David and Goliath: the story, the text and the other Goliath

David and Goliath is told once, in full, in 1 Samuel 17. Two armies face each other across the valley of Elah. A Philistine champion comes out each day and challenges Israel to send one man to settle the war by single combat. For forty days nobody goes. Then a shepherd delivering food to his brothers hears the challenge and asks what the reward is.

The champion

The description in 1 Samuel 17:4-7 is a weapons inventory:

A champion out of the camp of the Philistines named Goliath of Gath, whose height was six cubits and a span went out. He had a helmet of bronze on his head, and he wore a coat of mail; and the weight of the coat was five thousand shekels of bronze. He had bronze shin armor on his legs and a bronze javelin between his shoulders. The staff of his spear was like a weaver’s beam; and his spear’s head weighed six hundred shekels of iron. His shield bearer went before him.

Six cubits and a span is about nine feet nine inches, or close to three metres. That figure is what the Masoretic Hebrew text says, and it is what the World English Bible translates. It is not, however, the only ancient reading: a fragmentary manuscript of Samuel from Qumran, the Septuagint and the historian Josephus all give four cubits and a span, around six feet nine inches. Still an exceptionally large man for the period, and no longer a giant of legend. Which reading is original is a genuine open question in textual criticism, and it is more interesting than pretending only one number exists.

Note also the word used. The Hebrew calls him ish habbenayim, "the man between the two" — a champion in the technical sense of a single combatant, not "giant".

The armor David turned down

Saul tries to equip him. 1 Samuel 17:38-40:

Saul dressed David with his clothing. He put a helmet of bronze on his head, and he clad him with a coat of mail. David strapped his sword on his clothing and he tried to move, for he had not tested it. David said to Saul, “I can’t go with these, for I have not tested them.” Then David took them off. He took his staff in his hand, and chose for himself five smooth stones out of the brook, and put them in the pouch of his shepherd’s bag which he had. His sling was in his hand; and he came near to the Philistine.

The reason David gives is practical and gets misquoted constantly: not that armor shows a lack of faith, but that he has never trained in it. The five stones are a supply, not a symbol; the text gives no meaning for the number.

The sling was a weapon

This is the piece that changes how the story reads. A sling in the ancient Near East was standard military equipment, and its operators were specialists. Judges 20:16 makes the point plainly:

Among all these soldiers there were seven hundred chosen men who were left-handed. Every one of them could sling a stone at a hair and not miss.

A stone launched from a sling travels fast enough to be lethal against an unprotected head. Goliath's helmet is bronze, but his forehead is the point the narrative aims at, and his shield bearer walks in front of him, which tells you the equipment was designed against spears and swords at close range.

So the encounter is not a miracle of physics. It is a heavily armored close-combat specialist facing a ranged attacker who refused to fight on the terms offered.

What David says before the throw

The speech in 1 Samuel 17:45-47 is the theological center of the chapter, and the narrator gives it more space than the fight:

Then David said to the Philistine, “You come to me with a sword, with a spear, and with a javelin; but I come to you in the name of Yahweh of Armies, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied. Today, Yahweh will deliver you into my hand. I will strike you and take your head from off you. I will give the dead bodies of the army of the Philistines today to the birds of the sky and to the wild animals 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 doesn’t save with sword and spear; for the battle is Yahweh’s, and he will give you into our hand.”

Then the fight, in three verses:

David put his hand in his bag, took a stone and slung it, and struck the Philistine in his forehead. The stone sank into his forehead, and he fell on his face to the earth. So David prevailed over the Philistine with a sling and with a stone, and struck the Philistine and killed him; but there was no sword in David’s hand.

Verse 51 adds that David then used Goliath's own sword to cut off his head — a detail most retellings for children leave out.

The other Goliath

There is a second passage that has to be dealt with honestly. 2 Samuel 21:19 in the World English Bible reads:

There was again war with the Philistines at Gob, and Elhanan the son of Jaare-Oregim the Bethlehemite killed Goliath the Gittite’s brother, the staff of whose spear was like a weaver’s beam.

The words "brother" here are not in the Hebrew of 2 Samuel. As the Masoretic Text stands, Elhanan kills Goliath the Gittite. The parallel in 1 Chronicles 20:5 reads:

Again there was war with the Philistines; and Elhanan the son of Jair killed Lahmi the brother of Goliath the Gittite, the staff of whose spear was like a weaver’s beam.

Most English translations, the World English Bible included, resolve the difficulty by following Chronicles. The explanations offered are that a copyist's slip produced the shorter reading in Samuel, that Chronicles preserves the original, or that Elhanan and David are the same person under two names. There is no consensus. What there is no excuse for is pretending the problem does not exist; anyone can read the two verses side by side.

Reading it as the narrator built it

Placed where it is, the chapter is not primarily about courage. It sits between Saul's rejection and David's rise, and its argument is stated in David's own speech: deliverance does not depend on equipment. The Israelite army has armor and does nothing for forty days. The one who acts has none.

One further feature is worth noticing: the narrator never calls David brave. He records that David was indignant the challenge had gone unanswered, and that David had killed predators while defending sheep. The courage is something the reader supplies. What the chapter puts on the page is a young man with relevant experience who could not see why nobody else was doing anything.

For the rest of David's life, including the parts that are much less flattering, see who was David. To read the chapter yourself it is one sitting, start to finish.