King David is often deemed the most famous king of ancient Israel and arguably ranks as one of the most memorable figures whose legends and stories have survived the erosions of time. Then and now, David emerged as an idolized and revered figure, serving as a standard by which other rulers were judged and measured. Even so, the real King David remains an enigma, as even the Bible is contradictory and inconsistent about the renowned king’s deeds and character. These questionable conflicting narratives span the entire life of the king, and even his most famous deed—David’s heroic slaying of the Philistine champion, Goliath—can be thrown into serious doubt by the Bible’s conflicting statements.
In the predominant account of the Goliath tale, as presented in First Samuel, David was a musically talented shepherd from Bethlehem when the army of King Saul of Israel (said to have ruled approximately c. 1021-1000 BCE) arrived in the region of Judah to face off against a force of Philistines, presumably from their nearby stronghold of Gath. Saul, suffering from ill health and a troubled mind (or an evil Spirit, as the Bible puts it), recruited David to be his court musician. David’s music brought Saul some comfort and peace of mind, and the thankful king consequently promoted David to become an armorbearer—a squire of sorts. On this, the Bible stated:
“‘I have seen a son of Jesse the Bethlehemite who is skillful in playing, a man of valor, a warrior, prudent in speech, and a man of good presence, and the Lord is with him.’ So Saul sent messengers to Jesse and said, ‘Send me your son David, who is with the sheep.’… And David came to Saul and entered his service. Saul loved him greatly, and he became his armor-bearer. And whenever the evil spirit from God came upon Saul, David took the lyre and played it with his hand, and Saul would be relieved and feel better, and the evil spirit would depart from him” (1 Samuel 16.18-23, NRSVUE translation).
While David juggled his three duties as a musician, squire, and shepherd, a tall Philistine warrior—Goliath of Gath—caused a stir by challenging the warriors of King Saul’s army to face him in a duel. This “champion named Goliath, of Gath,” the Bible intimidatingly reported, towered “six [or four] cubits and a span. He had a helmet of bronze on his head, and he was armed with a coat of mail; the weight of the coat was five thousand shekels of bronze. He had greaves of bronze on his legs and a javelin of bronze slung between his shoulders. The shaft of his spear was like a weaver’s beam, and his spear’s head weighed six hundred shekels of iron…” (1 Samuel 17.4-7, NRSVUE translation). All of King Saul’s warriors, according to this version of the tale, were too frightened to accept Goliath’s challenge, which caused hot-headed and zealous David to rebuke them all in a public speech. After criticizing the army, David vowed to take up the duel, himself, and he personally pled his case to King Saul. The king offered to lend the young shepherd different kinds of weapons and armor, but the gear was too cumbersome and unfamiliar. Therefore, David spurned the king’s equipment and instead entered the duel with his iconic sling. On the famous fight that ensued, the Bible stated:
“When the Philistine looked and saw David, he disdained him, for he was only a youth, ruddy and handsome in appearance. When the Philistine drew nearer to meet David, David ran quickly toward the battle line to meet the Philistine. David put his hand in his bag, took out a stone, slung it, and struck the Philistine on his forehead; the stone sank into his forehead, and he fell face down on the ground. So David prevailed over the Philistine with a sling and a stone, striking down the Philistine and killing him; there was no sword in David’s hand” (1 Samuel 17.42-50).
The Iconic David and Goliath moment was born. This feat of giant-slaying cemented David’s place as a legendary hero, a skilled warrior, and a champion for Israel against its foes. Yet, the Biblical narrative then abruptly and oddly pivots in awkward fashion to reintroduce David to King Saul. It is quite a baffling scene, because even though David was by this point the king’s beloved musician and squire, Saul now seems to forget his well-known companion, asking him detached questions such as, “Whose son are you, young man?” (1 Samuel 17.58), despite the Bible earlier stating that “Saul sent messengers to Jesse and said, ‘Send me your son David, who is with the sheep’” (1 Samuel 16.19). The odd structure and the inconsistencies of the David and Goliath passages have a tendency to cause inquisitive readers to wonder if the narrative was a later addition or an alternate origin story that was haphazardly spliced into the earlier storyline of David entering Saul’s orbit as a court musician.
Given these questions, it must be asked: Did David really slay Goliath? And, if not, was it perhaps someone else’s deed that was later ascribed to David for propagandic purposes? Biblical authors provided additional curious evidence to ponder just one book later in the Bible, where a brief and mysterious reference to another slaying of Goliath can be found. In Second Samuel, the Bible ascribes the slaying of the giant, Goliath, to an entirely different man from Bethlehem. In a passage devoted to recounting the giant-slaying deeds of David’s companions, the Bible states, “there was another battle with the Philistines at Gob, and Elhanan son of Jaare-oregim the Bethlehemite killed Goliath the Gittite, the shaft of whose spear was like a weaver’s beam” (2 Samuel 21.19). Presented with these two accounts, one may ask whether there were two giants named Goliath. Perhaps. As “Gittite” means “from Gath”, it must also be asked whether there might have been two giant Goliaths from Gath. Possibly. Could the two separate Goliaths from Gath have possessed identical spear shafts specifically described like a weaver’s beam? Maybe. Yet, on the other hand, could the tale of Elhanan slaying Goliath be an alternative narrative (perhaps the original narrative) in which David never slew the giant? Certainly.
One curiosity to point out is that when David eventually revolted against King Saul’s dynasty to begin his own rebel kingdom in Judah, he took the curious step of seeking the protection of the Philistine ruler, King Achish of Gath, to escape King Saul’s wrath. The Bible states, “So David set out and went over, he and the six hundred men who were with him, to King Achish son of Maoch of Gath. David stayed with Achish at Gath, he and his troops, every man with his household, and David with his two wives, Ahinoam of Jezreel and Abigail of Carmel, Nabal’s widow. When Saul was told that David had fled to Gath, he no longer sought for him” (1 Samuel 27.2-4). It would be a bold and curious move, indeed, for the famous slayer of the Gittite champion, Goliath, to later seek asylum in the slain hero’s home city of Gath. In fact, David was still allied with Gath when the Philistines killed King Saul of Israel and his heir apparent at the Battle of Gilboa. It could be that David appropriated the story of Elhanan’s slaying of Goliath as a nationalistic counterbalance meant to mask his own origins as a Philistine-allied rebel who carved out a kingdom in Judah at a time when Israel was in an existential succession crisis at a time of war.
Written by C. Keith Hansley
Picture Attribution: (Samuel Anoints David, and David Defeats Goliath, created by Jacob Folkema in 1791, [Public Domain] via Creative Commons and the Rijksmuseum).
Sources:
- The New Oxford Annotated Bible: New Revised Standard Version With The Apocrypha (Fifth Edition, Fully Revised), edited by Michael D. Coogan and associates. Oxford University Press, 2018.
- The Oxford Companion to the Bible, edited by Bruce M. Metzger and Michael D. Coogan. Oxford University Press, 1993.
- https://www.britannica.com/biography/David
- https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=2%20Samuel%2021&version=NRSVUE
- https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1%20Samuel%2017&version=NRSVUE
- https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1%20Samuel%2016&version=NRSVUE
- https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=2%20Samuel%2023&version=NRSVUE
- https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1%20Samuel%2027&version=NRSVUE
