Monday, September 23, 2013

Goliath, the famous giant of Gath, the champion of the Philistines

Goliath, the famous giant of Gath, the champion of the Philistines



Goliath, the famous giant of Gath, the champion of the Philistines, whom David slew, was in height, according to 1 Samuel xvii. 4, six cubits and a span, which, assuming the cubit to be the cubit of a man, would make him nine feet nine inches high ; and if a cubit of twenty-one inches, would make him about eleven feet five inches high. Josephus, however, gives his height as four cubits and a span, and de scribes him as a truly enormous man. In the last- named chapter of Samuel we are told that Goliath's coat of mail weighed five thousand shekels of brass, that is about two hundred and eight pounds ; " and the staff of his spear was like a weaver's beam ; and his spear's head weighed six hundred shekels of iron," that is about twenty-five pounds. Oriental imagina tion has added to this story various marvellous ex aggerations ; and probably it is to these Eastern fan cies, which attached gigantic influences to rocks, me teors, volcanic eruptions, and tempests, that we may trace nearly all the records of giants contained in the Bible. We take Og, Ishbi-benob, Goliath, and some others, to have been exceptional instances of huge stature, and as such more particularly described by the Hebrew historians. According to Ahmed al Fassi, the dynastic name of the old giant chiefs was Gialout. Hannah More, in her sacred drama of David and Goliath, makes Abner describe the monstrous warrior as follows : " This man of war, this champion of Phiiistin,