 Elhanan and Goliath
2 Samuel 21:19[1] tells how "Goliath the Gittite" was killed by "Elhanan the son of Jaare-oregim, the Bethlehemite." The resulting ambiguity - what was the relationship of this Goliath to the Goliath killed by David in 1 Samuel 17? - has given rise to a great deal of commentary. 1 Chronicles 20,[2] written in the 4th century BC, resolved the problem by saying that Elhanan "slew Lahmi the brother of Goliath," constructing the name Lahmi from the last portion of the word "Bethlehemite" ("beit-ha'lahmi").[3] The King James Bible and many modern bibles have adopted this into their translation of 2 Samuel 21:18-19, although the Hebrew text makes no mention of the word "brother". 2 Samuel 21 appears to be an extremely corrupt passage: "Jaare-oregim," the name of Elhanan's father, means a nonsensical "forest of weaver's beams", and seems to have been copied from Goliath's weaponry (Goliath has a spear "with a shaft like a weaver's beam").
Both accounts describe Goliath the same way and have him carrying the same weapon
David Kills Goliath
1 Samuel 17:7 The shaft of his spear was like a weaver's beam, and the head of his spear weighed six hundred shekels of iron; his shield-carrier also walked before him.
17:23 And as he talked with them, behold, there came up the champion, the Philistine of Gath, Goliath by name, out of the armies of the Philistines, and spake according to the same words: and David heard them.
Elhanan kills Goliath
2 Samuel 21:19 There was war with the Philistines again at Gob, and Elhanan the son of Jaare-oregim the Bethlehemite killed Goliath the Gittite, the shaft of whose spear was like a weaver's beam.
1 Chronicles 11:23 He killed an Egyptian, a man of great stature five cubits tall. Now in the Egyptian's hand was a spear like a weaver's beam, but he went down to him with a club and snatched the spear from the Egyptian's hand and killed him with his own spear.
Elhanan appears to have been too obscure
Dr. Baruch Halpern believes that David's opponent probably had no name originally, being referred to simply as "the Philistine" (the name Goliath is applied to him only twice in 1 Samuel 17): "Most likely, storytellers displaced the deed from the otherwise obscure Elhanan onto the more famous character, David."[4]
Sources:
- 2 Samuel 21
- 1 Chronicles 20
- Ralph W. Klein, Narrative Texts: Chronicles, Ezra and Nehemiah, see section "Representative Changes in Chronicles of Texts Taken from Samuel-Kings". Compare 1 Samuel 16:1, "I will send you to Jesse the Bethlehemite (beit-ha'lahmi), for I have found among his sons a king for me."
- David's Secret Demons, Baruch Halpern, 2004.
- 101 myths of the Bible
Goliath. (2008, February 13). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 17:21, February 19, 2008, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Goliath&oldid=191151027
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By: hub on 2009/03/10 AM 9:28:53.
Considering that David killed "golith" when Saul was king of Israel, and Elhanan killed "Goliath" when David was king of Israel it is pretty safe to assume these are two different people. The next verse (2 Sam 22:22) speaks of how these were all descended from Rapha in Gath. So there were two (or more) Goliaths... There are also countless Mary, Joseph, Adam, and Sarahs as well. |
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