David and Goliath: The Story, Scholarship, and Setting | Middle East And North Africa

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DAVID AND GOLIATH

David and Goliath

David is one the greatest figures in the Bible. The founder and king of the first and largest Jewish kingdom, he was called the “Shepherd King” because of his humble origins. His story is told with great detail in the Bible. As a young man he became the head of an outlaw religious movement, achieved military successes against great odds and established a covenant "in divine partnership” with the Jewish God Jahweh. David is credited with writing the Psalms and was regarded as a political and military genius.

The most famous story with David involved his fight against Goliath of Gath, a Philistine giant, who, according to the Bible, was "six cubits and a span" (9 feet 6½ inches). Most historians believe if he existed he was only about 6 feet 10 inches. Despite many attempts to find some evidence for events behind this story, thus far nothing concrete has turned up.

The Philistines had issued a challenge for someone from the Jewish kingdom to fight Goliath, who carried a spear with a 20-pound head of iron and a shaft “like a weaver’s beam” and wore a huge brass helmet and a coat of mail that weighed 160 pounds. No one came forward to take up the challenge. David was delivering cheeses to three of his brothers when the challenge was made. He appeared to confront Goliath. He wore not armor; he was dressed only in shepherd’s garments. His only weapon was a sling and five smooth stones. As Goliath approached him he placed a stone in the sling and let it fly. The stone penetrated Goliath’s forehead and killed him. David cut off his head and presented it to the Jewish king. The event if it really took place occurred around 1060 B.C.

Candida Moss wrote in the Daily Beast: According to 1 Samuel, the Israelites were encamped there, facing the Philistines in a standoff. Twice a day for 40 days Goliath, the Philistine champion, would leave the encampment to challenge the Israelites to send a representative to engage in one-on-one combat. The winner would determine the outcome of the war. The natural candidate was Saul, who was not just the tallest member of the group but also their king. Saul was something of a coward and refused to accept the challenge, and David volunteered to fight Goliath instead. Declining to accept Saul’s reluctant offer of armor, David went out into the field of battle armed only with his shepherd’s staff, a slingshot and some stones he had taken from a stream. Proclaiming that the battle’s outcome is God’s, David launched a pebble at Goliath’s forehead, and the giant dropped dead onto the ground. David decapitated his corpse and the Philistines fled. The battle is won and David is on the path to becoming Israel’s most famous king. [Source: Candida Moss, Daily Beast, December 6, 2020]

What makes the story so compelling, as Malcolm Gladwell has argued, is the contrast between the two fighters. David is still a boy and Goliath is a literal giant. A text of 1 Samuel found among the Dead Sea Scrolls (the oldest physical manuscripts of the Bible) gives his height as “four cubits and a span” (usually estimated to be 2.38 meters or 7 feet 10 inches). This measurement is supported by the Greek translation of the Bible, known as the Septuagint, and the writings of a first century Jewish historian named Josephus. The Masoretic text, the authoritative Hebrew version of the Bible, reads “six cubits and a span” but most scholars think that this version is later. Interestingly, Goliath is the only person whose height is recorded in the Hebrew Bible.

Websites and Resources: Virtual Jewish Library jewishvirtuallibrary.org/index ; Judaism101 jewfaq.org ; torah.org torah.org ; Chabad,org chabad.org/library/bible ; Bible and Biblical History: ; Biblical Archaeology Society biblicalarchaeology.org ; Bible History Online bible-history.com Bible Gateway and the New International Version (NIV) of The Bible biblegateway.com ; King James Version of the Bible gutenberg.org/ebooks ; Jewish History: Jewish History Timeline jewishhistory.org.il/history Jewish History Resource Center dinur.org ; Center for Jewish History cjh.org ; Jewish History.org jewishhistory.org ; Internet Jewish History Sourcebook sourcebooks.fordham.edu ; Christianity: BBC on Christianity bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/christianity ; Christian Classics Ethereal Library www.ccel.org ; Sacred Texts website sacred-texts.com ;

Elah Valley — the Site of David's Clash with Goliath

In the Bible, the setting for the duel between David and Goliath is the Valley of Elah, a shallow valley about 25 kilometers (16 miles) to the southwest of Jerusalem. Hebrew University professor Yosef Garfinkel claims to have unearthed parts of a Judaean city there dating to the exact time of David's reign. Robert Draper wrote in National Geographic: A busy highway, Route 38, crosses the ancient road that follows the Elah Valley en route to the Mediterranean Sea. Beneath the hills on either side of the road lie the ruins of Socoh and Azekah. According to the Bible, the Philistines encamped in this valley, between the two towns, just before their fateful encounter with David. The battlefield of legend is now quiet and abounds with wheat, barley, almond trees, and grapevines, not to mention a few of the indigenous terebinth (elah in Hebrew) trees from which the valley derives its name. A small bridge extends from Route 38 over the Brook of Elah. During high season, tourist buses park here so that their passengers can climb down into the valley and retrieve a rock to take back home and impress friends with a stone from the same place as the one that killed Goliath.[Source: Robert Draper, National Geographic, December 2010]

"Maybe Goliath never existed," Garfinkel told National Geographic near his site, Khirbet Qeiyafa. "The story is that Goliath came from a giant city, and in the telling of it over the centuries, he became a giant himself. It's a metaphor. Modern scholars want the Bible to be like the Oxford Encyclopedia. People didn't write history 3,000 years ago like this. In the evening by the fire, this is where stories like David and Goliath started."

David fighting Goliath

Draper wrote: Garfinkel first learned from an Israeli Antiquities Authority ranger about a nine-foot-high megalithic wall looming over the Brook of Elah. He began digging in earnest in 2008. The wall, Garfinkel discovered, was of the same variety seen in the northern cities of Hazor and Gezer — a casemate of two walls with a chamber in between — and it encircled a fortified city of about six acres. Private houses abutted the city wall, an arrangement not seen in Philistine society. After shoveling out the topsoil, Garfinkel uncovered coins and other artifacts from the time of Alexander the Great. Beneath that Hellenistic layer he found buildings scattered with four olive pits, which carbon-14 analysis dated to around 1000 B.C. He also found an ancient tray for baking pita bread, along with hundreds of bones from cattle, goats, sheep, and fish — but no pig bones. In other words, Judaeans, rather than Philistines, must have lived (or at least dined) here. Because Garfinkel's excavation team also uncovered a very rare find — a clay pottery sherd with writing that appears to be a proto-Canaanite script with verbs characteristic of Hebrew — the conclusion to him seemed obvious: Here was a tenth-century B.C. complex Judaean society of the sort that low chronologists like Finkelstein claimed did not exist.

And what was its name? Garfinkel found his answer upon discovering that the fortified city had not one but two gates — the only such site found thus far in the kingdoms of Judah and Israel. "Two gates" translates into Hebrew as shaarayim, a city mentioned three times in the Bible. One of those references (I Samuel 17:52) describes the Philistines fleeing David back to Gath via the "road from Shaaraim." "You have David and Goliath, and you have our site, and it fits," says Garfinkel simply. "It's typical Judaea, from the animal bones to the city wall." Garfinkel announced his conclusions despite the fact that he had only four olive pits on which to base his dating, a single inscription of a highly ambiguous nature, and a mere 5 percent of his site excavated. Finkelstein mocks Garfinkel's discoveries at Khirbet Qeiyafa: "Look, you'll never catch me saying, 'I've found one olive pit at a stratum in Megiddo, and this olive pit — which goes against hundreds of carbon-14 determinations — is going to decide the fate of Western civilization.' " He snickers. The lack of pig bones, suggesting it is a Judaean site? "A gun, but not a smoking gun." The rare inscription found at the site? Probably from Philistine Gath rather than the kingdom of Judah.

David and Goliath Story from the Bible

First Book of the Kings: 17:1 Now the Philistines gathered together their armies to battle, and were gathered together at Shochoh, which belongeth to Judah, and pitched between Shochoh and Azekah, in Ephesdammim. 17:2 And Saul and the men of Israel were gathered together, and pitched by the valley of Elah, and set the battle in array against the Philistines. 17:3 And the Philistines stood on a mountain on the one side, and Israel stood on a mountain on the other side: and there was a valley between them. 17:4 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. 17:5 And he had an helmet of brass upon his head, and he was armed with a coat of mail; and the weight of the coat was five thousand shekels of brass. 17:6 And he had greaves of brass upon his legs, and a target of brass between his shoulders. 17:7 And the staff of his spear was like a weaver's beam; and his spear's head weighed six hundred shekels of iron: and one bearing a shield went before him. [Source: King James Version of the Bible, gutenberg.org]

David slays Goliath

17:8 And he stood and cried unto the armies of Israel, and said unto them, Why are ye come out to set your battle in array? am not I a Philistine, and ye servants to Saul? choose you a man for you, and let him come down to me. 17:9 If he be able to fight with me, and to kill me, then will we be your servants: but if I prevail against him, and kill him, then shall ye be our servants, and serve us. 17:10 And the Philistine said, I defy the armies of Israel this day; give me a man, that we may fight together. 17:11 When Saul and all Israel heard those words of the Philistine, they were dismayed, and greatly afraid.

17:12 Now David was the son of that Ephrathite of Bethlehemjudah, whose name was Jesse; and he had eight sons: and the man went among men for an old man in the days of Saul. 17:13 And the three eldest sons of Jesse went and followed Saul to the battle: and the names of his three sons that went to the battle were Eliab the firstborn, and next unto him Abinadab, and the third Shammah. 17:14 And David was the youngest: and the three eldest followed Saul. 17:15 But David went and returned from Saul to feed his father's sheep at Bethlehem.

17:16 And the Philistine drew near morning and evening, and presented himself forty days. 17:17 And Jesse said unto David his son, Take now for thy brethren an ephah of this parched corn, and these ten loaves, and run to the camp of thy brethren; 17:18 And carry these ten cheeses unto the captain of their thousand, and look how thy brethren fare, and take their pledge.

17:19 Now Saul, and they, and all the men of Israel, were in the valley of Elah, fighting with the Philistines. 17:20 And David rose up early in the morning, and left the sheep with a keeper, and took, and went, as Jesse had commanded him; and he came to the trench, as the host was going forth to the fight, and shouted for the battle. 17:21 For Israel and the Philistines had put the battle in array, army against army. 17:22 And David left his carriage in the hand of the keeper of the carriage, and ran into the army, and came and saluted his brethren.

17:23 And as he talked with them, behold, there came up the champion, the Philistine of Gath, Goliath by name, out of the armies of the Philistines, and spake according to the same words: and David heard them. 17:24 And all the men of Israel, when they saw the man, fled from him, and were sore afraid. 17:25 And the men of Israel said, Have ye seen this man that is come up? surely to defy Israel is he come up: and it shall be, that the man who killeth him, the king will enrich him with great riches, and will give him his daughter, and make his father's house free in Israel.

17:26 And David spake to the men that stood by him, saying, What shall be done to the man that killeth this Philistine, and taketh away the reproach from Israel? for who is this uncircumcised Philistine, that he should defy the armies of the living God? 17:27 And the people answered him after this manner, saying, So shall it be done to the man that killeth him.

17:28 And Eliab his eldest brother heard when he spake unto the men; and Eliab's anger was kindled against David, and he said, Why camest thou down hither? and with whom hast thou left those few sheep in the wilderness? I know thy pride, and the naughtiness of thine heart; for thou art come down that thou mightest see the battle. 17:29 And David said, What have I now done? Is there not a cause? 17:30 And he turned from him toward another, and spake after the same manner: and the people answered him again after the former manner.

17:31 And when the words were heard which David spake, they rehearsed them before Saul: and he sent for him. 17:32 And David said to Saul, Let no man's heart fail because of him; thy servant will go and fight with this Philistine. 17:33 And Saul said to David, Thou art not able to go against this Philistine to fight with him: for thou art but a youth, and he a man of war from his youth. 17:34 And David said unto Saul, Thy servant kept his father's sheep, and there came a lion, and a bear, and took a lamb out of the flock: 17:35 And I went out after him, and smote him, and delivered it out of his mouth: and when he arose against me, I caught him by his beard, and smote him, and slew him.

17:36 Thy servant slew both the lion and the bear: and this uncircumcised Philistine shall be as one of them, seeing he hath defied the armies of the living God. 17:37 David said moreover, The LORD that delivered me out of the paw of the lion, and out of the paw of the bear, he will deliver me out of the hand of this Philistine. And Saul said unto David, Go, and the LORD be with thee. 17:38 And Saul armed David with his armour, and he put an helmet of brass upon his head; also he armed him with a coat of mail.

David Kills Goliath and Cuts Off His Head

Candida Moss wrote in the Daily Beast: The Bible tells us two diverging things about how David kills Goliath. In the first version David kills Goliath with a slingshot and specifically without a sword (1 Samuel 17:50); in the second version he knocks Goliath down with the slingshot, pulls his sword out, kills Goliath and beheads him (1 Samuel 17:51). The reason for the discrepancy, according to Yale professor of Hebrew Bible Joel Baden’s The Historical David, is that two different, conflicting versions of the David and Goliath story were combined. Presenting descriptions of the geology of the region makes everything – and especially the Biblical text itself – seem more straightforward than it is. [Source: Candida Moss, Daily Beast, February 10, 2019]

First Book of the Kings: 17:39 And David girded his sword upon his armour, and he assayed to go; for he had not proved it. And David said unto Saul, I cannot go with these; for I have not proved them. And David put them off him. 17:40 And he took his staff in his hand, and chose him five smooth stones out of the brook, and put them in a shepherd's bag which he had, even in a scrip; and his sling was in his hand: and he drew near to the Philistine. 17:41 And the Philistine came on and drew near unto David; and the man that bare the shield went before him. 17:42 And when the Philistine looked about, and saw David, he disdained him: for he was but a youth, and ruddy, and of a fair countenance. 17:43 And the Philistine said unto David, Am I a dog, that thou comest to me with staves? And the Philistine cursed David by his gods. 17:44 And the Philistine said to David, Come to me, and I will give thy flesh unto the fowls of the air, and to the beasts of the field. 17:45 Then said David to the Philistine, Thou comest to me with a sword, and with a spear, and with a shield: but I come to thee in the name of the LORD of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom thou hast defied.

David and Goliath by Caravaggio
17:46 This day will the LORD deliver thee into mine hand; and I will smite thee, and take thine head from thee; and I will give the carcases of the host of the Philistines this day unto the fowls of the air, and to the wild beasts of the earth; that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel. 17:47 And all this assembly shall know that the LORD saveth not with sword and spear: for the battle is the LORD's, and he will give you into our hands. 17:48 And it came to pass, when the Philistine arose, and came, and drew nigh to meet David, that David hastened, and ran toward the army to meet the Philistine. 17:49 And David put his hand in his bag, and took thence a stone, and slang it, and smote the Philistine in his forehead, that the stone sunk into his forehead; and he fell upon his face to the earth.

17:50 So David prevailed over the Philistine with a sling and with a stone, and smote the Philistine, and slew him; but there was no sword in the hand of David. 17:51 Therefore David ran, and stood upon the Philistine, and took his sword, and drew it out of the sheath thereof, and slew him, and cut off his head therewith. And when the Philistines saw their champion was dead, they fled. 17:52 And the men of Israel and of Judah arose, and shouted, and pursued the Philistines, until thou come to the valley, and to the gates of Ekron. And the wounded of the Philistines fell down by the way to Shaaraim, even unto Gath, and unto Ekron. 17:53 And the children of Israel returned from chasing after the Philistines, and they spoiled their tents.

17:54 And David took the head of the Philistine, and brought it to Jerusalem; but he put his armour in his tent. 17:55 And when Saul saw David go forth against the Philistine, he said unto Abner, the captain of the host, Abner, whose son is this youth? And Abner said, As thy soul liveth, O king, I cannot tell. 17:56 And the king said, Enquire thou whose son the stripling is. 17:57 And as David returned from the slaughter of the Philistine, Abner took him, and brought him before Saul with the head of the Philistine in his hand.

17:58 And Saul said to him, Whose son art thou, thou young man? And David answered, I am the son of thy servant Jesse the Bethlehemite. 18:1 And it came to pass, when he had made an end of speaking unto Saul, that the soul of Jonathan was knit with the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul. 18:2 And Saul took him that day, and would let him go no more home to his father's house. 18:3 Then Jonathan and David made a covenant, because he loved him as his own soul. 18:4 And Jonathan stripped himself of the robe that was upon him, and gave it to David, and his garments, even to his sword, and to his bow, and to his girdle.

David’s Sling, Stones and Fighting Tactics

ancient sling

Some scholars believe that Goliath suffered from acromegaly, a benign pituitary gland disorder that also causes double vision. This may be why Goliath needed to fight David close in hand-to-hand combat. He was also slowed down by heavy armor. David on othe other hand was a projectile warrior. He was able to fight from a distance, unencumbered by armor and was able to utilize surprise, speed and skill to bring down Goliath, catching him off guard with some carefully-placed sling shots,

The Elah Valley (near the Gush Etzion Tunnels. And Bethlehem in the West Bank ) is the place where fateful battle between David and Goliath took place. Jewish and Philistine armies faced each other here. Saul and the men of Israel gathered together and camped on one side of a low mountain on. The Philistines stood on a mountain on the other side. The Bible describes the location (in 1 Samuel, 17:2-3).

Describing an image of a slingstone and sling from the Iron Age (1200 -500 B.C.), Gerald A. Larue wrote in “Old Testament Life and Literature”: The stone “is about the size of a tennis ball. The pouch and thongs are modern replicas patterned after slings shown in ancient inscriptions and drawings. The stone was placed in the pouch, and then, suspended by the two thongs which were held in one hand, was whirled rapidly about the head. When one thong was released the stone left the pouch and hurtled toward its target. For a reference to the accuracy of certain slingers see Judg. 20:16. [Source: Gerald A. Larue, “Old Testament Life and Literature,” 1968, infidels.org ]

Images from the Assyrian period show warriors hurling stones. The soldiers carry extra ammunition in their left hands. One such image is a carving is from a wall decoration in the palace of Sennacherib at Nineveh (early seventh century B.C.).

Gath — Goliath’s Home Town and a Land of Giant Buildings

Prof. Aren Maeir, director of the Tell es-Safi/Gath Archaeological Project, has published his work in the Journal of Biblical Literature. Candida Moss wrote in the Daily Beast: Maier’s archaeological project studies the distinctive architecture of Tell es-Safi or Gath, the traditional home of Goliath. The site was first settled sometime in the late prehistoric period around 5000 B.C. and was continuously inhabited for approximately 7000 years until the Arab Palestinian residents of the site were expelled during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war. It lies midway between Jerusalem and Ashkelon and is one of five Philistine cities mentioned in the Bible. [Source: Candida Moss, Daily Beast, March 14, 2021]

What’s distinctive about Gath is its large-scale buildings. Maier told the The Daily Beast that “in various parts of the site, including the fortifications, various buildings and even offsite, we see relatively large amounts of large worked blocks of stone used in architecture.” The massively outsized architecture, Meier said, was “visible for centuries” even after the city was destroyed in the ninth century B.C. by King Hazael. The scale of the city, Meier said, “is somewhat different” from what we see at other sites in ancient Israel. Meier hypothesizes that those who saw and explored the ruins of Gath long after it had been destroyed might well have assumed that the ruined city once housed giants. It takes a great deal more effort to move large blocks of stone than small ones. Who else other than giants would have done such a thing? This assumption, in turn, “fostered the stories” about Goliath and other giants from Gath.

The idea that architectural style formed the basis for ancient theories about the physiology of a place’s occupants is not worlds away from the principles that inform modern archeological methods today. The same hypothesis has been used to explain the myths about Cyclopes among the ancient Greeks. It’s not a modern theory, either. The encyclopedist Pliny wrote in his Natural History that the Cyclopes were the inventors of masonry towers found in Greece and the term “Cyclopean masonry” continues to be used in modern archeology.

Maybe Goliath Wasn’t a Giant?

According to a new theory the number given for Goliath’s height actually represents something other than his height Candida Moss wrote in the Daily Beast: In a presentation at the 2020 meeting of the American Schools of Oriental Research (ASOR), Jeffrey Chadwick, Jerusalem Center professor of archaeology and Near Eastern studies at Brigham Young University, argued that there’s a symbolic meaning to Goliath’s height. Chadwick studies metrics and, in particular, how to deduce exactly how long ancient measurements are in their modern equivalents. [Source: Candida Moss, Daily Beast, December 6, 2020]

The question of exactly how long a “span” actually was is somewhat contested in modern scholarship. The issue isn’t helped by the fact that there were likely to have been small regional variations. Chadwick’s study of ancient structures and recurring patterns of measurements leads him to conclude that the length of a cubit was 1.77 feet while a span was 0.72 feet.

More important, during his recent participation in excavations at Tell es-Safi (Gath) in Israel, a Philistine-controlled city that the Bible names as Goliath’s hometown, Chadwick noticed something interesting. The 10th century B.C. fortification wall in the northern part of the lower city measured precisely four cubits and a span (2.38 meters or 7 foot 10 inches) in width. At every point along the 131-foot stretch that Chadwick and his team excavated they found this same measurement.

Chadwick hypothesizes that the tradition relating to Goliath’s height may be related to the width of the Gath city walls and, thus, serve more as a symbol of Philistine strength and military power than an actual description of the height of their champion. As the writers of this story did not actually have access to Goliath’s corpse (especially after David had desecrated it and taken the head back to Jerusalem) it’s likely that the height ascribed to him in the Bible has some other significance. Chadwick suggests that the author of 1 Samuel may “have been metaphorically describing the champion as being comparable to the size and strength of the Philistine capital’s city wall.”

None of this proves or disproves the historical veracity of the David and Goliath story. The existence of King David and, if he did exist, the extent of his authority and character of his reign are hotly contested points among Biblical scholars and archaeologists. But if Chadwick is correct then the legend of the Philistine giant just got even murkier.

Image Sources: Wikimedia, Commons, Schnorr von Carolsfeld Bible in Bildern, 1860

Text Sources: Internet Jewish History Sourcebook sourcebooks.fordham.edu “World Religions” edited by Geoffrey Parrinder (Facts on File Publications, New York); “ Encyclopedia of the World’s Religions” edited by R.C. Zaehner (Barnes & Noble Books, 1959); “Old Testament Life and Literature” by Gerald A. Larue, New International Version (NIV) of The Bible, biblegateway.com; Wikipedia, Live Science, Archaeology magazine, National Geographic, BBC, New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Smithsonian magazine, Times of London, The New Yorker, Reuters, AP, AFP, Lonely Planet Guides, and various books and other publications.

Last updated March 2024