently suffered textual corruption. MacArthur calls it a minor scribal omission.
And there was again a battle in Gob with the Philistines, where Elhanan the son of Jaare-oregim, a Beth-lehemite, slew the brother of Goliath the Gittite, the staff of whose spear was like a weaver’s beam.
The Skeptic's Annotated Bible asks "Who killed Goliath?" and says the words the brother of were "inserted by the KJV translators to avoid the obvious contradiction". It cites the HarperCollins Study Bible note on 1 Samuel 17:4 as naming Elhanan, not David, as Goliath's slayer. At full strength, and the ESV Study Bible names this view before rejecting it: Elhanan's deed was later credited to David, or the name Goliath later attached to David's unnamed opponent.
The ESV Study Bible gives two further options: two different men named Goliath, or Goliath as a common noun for a giant, much as Pharaoh is a title. It adds that the name has been traced to an Anatolian name, Walwatta, and found in an early Philistine inscription. MacArthur adds that Elhanan could be another name for David. The CSB Study Bible rejects both the two-Goliaths view, because the spear is described identically, and the Elhanan-is-David view, as unsupported elsewhere.
The copying explanation assumes Chronicles kept the original. The skeptic can turn that around: the Chronicler wrote later and may have repaired the problem. The ESV Study Bible sets the skeptic's reading aside because it would deny the truthfulness of 1 Samuel 17, which is a theological ground, not a textual one; that observation is made here. The harmonizers also disagree among themselves on the fallback options.
Not a claim that the King James translators invented the solution. Their wording follows 1 Chronicles 20:5, which is in the Hebrew Bible.
- ESV Study Bible, footnote and note on 2 Samuel 21:19, note on 1 Chronicles 20:5
- CSB Study Bible, textual note and note on 2 Samuel 21:19
- The MacArthur Study Bible (ESV), note on 2 Samuel 21:19
- The Skeptic's Annotated Bible, Who killed Goliath?, https://skepticsannotatedbible.com/contra/goliath.html
- King James Version, 2 Samuel 21:19 and 1 Chronicles 20:5
