1 Chronicles 20 · a question people ask
Didn't David kill Goliath?
1 Samuel 17 tells it: the Philistine champion was "named Goliath of Gath" (1 Samuel 17:4), and "David prevailed over the Philistine with a sling and with a stone, and struck the Philistine and killed him" (1 Samuel 17:50). This chapter names another man: "Elhanan the son of Jair killed Lahmi the brother of Goliath the Gittite" (20:5), and the Hebrew here has the word for "brother". 2 Samuel tells the same battle: "Elhanan the son of Jaare-Oregim the Bethlehemite killed Goliath the Gittite’s brother" (2 Samuel 21:19); in the Hebrew of that verse there is no word for "brother", and after "the Bethlehemite" comes the name "Goliath the Gittite" as the one Elhanan struck. In Hebrew all three verses describe the spear with the same four words; the WEB has "The staff of his spear was like a weaver’s beam" (1 Samuel 17:7), and "the staff of whose spear was like a weaver’s beam" in 20:5 and 2 Samuel 21:19. None of the three books says how these verses fit together, and these notes don't either.
The verses
“Again there was 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.”
“There was again war with the Philistines at Gob, and Elhanan the son of Jaare-Oregim the Bethlehemite killed Goliath the Gittite’s brother, the staff of whose spear was like a weaver’s beam.”
“A champion out of the camp of the Philistines named Goliath of Gath, whose height was six cubits and a span went out.”
“The staff of his spear was like a weaver’s beam; and his spear’s head weighed six hundred shekels of iron. His shield bearer went before him.”