Bible Contradiction? How did David kill Goliath? And did he killed him twice?

This post is probably more technical than some of the other responses we wrote answering alleged Bible contradiction but I think it is helpful in demonstrating how a working knowledge of the original language of Scripture is helpful and important.

Today’s post will tackle the question that the Skeptic Annotated Bible pose: “How did David kill Goliath?”

Here’s the two answer they pointed out in which their point is that there is a contradiction:

With a sling only.

(“There was no sword in the had of David.”)

And David put his hand into his bag and took from it a stone and slung it, and struck the Philistine on his forehead. And the stone sank into his forehead, so that he fell on his face to the ground. 50 Thus David prevailed over the Philistine with a sling and a stone, and he struck the Philistine and killed him; but there was no sword in David’s hand. (1 Samuel 17:49-50)

He cut off his head with a sword.

Then David ran and stood over the Philistine and took his sword and drew it out of its sheath and killed him, and cut off his head with it. When the Philistines saw that their champion was dead, they fled. (1 Samuel 17:51)

(Note: Scriptural quotation comes from the New American Standard Bible.  What is in bold is the emphasis by the skeptic webpage.)

Also the website also asked “Or did he kill him twice?”

Let’s take a closer look at whether or not there is a contradiction:

 

• As always when dealing with alleged Bible contradictions, we must remember what actually is a contradiction.  A contradiction is when there are two claims in which one denies the other in the same sense and the same time.
• Concerning timing, we see that David at first used a sling shot with verse 50 saying specifically that at that instance “there was no sword in David’s hand.”  However in verse 51 we see after the use of the slingshot David used a sword.  So David using the slingshot at one moment without using the sword and then later at another moment using the sword is in of itself not a contradiction because it happened at different moments.  This is important as a foundation for everything else to follow.
  • Just in case the sequence of “David uses slingshot with no sword” is followed by “David uses sword” is in doubt, in the Hebrew text of 1 Samuel 17:51 we see the verbs “ran,” “stood over,” “took,” and “drew” are all wayyiqtol verbs which indicates sequential consecutive actions.
• Concerning the skeptic’s question of whether David killed Goliath twice I would say no if we take the sense of the meaning of “kill” in today’s understanding.  However, we must ask if the sense of the word “kill” used today is being used in the same way with the Hebrew text of 1 Samuel 17:50-51.  This is where working with the Hebrew language is important because we must ask in what sense are the Hebrew verbs “kill” being used in both verse 50 and verse 51.  Logically speaking if the sense of “kill” in verse 50 is meant in a different sense than the “kill” in verse 51 then we don’t have a logical contradiction.  If there are two different sense being meant then we don’t have a contradiction in terms of the different means (slingshot or sword) employed to accomplish the two distinct actions of “kill.”
• When we look at the Hebrew verbs for “kill” in verse 50 and 51 we note that they are different verbal forms.   While both lexically comes from the root מוּת however both verbs appear in different verbal forms.  Verse 50 uses the verb וַיְמִיתֵ֑הוּ for “kill.”   The verb for “kill” in verse 51 is וַיְמֹ֣תְתֵ֔הוּ.  And these two different verbal forms should tip the readers that different sense of the action is being stressed in verse 50 in contrast to verse 51 and vice versa.
• In verse 50 the verb וַיְמִיתֵ֑הוּ for “kill” is in the Hiphil form.  For those who know Hebrew it is common knowledge that Hiphil  forms often convey the causative idea.  Thus what the verb in verse 50 is telling us is that David caused Goliath’s death.  The means that David used which began Goliath’s death is of course the slingshot.
• In verse 51 the verb  וַיְמֹ֣תְתֵ֔הוּ for “kill” is in the Polel form.  It appears less frequently than the other verbal forms of מוּת.  According to Old Testament scholar Robert Chisholm this verbal form has “a specialized shade of meaning, referring to finishing off someone who is already mortally wounded” (Chisholm, Interpreting the Historical Books, 172).
• In light of the above understanding of the Hebrew verbal forms, we don’t have a contradiction.  Again the Hiphil form of the verb “kill” in verse 50 tells us that David began the cause of Goliath’s death by means of the slingshot.  Then in verse 51 the Polel form of the verb “kill” tells us how David finished off an already mortally wounded Goliath, namely with the sword.
• Also in light of the understanding of the meaning of the verbal forms we also see that there is not the problem that the skeptic raised of whether David killed Goliath twice.  Obviously one can only be killed once.  But the verb in verse 51 tells us how David finished off Goliath, with Goliath’s beginning to die in verse 50 due to David’s use of the slingshot.
• As one might notice the resolution for this Bible contradiction hinges upon the meaning of the Polel form of the verb for “kill” in verse 51.  Someone might ask what’s the proof that the Polel form of the verb has the idea of finishing off a mortally wounded individual.  Here I want to further shore up my exegetical defense.
  • As a rule of thumb I typically prefer studying the use of a verb or verbal form in question within the very book I’m looking at.  It turns out that while the Polel form of the verb for “kill” is not as frequent we do see one other appearance of the Polel form in 1 Samuel 14:13: “Then Jonathan climbed up on his hands and feet, with his armor bearer behind him; and they fell before Jonathan, and his armor bearer put some to death after him.”
    • Here the context of the chapter describes Jonathan’s battle against the Philistines.
    • Jonathan apparently was involved in combat in which some Philistines “ fell before Jonathan.”  We assume that Jonathan struck them.
    • But note how “his armor bearer put some to death after him.”  The verb used here is the Polel form which indicates that those who were struck by Jonathan and was dying was finished off by the armor bearer.
  • 2 Samuel 1:9-10 describes an Amalekite telling a story to King David of how he finished off King Saul: “Then he said to me, ‘Please stand beside me and kill me, for agony has seized me because my life still lingers in me.’ 10 So I stood beside him and killed him, because I knew that he could not live after he had fallen. And I took the crown which was on his head and the bracelet which was on his arm, and I have brought them here to my lord.”
    
    • The word translated as “kill” in both verses 9 and 10 uses the Polel form of מוּת.
    • Saul of course in the context is mortally wounded and according to this Amalekite’s account is begging to be killed in verse 9.  So it makes sense to understand the verb as indicating the finishing off of someone mortally wounded.
    • Verse 10 presupposes that meaning of the verb since the man goes on to give the reason why he finished off Saul was because Saul wouldn’t be able to live after his mortal injury.
  • If one more proof is needed one should also study the use of the form of the verb in Judges 9:54.

Here in this post another alleged Bible contradiction bites the dust.