Did David kill Goliath twice in 1S 17:50-51?

[tonychanyt]

David fought Goliath in 1 Samuel 17:

48 When the Philistine arose and came and drew near to meet David, David ran quickly toward the battle line to meet the Philistine. 49 And David put his hand in his bag and took out a stone and slung it and struck the Philistine on his forehead. The stone sank into his forehead, and he fell on his face to the ground.
50 So David prevailed over the Philistine with a sling and with a stone, and struck the Philistine and killed him.

The giant's body was flat on the ground motionless, as good as dead. The Philistines were wondering: Goliath, get up.

Was he clinically dead?

I don't know. I don't think David knew either, and he was not going to check Goliath's pulse.

There was no sword in the hand of David. 51 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.

David cut off his head to demonstrate to everyone that Goliath was dead.

When the Philistines saw that their champion was dead, they fled.

Ya, Goliath was dead alright.

Did David kill Goliath twice?

No. It's common for Hebrew parallelism to describe a thing twice in different aspects. The first "killed" might mean "mortally wounded". The second "killed" could be understood as "finished off" to confirm the kill.

See also

• Was Goliath killed twice?