The Philistine giant Goliath of Gath challenges Israel to settle their war by single combat in the Valley of Elah; the young shepherd David, sent by his father to bring food to his brothers in Saul's camp, hears the challenge, refuses Saul's own armor as unfamiliar, and fells Goliath with a single sling stone to the forehead before beheading him with the giant's own sword, a victory that opens David's rise at Saul's court and in popular acclaim.
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Primary SourceJosephus's Antiquities of the Jews, Book Six, retells the duel and gives Goliath's height as four cubits and a span, matching the shorter figure found in the Septuagint and the Dead Sea Scroll fragment rather than the Masoretic text's six cubits and a span. 3 Primary SourceThe Hebrew Bible, 1 Samuel 17, with the shorter, likely earlier Septuagint text as an important textual witness alongside it. 1 Meaning
Central MotifAn unarmored underdog champion defeats an armored giant champion through skill and conviction rather than matched force, becoming a paradigmatic story of faith and courage against overwhelming odds. 1 Controversy
Point in DisputeGoliath's height is given differently across manuscript traditions, six cubits and a span in the Masoretic text against a shorter figure of four cubits and a span in the earliest Dead Sea Scroll fragment and in some Septuagint witnesses; scholars read the taller figure as the legend growing over the course of its transmission rather than the reverse. 2 History
Historical NoteThe ancient Greek Septuagint text of 1 Samuel 17 is markedly shorter than the standard Hebrew Masoretic text, missing roughly a third of the chapter; textual scholars read the gap as evidence that two once separate accounts of the duel were later combined into the fuller narrative now read as a single story. 2 Scholarship and Forensics
Scholarly NoteA separate notice later in the same book, 2 Samuel 21:19, credits the killing of Goliath the Gittite to a warrior named Elhanan; historians read the discrepancy as evidence of variant early traditions about who killed Goliath, later harmonized by tradition and by the Chronicler around David. 2 Cross-Tradition Connections
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