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There is something you have been walking past for weeks now.
Not avoiding it, exactly. Just not today. Today is busy. Today is not the day for that phone call, that letter, that conversation, that appointment. And every day you walk past it, the thing gets a little taller in your head. By now you could not say exactly how big it is. You only know it is bigger than you.
Israel had one of those. It stood in a valley and shouted at them twice a day, every day, for forty days.
Everybody knows how tall it was. Nine feet nine inches. It is in the children’s books, the songs, the flannel boards.
Except that the oldest copies of the Bible we actually possess do not agree with each other about that number. And the shorter one does not make the story easier to explain. It makes it much, much harder.
How Tall Was Goliath in Your Bible?
Open the King James Version to 1 Samuel 17:4 and it says this:
“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.”
A cubit is roughly 18 inches, about 45 centimetres. A span is roughly 9 inches, about 23 centimetres. Six cubits and a span comes to about 9 feet 9 inches. Just under 3 metres.
That is a genuine monster. Taller than the tallest person alive today. If that is the man in the valley, then no ordinary human being had any business facing him, and the whole story is a straightforward miracle: God knocked down something nobody could have knocked down.
Hold that thought. It matters later.
The Oldest Hebrew Copy Says Something Different
Among the scrolls found at Qumran there was only one substantial manuscript of 1 and 2 Samuel. Scholars call it 4QSam-a. It dates to the middle of the first century BC, which makes it by far the oldest Hebrew copy of this text that anyone has ever found.
Parts of that scroll are damaged. 1 Samuel 17:3-6 is not. It is clear and it is readable.
And it says four cubits and a span. About 6 feet 9 inches. About 2.06 metres.
It is not alone. The major manuscripts of the Septuagint, the ancient Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures, say four cubits and a span. That includes Codex Vaticanus, the oldest complete Greek Bible in existence. Josephus, the Jewish historian writing in the first century AD, gives the same figure in his Antiquities of the Jews (6.171). So does the Lucianic Greek text from the third century AD.
Now the other side. Every single manuscript of the Masoretic Text, the received Hebrew text that our English Bibles are translated from, reads six cubits and a span. That is a real and serious body of evidence and it should not be waved away.
But here is the thing worth knowing. The earliest Hebrew manuscript of Samuel in that tradition is the Aleppo Codex, copied in AD 935. The Leningrad Codex, which most modern English Old Testaments are actually based on, was finished in AD 1010. There is no surviving Hebrew copy older than the tenth century AD that puts Goliath at six cubits.
The six-cubit reading is certainly older than those manuscripts. Symmachus, a Jewish translator working around AD 200, has it. So does Origen’s Hexapla in the third century, and Jerome’s Latin Vulgate in the fourth, which is how nine feet nine inches got locked into Western imagination for the next thousand years.
There is even a stray third option. Codex Venetus, an eighth-century text, says five cubits and a span. Most scholars read that as somebody trying to split the difference.
Let us be precise about what this does and does not mean, because precision is the whole point. Nobody can prove which number the original author wrote. What we can say is that the two oldest witnesses we have, one Hebrew and one Greek, both say four, and the oldest Hebrew witness for six is a thousand years younger than they are. The Old Testament scholar J. Daniel Hays laid the whole case out in the Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society in 2005, and concluded that the evidence points to the shorter man.
That is an honest, open question in the manuscript record. It is not a hole in the Bible. It is what it looks like when a text has been copied by hand for three thousand years and we are lucky enough to still have the receipts. If that kind of question interests you, this is exactly the sort of thing you can dig into with our free Bible Answers assistant — it opens in ChatGPT and a free account works fine.
The Detail Almost Nobody Notices
Here is the part that stopped me.
Look three verses further on, at 1 Samuel 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.”
Six hundred.
Several textual scholars have pointed out that in Hebrew, the word for “cubit” in verse 4 looks very much like the word for “hundred” in verse 7. There is a well-known copying mistake called parablepsis, which is a fancy word for something very ordinary: your eye slips down the page and picks up the wrong thing.
So the suggestion is this. A tired scribe’s eye drifted down a few lines, caught the “six” sitting next to a word that looked like the one he was copying, and wrote six where the text said four.
Which would mean the two sixes in this chapter are the same six. Written once, then accidentally written again.
That is a reconstruction, not a proven fact, and it deserves to be called one. But notice how hard the reverse is to explain. If the original said six, why would a scribe shrink a giant? There is no good reason. Ancient copyists were not in the business of making miracles smaller.
The Armour Does Not Change
Here is what nobody argues about. Whichever height you take, the equipment is described exactly the same way.
“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.” (1 Samuel 17:5)
Five thousand shekels of brass is somewhere around 125 to 130 pounds, roughly 57 to 59 kilograms. The iron spearhead at six hundred shekels is about 15 pounds, near 7 kilograms.
People often say those weights prove Goliath must have been enormous. They do not, quite. A very strong 6 foot 9 inch soldier can carry that. Soldiers today routinely march into battle under similar loads. Height and strength are not the same thing, and the strongest people alive are usually not the tallest ones.
The line about the spear being “like a weaver’s beam” is not about size either. The archaeologist Yigael Yadin argued it describes the looped throwing cord attached to the shaft, which looked like the cord loops on a loom. It tells you what kind of weapon it was, not how big.
What the armour actually tells you is how rich this man was. This is the seam between the Bronze Age and the Iron Age. Metal was scarce. Armies were not kitted out in it. A few chapters earlier, 1 Samuel 13:19-23 tells us the Philistines controlled the blacksmithing and almost nobody in Israel had a proper iron weapon at all.
And the height still lands. The average adult man in that region at that time stood somewhere around 5 feet to 5 feet 3 inches, roughly 152 to 160 centimetres. So a 6 foot 9 inch professional soldier was not a normal man. He was a head and shoulders taller than every single person in the valley, wearing more metal than most of the army owned between them.
He was not a freak of nature. He was worse. He was fightable — and still nobody went.
(If you want the wider picture, Goliath was not even the last of them. Four more giants show up in 2 Samuel 21, and a different person took down each one.)
Saul’s Own Words Give It Away
Now read what the king says when a shepherd boy volunteers.
“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.” (1 Samuel 17:33)
Read that again and notice what is missing.
Saul does not mention his height. Not once. He does not say “the man is nearly ten feet tall.” He says the man is trained. That is his objection. That is what he is afraid of.
If a creature almost 3 metres tall were standing in that valley, it would be the first sentence out of anybody’s mouth. It is not in Saul’s mouth at all.
The Story Was Never David Versus Goliath
Here is where it turns, and I did not see this coming until I sat with it.
Go back nine chapters. Israel demands a king from Samuel, and they say exactly what they want one for:
“That we also may be like all the nations; and that our king may judge us, and go out before us, and fight our battles.” (1 Samuel 8:20)
One job. Fight our battles.
Then they get their king, and here is how he is introduced:
“And he had a son, whose name was Saul, a choice young man, and a goodly: and there was not among the children of Israel a goodlier person than he: from his shoulders and upward he was higher than any of the people.” (1 Samuel 9:2)
Saul is the tallest man in Israel. If the average was around 5 feet to 5 feet 3 inches, then a man standing head and shoulders above all of them was plausibly somewhere near 6 feet to 6 feet 6 inches. That is an estimate, not a measurement — the text gives us a comparison, not a number.
And in 1 Samuel 17:38, when David volunteers, Saul has a full set of armour to hand him. His own. He is very likely the only man in that camp who owns any.
So line it up.
At four cubits and a span, Goliath is roughly Saul’s size. Saul has the armour. Saul has the training of a king. Saul has, in writing, the one job the entire nation hired him to do.
And for forty days — “the Philistine drew near morning and evening, and presented himself forty days” (1 Samuel 17:16) — Saul stayed in his tent. Dismayed and greatly afraid, the text says, along with everyone else. When the men of Israel saw Goliath, “they fled from him, and were sore afraid.”
Do you see what the shorter number does?
If Goliath is 9 feet 9 inches, Saul is off the hook. Nobody could face that. The story becomes a nature documentary with a happy ending.
At 6 feet 9 inches, Saul is not off the hook at all. He is the one man in that valley who could have gone, and he did not go, for forty days, while a shepherd nobody had drafted walked down into the open ground and did the king’s job for him.
The miracle does not shrink. It moves. It stops being about the size of the giant and starts being about who was willing to walk toward it.
The giant did not get smaller. The person willing to walk toward it got clearer.
And notice, David never says the giant is small. He never once measures him. What he says is this:
“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.” (1 Samuel 17:37)
His courage is not built on an estimate of the enemy. It is built on a memory of God being faithful. That is a completely different foundation, and it is available to you whether the thing in front of you is nine feet tall or six.
What This Changes on an Ordinary Tuesday
Overwhelm makes everything nine feet nine.
That is what it does. It takes a thing you have not looked at closely and inflates it in the dark, until it is so obviously beyond you that not facing it stops feeling like a choice. And there is a strange comfort in that. If the thing is impossible, you are excused.
The moment it is merely hard, you are not.
So here is the quiet, uncomfortable, freeing question. The thing you have been walking past for weeks — have you actually measured it? Or have you only estimated it from the far side of the valley, at night, from a distance, in your head?
Most of the time it is closer to your size than it feels. Not small. Not easy. Just fightable.
And notice what David brought with him. Not new equipment. He turned down the armour. He walked out with a staff and a sling — the tools he already used every single day — and a memory of two times God had come through before.
You almost certainly already have both of those. You just have not counted them lately.
Actions to Take Today
- Say it out loud once, in plain words. Not “I am stressed.” The actual sentence: “I have not opened that letter.” “I have not called my mother back in three months.” Vagueness is what keeps a thing nine feet tall. Naming it is the first measurement.
- Write down one time God came through for you before. One line is enough. David’s entire speech to the king was a list of two. Keep the paper where you will see it tomorrow.
- Do the smallest true piece of it in the next ten minutes. Open the envelope without replying. Send one sentence. Dial the number and let it ring. Not the whole giant — the first step toward it. Then stop, and let that be enough for today.
Journaling Prompts
- Which of the giants in your life have you actually measured lately, and which ones have you only estimated from a distance?
- Saul had the height, the armour, and the job description, and still stayed in his tent. What do you already have that you keep telling yourself is not enough?
- Where have you quietly preferred a problem to be impossible, because impossible asks nothing of you?
A Prayer for the Thing You Have Been Walking Past
God, I have been standing on my side of the valley for a long time now, telling myself the thing is too big for me. If I am honest, part of me has wanted it to be too big, because then I do not have to go. Remind me of the times You came through before, because I forget them so fast. Give me enough courage for the next ten minutes — not the whole battle, just the next step. I will go, if You go with me.
One Question for You
Does knowing that the oldest manuscripts disagree about Goliath’s height make the Bible feel less reliable to you, or more honest? There is a real case either way. Tell us what you think in the comments — we read every one.
Share This
- The oldest Hebrew copy of 1 Samuel says Goliath was 6’9″, not 9’9″. That does not shrink the story. It means Saul — tallest man in Israel, only one with armour — had no excuse for forty days.
- I always thought David and Goliath was a story about a giant. Turns out it is a story about the man who could have gone, and didn’t.
- Overwhelm makes everything nine feet tall. Go and measure it. Most of it is closer to your size than you think.
Questions People Ask
How tall was Goliath in the Bible?
It depends which manuscript you read. The Masoretic Hebrew text, which most English Bibles including the King James Version are translated from, says Goliath was “six cubits and a span” in 1 Samuel 17:4 — about 9 feet 9 inches, or just under 3 metres. The Dead Sea Scrolls manuscript 4QSam-a, the major Septuagint manuscripts, and the historian Josephus all say “four cubits and a span” instead — about 6 feet 9 inches, or 2.06 metres.
Why do some sources say Goliath was 9 feet 9 inches and others say 6 feet 9 inches?
Because the ancient manuscripts of 1 Samuel genuinely disagree at that verse. Modern English Bibles almost all follow the Masoretic Hebrew tradition, which reads six cubits and a span. The older Dead Sea Scrolls and Greek Septuagint traditions read four cubits and a span. Translators have to pick one, and most pick the Masoretic reading, usually with a footnote noting the other.
Which ancient manuscripts say Goliath was four cubits and a span?
Four cubits and a span, roughly 6 feet 9 inches, appears in 4QSam-a (the Dead Sea Scrolls manuscript of Samuel, dating to the middle of the first century BC and the oldest Hebrew copy of this text known); Codex Vaticanus, the oldest complete Greek Bible; Codex Alexandrinus from the fifth century AD; the third-century Lucianic Greek text; and Josephus, writing in the first century AD in Antiquities of the Jews 6.171.
Does the disagreement mean the Bible is unreliable?
No. It means the Bible is a genuinely ancient document that was copied by hand for thousands of years, and that enough of those copies survive for scholars to compare them and see exactly where a difference crept in. A text with no variants at all would be far more suspicious. Hand-copying leaves fingerprints, and being able to read them is a sign of how much evidence survives, not how little.
Was Goliath still unusually large at 6 feet 9 inches?
Yes, dramatically so. The average adult man in that region at that time stood somewhere around 5 feet to 5 feet 3 inches, roughly 152 to 160 centimetres. A trained soldier standing 6 feet 9 inches would have towered well over a head above every man in the Israelite army, and he carried around 57 to 59 kilograms of bronze armour that almost nobody else in the valley could have afforded.
What did David say before he fought Goliath?
David’s answer in 1 Samuel 17:37 was: “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.” He never comments on Goliath’s size at all. His confidence rests entirely on times God had already proved faithful to him while he was guarding his father’s sheep.
