Person

Goliath

Q: What is the theological significance of David versus Goliath?

Multiple threads. First, David's victory completes the unfinished conquest of Joshua: the Anakim remnant that had escaped Joshua's clearance into Gath is eliminated by David and his men over the course of the David-narrative period (Goliath plus the four champions of 2 Samuel 21). Second, the narrative names the principle of the triumph of faith over visible force (1 Samuel 17:45-47). Third, David is a type of Christ in the pattern: a representative champion fighting for a fearful people, the enemy a personification of accusing and lethal power, the victory accruing to those for whose sake the champion fought. Fourth, the victory publicly falsifies the Philistine gods Goliath had invoked. Fifth, on the angelic / Watcher reading of Genesis 6, the Gath giants are the post-flood remnant of the Nephilim line whose corruption triggered the flood, and David's clearance of them belongs to the longer arc of God's rolling back the Genesis 6 rebellion.

Philistine champion (Hebrew ish ha-benayim, literally "the man of the between," a duelist) from the city of Gath, killed by the young David in the Elah Valley around 1024 BC (1 Samuel 17). His clan, the Philistine champions of Gath, is identified in 2 Samuel 21:15-22 and 1 Chronicles 20:4-8 as yelidei ha-rapha, "born to Rapha" (descendants of the Rephaim). The Anakim remnant of Joshua's clearance had settled in three Philistine cities including Gath (Joshua 11:22), and the Anakim are identified by the Israelite spies as "part of the Nephilim" (Numbers 13:33). Goliath therefore sits at a canonical junction: a giant of the Rephaim, descended from or kindred with the Anakim of Gath, who the spies named Nephilim. See Nephilim and the Sons of God for the full interpretive context.

Background

From Gath, one of the five Philistine cities (Gaza, Ashdod, Ashkelon, Gath, Ekron) and one of the three where the Anakim remnant survived Joshua's clearance (Joshua 11:22).
Champion of the Philistine army. The Hebrew is ish ha-benayim, "the man of the between," a duelist who represented an army in single combat against a representative of the opposing army. Champion combat was a recognized Philistine and Aegean institution.
Heavily armored. 1 Samuel 17 describes his armament with unusual detail: a bronze helmet, scale armor weighing 5,000 shekels (about 125 pounds / 57 kg), bronze greaves, a bronze javelin between his shoulders, a spear shaft like a weaver's beam with an iron spearhead weighing 600 shekels (about 15 pounds / 6.8 kg), and a shield-bearer who walked before him.
Killed c. 1024 BC at the Elah Valley by the shepherd David, then a youth visiting his older brothers in Saul's army.

The height question

1 Samuel 17:4 gives Goliath's height. The textual evidence is divided:

Masoretic Text (the standard Hebrew tradition): "six cubits and a span" (about 9 feet 9 inches / 2.97 m).
Dead Sea Scrolls (4QSamᵃ), the Septuagint, and Josephus (Antiquities 6.171): "four cubits and a span" (about 6 feet 9 inches / 2.06 m).

Most modern textual critics now prefer the four-cubit reading on the grounds that (a) 4QSamᵃ is the oldest preserved Hebrew witness to 1 Samuel 17, (b) the Septuagint translation tradition is independent of the Masoretic transmission and agrees with 4QSamᵃ, and (c) Josephus, who had access to early Hebrew manuscripts, agrees as well. The six-cubit reading is most easily explained as a later scribal expansion.

Either reading is unusual. Six foot nine inches in the ancient world (when the average Israelite man stood five foot three to five foot five) would have been remarkable; nine foot nine would have been almost supernatural. The lower reading is more credible historically and still leaves Goliath as a Philistine giant of his generation. The higher reading is the one popular culture has inherited via the King James Bible.

The Nephilim / Rephaim question

The most direct biblical label for Goliath's clan is yelidei ha-rapha, "born to Rapha" (descendants of the Rephaim), per 2 Samuel 21:22 and 1 Chronicles 20:8. The chain that links him to the Nephilim is indirect but credible.

The chain:

Goliath is from Gath (1 Samuel 17:4).
Goliath's brother Lahmi and three other Gath champions are explicitly Rephaim, per 2 Samuel 21:15-22 and 1 Chronicles 20:4-8. The named champions: Ishbi-benob (2 Samuel 21:16); Saph / Sippai (21:18); Lahmi the brother of Goliath the Gittite (21:19 / 1 Chronicles 20:5); and an unnamed giant with six fingers on each hand and six toes on each foot, twenty-four in number (21:20). All four are called yelidei ha-rapha and all four are from Gath.
Gath was one of three cities where the Anakim remnant survived Joshua's clearance (Joshua 11:22): "There were no Anakim left in the land of the sons of Israel; only in Gaza, in Gath, and in Ashdod some remained."
The Anakim are equated with the Nephilim in the spy report at Numbers 13:33: "There also we saw the Nephilim (the sons of Anak are part of the Nephilim)."
The Anakim and Rephaim overlap as related giant-clan terminology per Deuteronomy 2:10-21, where the Emim and Zamzummim are described as kindred to the Anakim and grouped together as Rephaim.

Stitched together: Goliath's clan (Rephaite, from Gath) sits in the city the Anakim remnant fled to, and the Anakim are explicitly identified by the spies as Nephilim. On the angelic / Watcher reading of Genesis 6 (see Nephilim and the Sons of God), the chain holds and Goliath is properly counted as a Nephilim descendant. On the Sethite or royalty readings of Genesis 6, the Nephilim label does not carry bloodline weight, and the chain becomes a matter of overlapping terminology rather than a unified bloodline.

Bottom line: the direct textual label is Rephaite; the indirect chain to the Nephilim is plausible and depends on the Genesis 6 reading and the status of the spy report's identification at Numbers 13:33.

The narrative of 1 Samuel 17

The Philistine and Israelite armies were drawn up on opposite hills above the Elah Valley, southwest of Jerusalem. For forty days morning and evening, Goliath came down into the valley and challenged Israel to send a champion. No Israelite would face him, including Saul. The young David, sent by his father Jesse to bring food to his older brothers in the army, heard the taunt and was the only one to respond.

The exchange that follows is theologically loaded:

Goliath's taunt invokes the Philistine gods and curses David.
David's response (1 Samuel 17:45-47, NASB95): "You come to me with a sword, a spear, and a javelin, but I come to you in the name of the LORD of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have taunted. This day the LORD will deliver you up into my hands, and I will strike you down and remove your head from you. And I will give the dead bodies of the army of the Philistines this day to the birds of the sky and the wild beasts of the earth, that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel, and that all this assembly may know that the LORD does not deliver by sword or by spear; for the battle is the LORD's and He will give you into our hands."
The combat: David refused Saul's armor, chose five smooth stones from the brook, and struck Goliath on the forehead with a sling-stone. The Philistine fell; David took Goliath's own sword and beheaded him.
The rout: the Philistine army fled.

The narrative is the canonical David inauguration. It demonstrates the principle named in David's speech, "the battle is the LORD's and He will give you into our hands," and the inversion of human power-criteria that the Davidic story will rehearse from Samuel's choice of David ("man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart," 1 Samuel 16:7) through the cross.

Goliath's brothers and clan

2 Samuel 21:15-22 and 1 Chronicles 20:4-8 describe four additional Philistine champions from Gath who fell in later battles under David and his men:

Ishbi-benob (2 Samuel 21:16), who almost killed David and was killed by Abishai son of Zeruiah.
Saph / Sippai (2 Samuel 21:18; 1 Chronicles 20:4), killed by Sibbecai the Hushathite.
Lahmi the brother of Goliath the Gittite (2 Samuel 21:19; 1 Chronicles 20:5), killed by Elhanan son of Jair. (The Masoretic 2 Samuel 21:19 reads "Elhanan... killed Goliath the Gittite, the shaft of whose spear was like a weaver's beam," which is a scribal corruption; the parallel at 1 Chronicles 20:5 preserves the original: "Elhanan the son of Jair killed Lahmi the brother of Goliath the Gittite.")
An unnamed giant of Gath with twenty-four digits (2 Samuel 21:20-21; 1 Chronicles 20:6-7), killed by Jonathan son of Shimei, David's brother.

The text concludes: "These four were born to the giant in Gath, and they fell by the hand of David and by the hand of his servants." (2 Samuel 21:22 / 1 Chronicles 20:8). The four-plus-Goliath totals five Gath giants killed in the David-narrative period, suggesting a single Gath dynasty of Rephaite champions whose elimination was David's particular vocation. David finishes the unfinished work of Joshua's clearance.

Tel es-Safi inscription

In 2005, a Bar-Ilan University excavation at Tel es-Safi (ancient Gath) recovered a small potsherd from the late 10th to early 9th century BC stratum bearing two names in paleo-script: alwt and wlt. Both are etymologically related to the Hebrew Goliath. The sherd does not name the Goliath of 1 Samuel 17 personally; it confirms that the name Goliath (or names of that linguistic family) was current among Philistines at Gath in the right period for the David narrative. Critical scholars had occasionally argued that "Goliath" was a late literary invention; the Tel es-Safi sherd vindicates the onomastic plausibility of the biblical account. See Goliath Inscription Tel es-Safi for the artifact details.

Theological and typological significance

Five threads.

1. The unfinished conquest finished. Joshua's clearance of the Anakim was incomplete: the remnant survived in Gaza, Gath, and Ashdod (Joshua 11:22). David's vocation includes the elimination of the Gath dynasty (Goliath plus the four of 2 Samuel 21). The Davidic monarchy completes what the Joshua conquest left undone.

2. The triumph of faith over visible force. The narrative names the principle directly (1 Samuel 17:45-47). The Christian tradition has read this as a foundational pattern of God's preference for the apparently weak over the apparently strong, the principle Paul names in 1 Corinthians 1:27, "God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong."

3. Typological David-Christ pattern. David's victory over Goliath is a recognized type of Christ's victory over the powers. The pattern: a representative champion (David / Christ) fights for a fearful people who cannot fight for themselves; the enemy is a personification of accusing and lethal power (Goliath / Satan; cf. Hebrews 2:14-15, Christ "rendered powerless him who had the power of death"); the victory belongs to the people for whose sake the champion fought. The five smooth stones, the Philistine's own sword turned against him, the giving of the body to birds and beasts, all are typologically generative material in patristic and medieval exegesis.

4. The supernatural-rebellion frame. On the angelic / Watcher reading of Genesis 6 (see Nephilim and the Sons of God), the Gath giants are the post-flood remnant of the same Nephilim line whose corruption triggered the flood. David's clearance of them belongs to the longer arc of God's rolling back the Genesis 6 rebellion, an arc that finds its decisive completion at the cross, where the "rulers and authorities" are disarmed and made a public spectacle (Colossians 2:15).

5. The defamation of the Philistine gods. Goliath had cursed David by the Philistine gods (1 Samuel 17:43). David's victory is presented as a public falsification of those gods. "That all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel" (17:46). The Philistine champion's defeat is the Philistine pantheon's defeat. The pattern recurs at 1 Samuel 5, where the captured Ark causes the statue of Dagon to fall on its face before the Ark in Dagon's own temple, the head and hands broken off (the parts a champion needs).

Common questions this page answers

Q: Was Goliath actually a giant, and how tall was he?

The Masoretic Text of 1 Samuel 17:4 gives Goliath's height as "six cubits and a span," about 9 feet 9 inches. The Dead Sea Scrolls (4QSamᵃ), the Septuagint, and Josephus all read "four cubits and a span," about 6 feet 9 inches. Most modern textual critics prefer the shorter reading because 4QSamᵃ is the oldest preserved Hebrew witness, the Septuagint tradition is independent, and Josephus had access to early Hebrew manuscripts. Either reading is unusually tall for the ancient world (Israelite men averaged about 5 foot 4); the lower reading is historically credible without requiring the nearly-supernatural framing the higher reading implies.

Q: Was Goliath a Nephilim?

The most direct biblical label for Goliath's clan is Rephaite ("descendant of Rapha"), per 2 Samuel 21:22 and 1 Chronicles 20:8. The chain that links him to the Nephilim is indirect: Goliath is from Gath (1 Samuel 17:4); Gath was where the Anakim remnant settled after Joshua's clearance (Joshua 11:22); and the Anakim are identified by the Israelite spies as "part of the Nephilim" (Numbers 13:33). On the angelic / Watcher reading of Genesis 6, the chain holds and Goliath is properly counted as a Nephilim descendant. On other readings of Genesis 6 (Sethite, royalty), the Nephilim label is a sociological category rather than a bloodline and the connection is looser. See Nephilim and the Sons of God for the full interpretive context.

Q: Did Goliath have brothers, and were they also giants?

Yes. 2 Samuel 21:15-22 and 1 Chronicles 20:4-8 describe four additional Philistine champions from Gath who fell in later battles. The Hebrew calls them yelidei ha-rapha, "born to Rapha" (descendants of the Rephaim): Ishbi-benob, Saph (or Sippai), Lahmi the brother of Goliath, and an unnamed giant with six fingers on each hand and six toes on each foot (twenty-four digits total). The Masoretic 2 Samuel 21:19 has a scribal corruption that reads as if Elhanan killed Goliath himself; the parallel at 1 Chronicles 20:5 preserves the original reading: Elhanan killed Lahmi the brother of Goliath.

Q: Is there archaeological evidence for Goliath?

There is no inscription naming the Goliath of 1 Samuel 17 personally. But in 2005, the Bar-Ilan University excavation at Tel es-Safi (ancient Gath) recovered a small potsherd from the late 10th to early 9th century BC stratum bearing two paleo-script names, alwt and wlt, both etymologically related to the Hebrew Goliath. The sherd confirms that names of the Goliath linguistic family were current among Philistines at Gath in the right period for the David narrative. Critical scholars had occasionally argued that "Goliath" was a late literary invention with no Philistine background; the Tel es-Safi sherd vindicates the onomastic plausibility of the biblical account. See Goliath Inscription Tel es-Safi.

Q: What is the theological significance of David versus Goliath?

Multiple threads. First, David's victory completes the unfinished conquest of Joshua: the Anakim remnant that had escaped Joshua's clearance into Gath is eliminated by David and his men over the course of the David-narrative period (Goliath plus the four champions of 2 Samuel 21). Second, the narrative names the principle of the triumph of faith over visible force (1 Samuel 17:45-47). Third, David is a type of Christ in the pattern: a representative champion fighting for a fearful people, the enemy a personification of accusing and lethal power, the victory accruing to those for whose sake the champion fought. Fourth, the victory publicly falsifies the Philistine gods Goliath had invoked. Fifth, on the angelic / Watcher reading of Genesis 6, the Gath giants are the post-flood remnant of the Nephilim line whose corruption triggered the flood, and David's clearance of them belongs to the longer arc of God's rolling back the Genesis 6 rebellion.