1 Samuel 17:49: Who Killed Goliath?

In 1 Samuel 17 and 21:9 it is claimed that David is the one who killed Goliath; however, in 2 Samuel 21:19 it says that Elhanan killed him. Both cannot be right, can they? And who was Lahmi, mentioned in 1 Chronicles 20:5?

While some have tried to resolve the contradiction by suggesting that Elhanan may be a throne name for David, a reference to David, under any name, in a summary of exploits by David's mighty men appears most peculiar.

The bottom line on this whole dispute is that David is the one who slew Goliath and Elhanan slew the brother of Goliath, as it says in 1 Chronicles 20:5. The problem, then, is with the 2 Samuel 21:19 text. Fortunately, however, we can trace what the original wording for that text was through the correctly preserved text in 1 Chronicles 20:5.

The copyist of the 2 Samuel 21:19 text made three mistakes: (1) He read the direct object sign that comes just be-fore the name of the giant that Elhanan killed, namely Lahmi, as if it were the word "Beth," thereby getting "the Bethlehemite," when the "Beth" was put with "Lahmi." (2) He also misread the word for "brother" (Hebrew 'ah) as the direct object sign (Hebrew 'et) before Goliath, thereby making Goliath the one who was killed, since he was now the direct object of the verb, instead, as it should have been, "the brother of Goliath." (3) He misplaced the word "Oregim," meaning "weavers," so that it yielded "Elhanan son of Jaare-Oregim," a most improbable reading for anyone: "Elhanan the son of the forests of weavers." The word for "weavers" should come as it does in 1 Chronicles 20:5 about the spear being "a beam/shaft like a weaver's rod."

Elhanan gets the credit for killing Lahmi, the brother of Goliath; but David remains the hero who killed Goliath.

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See J. Barton Payne, "1 Chronicles," in The Expositor's Bible Commentary, vol. 4, ed. Frank E. Gaebelein (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 1988), pp. 403-4; Gleason L. Archer, Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 1982), pp. 178-79.