Your servant struck both the lion and the bear. This uncircumcised Philistine shall be as one of them, since he has defied the armies of the living God.”
World English Bible
This verse is examined in more than one Scripture Analysis section. Each lens is shown on its own terms, in the section's own words; GEBible reaches no verdict of its own.
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Your servant struck both the lion and the bear. This uncircumcised Philistine shall be as one of them, since he has defied the armies of the living God.”
World English Bible
Questions where the Bible appears to say two different things, with the passages on each side set together.
1 Samuel 16:18 introduces David to Saul as already "a mighty valiant man, and a man of war." One chapter later, 1 Samuel 17:33 has Saul calling David a youth incapable of fighting Goliath, and David unable to even walk in armor he has never tried on.
Critical scholarship: Widely regarded as a genuine contradiction.
The proposed answers and sources for each reading are on the question page.
Each section sets the viewpoints side by side; you weigh the evidence. Here, "critical scholarship" means academic study, not a value judgment. How this is built →
Within each section, grouped by shared field or question type — not a cross-section comparison.
One of these tensions involves a difference in wording across manuscripts or translations. Examine the original language on Lemma →
This citation refers to this GEBible page — the verse and the analysis gathered here. To cite the underlying scholarship, cite those sources directly.
"1 Samuel 17:36 — Scripture Analysis" GEBible, https://gebible.app/analysis/verse/1-samuel/17/36?version=WEB (retrieved 27 August 2026).