Language Studies

Difficult Sayings

Goliath killed twice?
1 Samuel 17:49; 21:9; 2 Samuel 21:19

This 'problem passage' is not theologically significant but is an example of error through transmission which if not understood and yet discovered by sceptics could lead the Bible's claim to historical accuracy and inerrancy into disrepute.

Everyone knows the actual story of David's killing of Goliath (1 Samuel 17:49; 21:9:

"Again there was war with the Philistines, and Elhanan the son of Jair killed Lahmi the brother of Goliath the Gittite" (NKJV)

So Goliath's brother now has a name. But is it as simple as that?

Others take Elhanan to be another name for David^F1 and this to be the same Goliath (e.g., Jewish commentators such as Jarchi, and the Aramaic Targums, and Christian commentators such as Baldwin^F2). However, John Gill, the 18th century commentator pointed out that David was never called Elhanan; he was one of David's men (2 Samuel 23:24), where he is called the son of Dodo the Bethlehemite, and in 1 Chronicles 20:5, the son of Jair.

If 2 Samuel 21 is taken to be chronological then we have already read in vv.15-17 that the men of David prevented him from going out again against the Philistines to avoid "the lamp of Israel being extinguished" and thus he cannot have been the killer of Goliath in the next verse.

In addition, David's Goliath was not slain at Gob, but in the valley of Elah. We can note here that whilst 2 Samuel records the incident as taking place at Gob, 1 Chronicles 20:4 has Gezer and the Greek and Syrian Bible versions have Gath, presumably after Goliath's home, Gath (1 Sammuel 17:4). Gob is only mentioned here in the Bible. Gezer in old Hebrew (around David's time and after) would be written as גזר and Gob as גוב so it is easy to see how the curl of the tail of the letters 'r' and 'b' could be confused (ב/ר). In later Hebrew and Aramaic scripts, e.g., the Aramaic Elephantine Papyrus of the 5th century B.C. the letters vav ('w/o') and zayin ('z') were written identically like later Hebrew yodh's (י 'y') and the 'r' and 'b' were still very similar. In Hebrew square script 'r' and 'b' became distinguishable but vav (ו) and zayin (ז) remained easily confused. So after one or two changes of Hebrew script, as was the case with Hebrew development, Gezer could easily have become Gob. In the time of Jesus Hebrew scripts were scrupulously counted for letter frequencies to avoid further errors of copying, but if a mistake was already there it would be maintained.

Furthermore, Lahmi may not be the name of Goliath's brother, but, the country name of Elhanan; for the words may be rendered:

"Elhanan the son of Jair, the Lehemite (i.e. the Bethlehemite) slew the brother of Goliath the Gittite"

Other solutions have also been offered. Kaiser and Archer^F3 suggest that there is a true scribal error here. Many liberal critics resort to scribal errors when a difficult text meets them and they believe it needs 'emendation', but Kaiser and Archer are evangelical and resort to errors of transmission only as a last resort.

The copyist's error appears to be in 2 Samuel 21:19:

"Elhanan the son of Jaareoregim, the Bethlehemite (בּיתהלּחמי), slew Goliath the Gittite (עתגּלתי)"

Archer and Kaiser suppose the error to have been in copying 'eth lach'mîy 'namely Lahmi' (as 1 Chronicles 20:5 has) as beth hallach'mîy 'the Bethlehemite', a phrase not used elsewhere. The second error is thought to have been almost the reverse in copying 'ach gol'yath 'brother of Goliath' as 'eth gol'yath 'namely Goliath'. The only problem with this supposed kind of reconstruction is that the pre-Christian Greek Old Testament, the Septuagint, makes the same apparent mistake - so if there was a different original the mistake must have been made early on. Other scholars^F4 think of Bethlehemite as the correct reading and Lahmi the copyist's error. Liberal scholars go on to suggest that there was but one Goliath, killed by Elhanan, and that the story was later copied and transferred to David to boost his exploits.

Another theoretical scribal error that has been suggested is the change of יארי "Jaare" into ישי "Jesse," based on the possibility that the three vertical strokes of ש were misread as אר. Others keep the original reading but render it "the Jearite (from Bethlehem)", i.e., a native of Kiriath-Jearim but resident in Bethlehem.

Thus we have various choices, though none a total solution for the evangelical keen on upholding inerrancy. A variation on inerrancy is the upholding of the biblical text as inerrant when originally given but not necessarily during transmission. Divinely given but humanly handled, perhaps? So we are maybe none the wiser, but we have learned about alternatives!

FOOTNOTES:
F1: Honeyman, "The Evidence for Regnal Names among the Hebrews", JBL 67, 1948, pp.23-24, argues that "David" was the king's throne name (which according to NIDOTTE is itself an Amorite term meaning "leader") while "Elhanan" was his personal name (see also Pakozdy, ZAW 68, 1956, pp.257-59.
F2: Baldwin, J., 1 and 2 Samuel, Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries, IVP, 1988, p.286
F3: Kaiser, Hard Sayings of the Bible, IVP, 1996, p.212; Archer, G., Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties, Zondervan, 1982, pp.178-9
F4: Hasting's Dictionary of the Bible under entries for Lahmi, Elhanan, Goliath, David

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