Goliath
Sign in to savethumb|David and Goliath (1888) by Osmar Schindler Goliath ( ) is a Philistine warrior of giant stature who plays a pivotal role in the origin myth of King David in the Book of Samuel. According to 1 Samuel, Goliath challenges the Israelites to best him in single combat. David, then a young shepherd, takes up the challenge and kills Goliath with a stone slung from a sling. The narrative signifies King Saul's unfitness to rule for not taking up the giant's challenge himself.
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Goliath is a giant Philistine warrior from the biblical Book of Samuel who challenged the Israelites to single combat, only to be defeated and killed by the young shepherd David using a sling and stone. The story is significant because it establishes David's rise to power and demonstrates King Saul's unfitness to rule by showing his failure to accept Goliath's challenge himself.
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Article
21 sectionsContents
- Biblical accounts
- Composition of the Book of Samuel
- Structure of the David and Goliath narrative
- Textual considerations
- Goliath's height
- Goliath and Saul
- Elhanan and Goliath
- Goliath and the Greeks
- Goliath's name
- Later traditions
- Judaism
- Islam
- Modern usages of David and Goliath
- In popular culture
- Italian Goliath film series (1960–1964)
- See also
- References
- Notes
- Citations
- Bibliography
- External links
thumb|David and Goliath (1888) by Osmar Schindler Goliath ( ) is a Philistine warrior of giant stature who plays a pivotal role in the origin myth of King David in the Book of Samuel. According to 1 Samuel, Goliath challenges the Israelites to best him in single combat. David, then a young shepherd, takes up the challenge and kills Goliath with a stone slung from a sling. The narrative signifies King Saul's unfitness to rule for not taking up the giant's challenge himself.
The phrase "David and Goliath" has taken on a more popular meaning denoting an underdog situation, a contest wherein a smaller, weaker opponent faces a much bigger, stronger adversary. Some modern scholars now believe that the original slayer of Goliath in the text may have been Elhanan, son of Jair, who features in 2 Samuel 21:19, in which Elhanan kills Goliath the Gittite, and that the authors of the Deuteronomistic history changed the original text to credit the victory to the more famous figure of David.