ContradictionsReading order 542Bible context 2 min read
Whom did Elhanan kill?
Both supplied accounts make Elhanan's victim Goliath's brother, with Chronicles adding the name Lahmi. They do not disagree over the victim's relationship to Goliath.
- Textual conflict
- Weak contradiction
- The supplied passages do not establish incompatible claims. Different events, meanings, or conditions may account for the difference.
- Importance
- Supporting
- A supporting event, teaching, or biographical claim.
The supplied Samuel and Chronicles wording both identify Goliath's brother as Elhanan's victim, so the proposed victim contradiction is absent.
An editorial assessment of the quoted passages. Importance describes the stakes; it does not increase certainty. Reading order weighs both.
Elhanan kills Goliath's brother while David kills the champion
And there was again a battle in Gob with the Philistines, where Elhanan the son of Jaare–oregim, a Beth–lehemite, slew the brother of Goliath the Gittite, the staff of whose spear was like a weaver’s beam.
2 Samuel 21:19
Translation / edition: King James Version (KJV)
Read the full chapter:2 Samuel 21
And David put his hand in his bag, and took thence a stone, and slang it, and smote the Philistine in his forehead, that the stone sunk into his forehead; and he fell upon his face to the earth. So David prevailed over the Philistine with a sling and with a stone, and smote the Philistine, and slew him; but there was no sword in the hand of David. Therefore David ran, and stood upon the Philistine, and took his sword, and drew it out of the sheath thereof, and slew him, and cut off his head therewith. And when the Philistines saw their champion was dead, they fled.