Errancy.com

The story of David slaying Goliath is a Sunday school favourite. There are, however, two conflicting claims concerning who killed Goliath.

1 Samuel describes the event, concluding:

So David prevailed over the Philistine [Goliath] with a sling and a stone, striking down the Philistine and killing him… [1 Samuel 17:50a]

According to 2 Samuel, however, it wasn’t David that killed Goliath but Elhanan:

Then there was another battle with the Philistines at Gob; and Elhanan son of Jaareoregim, the Bethlehemite, killed Goliath the Gittite, the shaft of whose spear was like a weaver’s beam. [2 Samuel 21:19]

So who killed Goliah, David or Elhanan?

Interestingly, in the account in 1 Chronicles of how David and his servants killed the descendants of the giants in Gath, Elhanan is said to have slain Goliath’s brother rather than Goliath himself:

Again there was war with the Philistines; and Elhanan son of Jair killed Lahmi the brother of Goliath the Gittite, the shaft of whose spear was like a weaver’s beam. [1 Chronicles 20:5]

But for the detail of who Elhanan killed, this verse roughly follows 2 Samuel 21:19 (given above). Could it be that the author of 1 Chronicles, using 2 Samuel as a source, spotted the error and attempted to correct it?

Note that some Bible translations (most notably the KJV), inspired by 1 Chronicles, speculatively insert ”the brother of” into 2 Samuel 21:19 so that it reads ”… Elhanan son of Jaareoregim, the Bethlehemite, killed the brother of Goliath the Gittite…”. This removes the contradiction, but only at the cost of rewriting the Bible in our own words.