Goliath

Goliath is the named Philistine champion of Gath whose defiance in the Valley of Elah is broken by the youngest son of Jesse with a sling and a stone. The figure runs across three Old Testament books — the duel narrative in 1 Samuel 17, two later sword-of-Goliath notices in 1 Samuel 21-22, a Gath war-catalogue in 2 Samuel 21 and 1 Chronicles 20 that names a brother Lahmi and other sons of the giant, and a poetic echo in the praise-roll of Sirach 47.

The Champion of Gath

The challenger steps out of the Philistine camp under his own name, his city, and his measured height: "And there went out a champion out of the camp of the Philistines, named Goliath, of Gath, whose height was six cubits and a span" (1Sa 17:4). He sets the terms of the duel as a substitution-bargain that would settle the war on a single body: "Why do you⁺ come out to set your⁺ battle in array? Am I not a Philistine, and you⁺ slaves to Saul? Choose⁺ a man for yourselves, and let him come down to me. If he is able to fight with me, and kill me, then we will be your⁺ slaves; but if I prevail against him, and kill him, then you⁺ will be our slaves, and serve us" (1Sa 17:8-9).

The defiance proper is one sentence: "I defy the armies of Israel this day; give me a man, that we may fight together" (1Sa 17:10). The reaction in the Israelite camp is immediate — "when Saul and all Israel heard those words of the Philistine, they were dismayed, and greatly afraid" (1Sa 17:11) — and the speech itself becomes the daily fixture David will eventually hear: "as he talked with them, look, there came up the champion, the Philistine of Gath, Goliath by name, out of the ranks of the Philistines, and spoke according to the same words: and David heard them" (1Sa 17:23).

The Shepherd Who Answers

David is introduced behind his elder brothers and outside Saul's muster: "And David was the youngest; and the three eldest followed Saul" (1Sa 17:14). His credentials, when he offers them to Saul, are pastoral, not military: "Your slave was shepherding his father's sheep; and when a lion or a bear came and took a lamb out of the flock, I went out after him, and struck him, and delivered it out of his mouth; and when he arose against me, I caught him by his beard, and struck him, and slew him" (1Sa 17:34-35). The argument he draws from the field is a class-argument — Goliath belongs with the predators already settled: "Your slave struck both the lion and the bear: and this uncircumcised Philistine will be as one of them, seeing he has defied the armies of the living God" (1Sa 17:36).

His outfit is the shepherd-kit, not Saul's armour: "he took his staff in his hand, and chose himself five smooth stones out of the brook, and put them in the shepherd's bag which he had, even in his wallet; and his sling was in his hand: and he drew near to the Philistine" (1Sa 17:40).

The Battle Is Yahweh's

David's reply to Goliath frames the duel as a contest of names. The Philistine's instruments are listed and out-named by a single divine title: "You come to me with a sword, and with a spear, and with a javelin: but I come to you in the name of Yahweh of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied. This day Yahweh will deliver you into my hand; and I will strike you, and take your head from off you; and I will give the dead bodies of the host of the Philistines this day to the birds of the heavens, and to 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 Yahweh does not save with sword and spear: for the battle is Yahweh's, and he will give you⁺ into our hand" (1Sa 17:45-47).

The kill is then summarised twice — once for the instrument, once for what was not in David's hand: "So David prevailed over the Philistine with a sling and with a stone, and struck the Philistine, and slew him; but there was no sword in the hand of David" (1Sa 17:50). The decapitation that follows uses Goliath's own weapon and ends the standoff: "Then David ran, and stood over the Philistine, and took his sword, and drew it out of its sheath, and slew him, and cut off his head with it. And when the Philistines saw that their champion was dead, they fled" (1Sa 17:51).

The Sword Kept at Nob

Goliath's sword is not buried with him. It is carried to the sanctuary at Nob and kept there as a relic, where the priest produces it for David on his flight from Saul: "The sword of Goliath the Philistine, whom you slew in the valley of Elah, look, it is here wrapped in a cloth behind the ephod: if you will take that, take it; for there is no other but that here. And David said, There is none like that; give it to me" (1Sa 21:9). Doeg's report to Saul retells the same transaction in shorthand and re-names the weapon by its previous owner: "And he inquired of [the Speech of] Yahweh for him, and gave him victuals, and gave him the sword of Goliath the Philistine" (1Sa 22:10).

The Sons of the Giant at Gath

The Samuel narrative returns to Gath in a four-giant war-catalogue. David, grown old, "waxed faint" in renewed Philistine fighting, and the giants are dispatched one by one by his men. The list opens with Ishbibenob, "who was of the sons of the giant, the weight of whose spear was three hundred [shekels] of bronze in weight, he being girded with a new [sword], thought to have slain David" (2Sa 21:16). Saph is slain at Gob by Sibbecai the Hushathite (2Sa 21:18). Then comes the Goliath-named entry: "there was again war with the Philistines at Gob; and Elhanan the son of Jari the Beth-lehemite slew Goliath the Gittite, the staff of whose spear was like a weaver's beam" (2Sa 21:19). The fourth is the polydactyl giant of Gath: "where was a man of great stature, that had on every hand six fingers, and on every foot six toes, four and twenty in number; and he also was born to the giant" (2Sa 21:20). The catalogue closes: "These four were born to the giant in Gath; and they fell by the hand of David, and by the hand of his slaves" (2Sa 21:22).

The Chronicler runs a parallel list with the kin-tag tightened. Lahmi appears as Goliath's brother, and the weaver's-beam spear is reattached to him: "there was again war with the Philistines; and Elhanan the son of Jair slew Lahmi the brother of Goliath the Gittite, the staff of whose spear was like a weaver's beam" (1Ch 20:5). Sibbecai's kill at Gezer takes Sippai (1Ch 20:4); the polydactyl-and-defying giant is dispatched by Jonathan, son of David's brother Shimea (1Ch 20:6-7); the catalogue closes the same way: "These were born to the giant in Gath; and they fell by the hand of David, and by the hand of his slaves" (1Ch 20:8).

The Pride That Was Broken

Sirach's praise-roll names the duel from the angle of what was broken in Goliath rather than what was struck off him. The sage telescopes the field-credential and the kill into a single quatrain: "In his youth he slew the giant, And took away the reproach from the people; When he slung his hand with the sling, And broke the pride of Goliath" (Sir 47:4). The reproach answers the defiance — what Goliath laid on the armies of Israel is taken back from the people — and the operative verb on Goliath himself is the breaking of his pride, not merely the cutting off of his head.