Goliath

David faces Goliath in single combat.

Goliath (גָּלְיָת, Standard Hebrew Golyat, Tiberian Hebrew Golyāṯ, Arabic: جالوت Jalut), known also as Goliath of Gath (one of five city states of the Philistines), is a Philistine warrior mentioned in the Hebrew Bible. He is famous for his battle in the 11th century BC with David, the young Israelite boy who had already been chosen by God and anointed by Samuel to become the King of Israel.

The account of David and Goliath is given in the Hebrew Bible (and hence the Christian Old Testament) and in the Qur'an.

Summary: 1 Samuel 17

David hoists the severed head of Goliath.

This is the account of the battle between David and Goliath given in 1 Samuel, chapter 17:^[1]

Saul and the Israelites are facing the Philistines at Socoh. Each day Goliath, the champion of the Philistines, comes out between the lines and challenges the Israelites to send out their own champion to decide the outcome in single combat, but Saul and all the Israelites are afraid. David is present, bringing food for his older brothers. He hears Goliath and hears also that Saul has promised to reward any man who will defeat the Philistine champion, and is not afraid. Saul hears of David's words and sends for him, and David offers to fight the Philistine. Saul reluctantly agrees and offers his armour, which David declines in favour of his sling and five stones which he takes from the brook.

David and Goliath confront each other, Goliath with his armour and shield-bearer, David with his staff and sling. "And the Philistine cursed David by his gods", but David replies: "This day the LORD will deliver you into my hand, and I will strike you down, and cut off your head; and I will give the dead bodies of the host of the Philistines this day to the birds of the air 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 saves not with sword and spear; for the battle is Yahweh's, and he will give you into our hand."^[2]

David then strikes Goliath with a stone from his sling, and the Philistine falls on his face to the ground. David seizes the sword of the giant and kills him, and cuts off his head. The Philistines flee and are pursued by the Israelites "as far as Gath and the gates of Ekron". David puts the armour of Goliath in his own tent, and takes the head to Jerusalem. Saul sends Abner to inquire whose son this is who has routed the Philistines and killed their champion; Abner brings David before Saul, who asks him whose son he is, "And David answered, 'I am the son of your servant Jesse the Bethlehemite'."

Textual considerations

Textual variations

There are significant differences between the Masoretic (Hebrew), Septuagint (Greek), and Dead Sea Scrolls versions of 1 Samuel 17.^[3] One of the most interesting of these relates to Goliath's height: 4QSam(a), the Dead Sea Scrolls text of Samuel, gives the height of Goliath as "four cubits and a span," (about six feet six inches), and this is what the 4th century CE Septuagint texts and the 1st century CE historian Josephus also record. Later Septuagint manuscripts and the Masoretic texts read "six cubits and a span," about nine feet six inches.^[4]

The second major difference lies between the Masoretic text, which forms the basis of modern translations, and early Septuagint manuscripts such as the 3rd century CE Codex Vaticanus. Vaticanus does not contain the verses describing David coming each day with food for his brothers, nor 1 Samuel 17:55-58 in which Saul seems unaware of David's identity, referring to him as "this youth" and asking Abner to find out the name of his father. The narrative therefore reads that Goliath is challenging the Israelites to combat, the Israelites are afraid, and David, already with Saul, accepts the challenge.^[5] The shorter Septuagint version removes a number of ambiguities which have puzzled commentators: it removes 1 Samuel 17:55-58 in which Saul seems not to know David, despite having taken him as one of his shield-bearers and harpist; it removes 1 Samuel 17:50, the presence of which makes it seem as if David kills Goliath twice, once with his sling and then again with a sword;^[6] and it gives David a clear reason, as Saul's personal shield-bearer, for accepting Goliath's challenge. Scholars drawing on studies of oral transmission and folklore have concluded that the non-Septuagint material "is a folktale grafted onto the initial text of ... 1 Samuel."^[7]

Elhanan and Goliath

2 Samuel 21:19^[8] tells how "Goliath the Gittite" was killed by "Elhanan the son of Jaare-oregim, the Bethlehemite." The resulting ambiguity - what was the relationship of this Goliath to the Goliath killed by David in 1 Samuel 17? - has given rise to a great deal of commentary. 1 Chronicles 20,^[9] written in the 4th century BCE, resolved the problem by saying that Elhanan "slew Lahmi the brother of Goliath," constructing the name Lahmi from the last portion of the word "Bethlehemite" ("beit-ha'lahmi").^[10] The King James Bible and many modern bibles have adopted this into their translation of 2 Samuel 21:18-19, although the Hebrew text makes no mention of the word "brother". 2 Samuel 21 appears to be an extremely corrupt passage: "Jaare-oregim," the name of Elhanan's father, means a nonsensical "forest of weaver's beams", and seems to have been copied from Goliath's weaponry (Goliath has a spear "with a shaft like a weaver's beam"). David's opponent probably had no name originally, being referred to simply as "the Philistine" (the name Goliath is applied to him only twice in 1 Samuel 17): "Most likely, storytellers displaced the deed from the otherwise obscure Elhanan onto the more famous character, David."^[11]

Goliath's name

Potsherd inscribed with the two names "alwt" and "wlt", etymologically related to the name Goliath

Tell es-Safi, the biblical Gath and traditional home of Goliath, has been the subject of extensive excavations by Israel's Bar-Ilan University. The archaeologists have established that this was one of the largest of the Philistine cities until destroyed in the 9th century BC, an event from which it never recovered. An important find relating to Goliath is the discovery of a potsherd, reliably dated to the 10th-early ninth centuries, inscribed with the two names "alwt" and "wlt". While the names are not directly connected with the biblical Goliath, they are etymologically related, and demonstrate that the name fits with the context of late-10th/early-9th century BC Philistine culture. The name "Goliath" itself is non-Semitic and has been linked with the Lydian name "Alyattes", which also fits the Philistine context of the biblical Goliath story.^[12]

Goliath's armour

The question of whether Goliath's armour, as described in 1 Samuel 17, is or is not anachronistic is the subject of some dispute. In 1950 E. A. Speiser connected the Hebrew name used for Goliath's coat of mail to a Nuzi (a site near modern Kirkuk, Kurdistan) source, noting that scaled armour has been found as far back as the middle of the second millennium BCE.^[13] In 2004 Azzan Yadin suggested that the armour described in 1 Samuel 17 is typical of Greek armour of the 6th century BCE rather than of Philistinian armour of the 10th century, and that narrative formulae such as the settlement of battle by single combat between champions is characteristic of the Homeric epics (the Iliad) but not of the ancient Near East.^[14] Steven McKenzie has also disputed an early date for Goliath’s armor, comparing his helmet, in particular, to Assyrian (7th century BC) helmets, which, lacking a nosepiece, would have enabled David to strike his opponent in the forehead; but McKenzie's late dating has been disputed on the basis of a 12th century BC Mycenaean vase depicting "marching warriors, clad in helmets with nosepieces, coats of mail, and leg guards, carry[ing] a long spear."^[15]

Later traditions

Jewish

The authors of the Babylonian Talmud gave Goliath a pedigree suited to his character as the adversary of David: Sotah 42b tells that he was a son of Orpah, the sister-in-law of Ruth, David's own grandmother. The Ruth Rabbah, a haggadic and homiletic interpretation of the Book of Ruth, makes the blood-relationship even closer, considering Orpah and Ruth to have been full sisters. Orpah was said to have made a pretense of accompanying Ruth but after forty paces left her; thereafter she led a dissolute life, so that the identity of Goliath's father was impossible to ascertain.

The Talmud stresses Goliath's ungodliness: his taunts before the Israelites included the boast that it was he who had captured the Ark of the Covenant and brought it to the temple of Dagon; and his challenges to combat were made at morning and evening in order to disturb the Israelites in their prayers. His armour weighed 60 tons, according to rabbi Hanina; 120, according to rabbi Abba bar Kahana; and his sword, which became the sword of David, had marvellous powers. On his death it was found that his heart carried the image of Dagon, who thereby also came to a shameful downfall.^[16]

In Pseudo-Philo, believed to have been composed between 135 BCE and 70 CE, David picks up seven stones and writes on them the names of his fathers, his own name, and the name of God, one name per stone; then, speaking to Goliath, he says: "Hear this word before you die: were not the two woman from whom you and I were born, sisters? and your mother was Orpah and my mother Ruth..." After David strikes Goliath with the stone he runs to Goliath before he dies and Goliath says, "Hurry and kill me and rejoice," and David replies, "Before you die, open your eyes and see your slayer;" Goliath sees an angel and tells David that it is not he who has killed him but the angel. Pseudo-Philo then goes on to say that the angel of the Lord changes David's appearance so that no one recognizes him, and thus Saul asks who he is.^[17]

Christian

The early Christian church, seeking "types" (fore-runners, prefigurations) for its own beliefs and history throughout the Jewish scriptures, found a rich lode of metaphores in the stories of David: David's marriage of Bathsheba was seen as a model of the church's wooing of the community of believers away from the discredited Jewish faith, his speech to followers during the flight from Absalom was a prefiguring of Jesus's farewell speech to his disciples, and the battle with Goliath symbolised the church's eternal but victorious battle with Satan.^[18]

Modern references

Goliath used as an unflattering symbol for the United States as a global superpower: in this protest banner, at a demonstration in Vienna, 2005, the text translates as "Tie Goliath's hands—he's gone crazy". (Details)

• Today the word 'goliath' is often used to describe any person or entity of enormous size.

• The lead character in Disney's animated series "Gargoyles" was called Goliath and was named after the Philistine Giant. (Ironically, his chief enemy was a now reformed villain named David--full name David Xanatos.)

• In the Real-time strategy game StarCraft, the Goliath is a mechanical combat unit used by the Terran race in the intergalactic war against the Protoss and Zerg.

• A toy vehicle set in the 1980s M.A.S.K. toyline was named Goliath; it consisted of a race car which transformed into a jet, and the race car's transport truck with transformed into a missile launcher.

• Niccolò Machiavelli, in The Prince, states that we should learn this lesson from David and fight with our own weapons, using our own strengths, and not try to borrow or hire those of others.

• "David and Goliath" is now a proverbial expression of a small force defeating a larger one, or two people or groups with very opposing views.

• The British Royal Navy had several successive ships bearing the name HMS Goliath. One of them took part in the Napoleonic Wars, and a later one in The First World War.

• One of the two shipyard cranes that dominate the Belfast skyline is nicknamed Goliath. The other crane is nicknamed Samson.

• The World's Largest bear, of Space Farms Zoo and Museum in Sussex NJ was honorably named "Goliath". The record holding bear lived between 1972-1991.

• The world's heaviest beetle, and by far the largest member of the scarab family, measuring as much as a sparrow but weighing in at five times a sparrow's weight, is called the goliath beetle.

• A roller coaster at Six Flags Magic Mountain in Valencia, California is named Goliath in honor of the tale. It's maiden ride was led by a person named David Cox as a play on the story of David "defeating" Goliath.

• In another computer game, Battlefield 2142, in the expansion pack Northern Strike there is a vehicle of the EU team called the Goliath. It is a huge armored APC which is considered the hardest vehicle to destroy as it has regenerating armor, and requires certain panels on it to be destroyed before becoming vulnerable. It is the biggest drivable vehicle in the game (drivable, as in not a Titan).

• A VLF RADCOM Antenna type. The Goliath will have a mast at each of the six corners and one in the center of each canopy.

• The Israeli Rock band Kaveret composed and sung a song called "Goliath" telling the tale of the 6 Day War through the tale of David and Goliath.

• The Swedish melodic death metal band In Flames released a song "Goliaths Disarm Their Davids" on their 1997 mini-CD Black-Ash Inheritance.

• Davey and Goliath, the 1960s Art Clokey-animated Lutheran Church in America-sponsored children's television program gives the names of the chief characters of the David and Goliath story to its main characters, Davey Hansen and his dog, Goliath.

• Goliath is the name of the Triax army's giant tank/mobile land fortress in the 1989 Kenner toy line Mega Force.

• A form of battle armor ridden by Vile in Capcom's SNES/PSX game "Mega Man X3" bears the title Goliath.

Goliath at the movies

The Italians used Goliath as an action superhero in a series of Biblical adventure films (peplums) in the early 1960s. He was possessed of amazing strength, and the films were similar in theme to their Hercules and Maciste movies. After the classic Hercules (1957) became a blockbuster sensation in the film industry, a 1959 Steve Reeves film, Terror of the Barbarians, was retitled Goliath and the Barbarians in 1960 in the USA. The film was so successful at the box office it inspired Italian filmmakers to do a series of four films featuring a beefcake hero named Goliath. (The 1960 Italian film David and Goliath, starring Orson Welles, was not part of this series, as it was a straightforward adaptation of the original Biblical story).

The titles in the Italian "Goliath" peplum series were as follows:

• Goliath Against the Giants (1960) starring Brad Harris as Goliath.
• Goliath and the Rebel Slave (aka The Tyrant of Lydia vs. The Son of Hercules, 1963) starring Gordon Scott as Goliath (Note: this film was sold directly to American TV in a syndication package known as Sons of Hercules, in this case referring to Goliath as a Son of Hercules, simply for marketing reasons).
• Goliath and the Masked Rider (aka Hercules and the Masked Rider, 1964) starring Alan Steel as Goliath. (This film was marketed on USA television as a Hercules movie)
• Goliath at the Conquest of Baghdad (aka Goliath at the Conquest of Damascus, 1964) starring Peter Lupus as Goliath.

The name Goliath was also used in the film titles of a few other Italian movies that were retitled for distribution in the USA in an attempt to cash in on the Goliath craze, but these films were not originally Goliath movies in Italy. Both Goliath and the Vampires (1961) and Goliath and the Sins of Babylon (1963) featured the famed superhero Maciste in the original Italian versions, but American distributors didn't feel the name Maciste would have any meaning to American audiences. Goliath and the Dragon (1960) was originally an Italian Hercules movie called The Revenge of Hercules, and it is a mystery to this day why U.S. distributors didn't market the film under that title, since Hercules films always tended to do much better at the box office than Goliath movies.

The 1986 film Hoosiers involves a final scene which a small-town high school basketball team takes on a big-city team for the Indiana state championship. In the final moments before the small-town team from "Hickory" takes the court, the passage describing how, "David took a stone from the bag and slung it... knocking the Philistine to the ground" is read to inspire the team.

In 2004, Lightstone Studios released a direct-to-dvd movie musical titled "One Smooth Stone," which was later changed to "David and Goliath." It is part of the Liken the Scriptures (Now just "Liken") series of movie musicals on DVD based on scripture stories.

Notes

External links

• Goliath - Bible Verses pertaining to Goliath
• Sword and sandal (film genre)
• The Skeptic's Annotated Bible
• Animated David & Goliath at the Internet Movie Database
• One Smooth Stone (David and Goliath) at the Internet Movie Database

See also

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