D
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Pet peeves don't get more trivial than this, but nonetheless it's something I've always wondered about. In 1 Sam. 17, the text appears to indicate that Goliath fell on his face - face down - when struck by David's stone.
"48 And it came to pass, when the Philistine arose, and came, and drew nigh to meet David, that David hastened, and ran toward the army to meet the Philistine.
49 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."
In the bolded portion, the NIV reads "facedown", and the ESV reads "on his face".
So why do visual depictions of this event almost universally have Goliath falling backward? Is there something about the text that I'm missing? Are that many people really that sloppy in noting the finer details of the text? To this day, I've only seen one artist get it right - and this is in a ridiculously simplified 3"x3" board book that we have for our toddler. We have several different series of child-friendly Bible story adaptations in our house, and every other one has Goliath falling backwards.
"48 And it came to pass, when the Philistine arose, and came, and drew nigh to meet David, that David hastened, and ran toward the army to meet the Philistine.
49 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."
In the bolded portion, the NIV reads "facedown", and the ESV reads "on his face".
So why do visual depictions of this event almost universally have Goliath falling backward? Is there something about the text that I'm missing? Are that many people really that sloppy in noting the finer details of the text? To this day, I've only seen one artist get it right - and this is in a ridiculously simplified 3"x3" board book that we have for our toddler. We have several different series of child-friendly Bible story adaptations in our house, and every other one has Goliath falling backwards.