Wulf's Webden

The story of David defeating Goliath is so well known in the English-speaking world that many people, who would have only a vague idea that it comes from the Bible and no chance of pinpointing it as being found in 1 Samuel 17, would confidently refer to it as a way of describing an unlikely victory by some person or group that seems utterly outclassed. Perhaps that doesn’t capture quite what the original author intended? In v. 47, David confidently declares to Goliath: “… the battle is the Lord’s, and he will give you into our hand” and the outcome of the story confirms that his faith is not misplaced. On the face of it though – even, according to the account, those on his own side – he would have looked like a mere stripling of a youth towered over by an experienced and fearsome warrior.

How much did Goliath tower over him? If you look up v. 4 using the BibleGateway website’s useful comparison of numerous English translations, most put him at around 10′ tall. Some use the original units of 6 cubits and a span (about 6×18″ + ~6″), some translate that to 9’6″ and some render it in metres instead (about 3m). Whichever way you sum it up, that is remarkably tall. In the modern era, the world record holder was Robert Wadlow (1918-1940), who rose to 8’11” (272cm) but had a skinny frame and died young. That would make Goliath a monster of a man – not a patch on some of the giants of fiction but you probably wouldn’t call him “shorty” to his face!

However, if you read all the way down the list, you find that some translations put him at a shorter height. For example the New English Translation places him at “close to 7 feet tall”. Can’t they add up? It turns out that 6 cubits and a span comes from the “Masoretic Text”, and the oldest complete copy of that is only just over 1,000 years old although earlier fragments show a good level of consistency stretching much further back. However some early Hebrew sources (notably the portions discovered at Qumran as part of the Dead Sea Scrolls, dating from roughly around the time of Jesus) and the Greek translation known today as the Septuagint (dating from 2-3 centuries before Jesus) describe Goliath as being a “mere” four cubits and a span. That would make him about 6’9″ – still remarkably tall but within the scope that is much harder to dismiss as mere fantasy. I’ve met people who could almost see eye to eye with a Goliath of that height.

There are objections. One is that the modern tradition is that Bibles are based on translations from the Masoretic text but that can be countered in part by observing that many New Testament quotations of Old Testament passages seem to clearly have used something more like the Septuagint. It should be noted that these aren’t two completely different sources – there are just points of detail that differ but both tell the same story of the same people and the same holy God. Another objection is that the weight of Goliath’s armour and weapons would then be too great but I reckon someone almost 7′ tall and built like a brick outhouse would be mighty, mighty enough to cope with load that would be well beyond me.

Therefore, I am leaning towards the shorter Goliath theory. Given that the average man of the time (c. 1,000 BC) is believed to have been about 5′ – 5’6″ in height (based on archaeology) that would still make him tower even above the notably tall King Saul (1 Sam 9:2 – he was head and shoulders above most men, which could well be where we get that idiom from). David isn’t fighting a mythical monster but merely a large man who has made the dangerous mistake of leaving God out of his reckoning of the odds.