GOLIATH (Heb. Goljath). - Philistine hero, defeated and killed by David (1 Sam. 17). He was from Gath (v.), but the ending of his name would suggest that he was neither Canaanite nor Philistine by origin; he perhaps descended from the 'Anāqim, exterminated by Joshua (Josh. 11:21).
He had a gigantic stature, measuring "6 cubits and a span" in height (about 2.90 m); he was armed with a helmet, scale armor (of about 40 kg.), greaves, all of bronze; he brandished a spear with an iron tip (of 5 kg.), carried a strong sword at his side and, hung between his shoulders, a bronze javelin. His shield-bearer preceded him, covering his whole body with the great shield. G. took part in a campaign against Saul in the land of Judah ("valley of the terebinth," today Wādi es-Sanṭ) and, as the two armies could not bring themselves to attack, he repeatedly challenged an Israelite hero to single combat: their duel would have put an end to the war. The challenge was heard, amid universal trembling (not overcome by Saul's rich promises), by the young David (v.), who had happened by, who accepted at once and went to meet him with his shepherd's staff: Saul's weapons had proved an encumbrance to him. But the staff was a pretext: in his bag he had five stones, and in his left hand, hidden, the sling. While G., angered by what he believed to be a joke, advanced uncovered against the shepherd, he received a stone from the sling on his forehead that killed him. It had been, the victor was convinced, the vengeance "of the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel," challenged by the worshiper of idols. David later brought his head to Jerusalem as a trophy. The sword, first hung as an ex-voto in the Tabernacle, would be taken up again by David in flight (1 Sam. 21:8 ff.).
Gino Bressan
ICONOGRAPHY
In ancient Christian cemetery art the giant does not appear in painting, but on sarcophagi, which depict the combat between him and David. The first example is offered by the lid of the sarcophagus of Ancona, in which the two antagonists prepare for combat; David holds the sling in his right hand and the shepherd's staff in his left; G. is dressed as a Roman soldier (Wilpert, Sarcofagi, II, p. 264, pl. 14, 3).
The other sarcophagi are all from Gaul; that of Reims is known from a copy by Peiresc (Wilpert, ibid., p. 18, fig. 5 and p. 264); in the Museum of Vienna there are two examples on two lids (ibid., p. 264, pl. 194, 1; p. 265, pl. 194, 2); both in these and in the destroyed sarcophagus of Marseille (ibid., fig. 24, pp. 57 and 264) David is assisted in the combat by the angel. In the sarcophagus of Marseille, however, on the right side, was depicted the sole scene of the young David bringing to King Saul the severed head of G.
In a basilica in Spain, perhaps Saragossa, at the beginning of the 5th century, David was depicted killing G. A record of it survives in the illustrative distich of the scene, which was composed by the poet Prudentius (Dittochocon, no. 19). The combat between David and G. is also carved on the ivory casket of Brescia (J. Kollwitz, Die Lipsanothek von Brescia, Berlin 1933, pp. 24, 62, pl. 3); on marble rims for basins: one from Cyprus, now in the Louvre Museum; a second found at Sbeitla, now in Tunis in the Bardo Museum; a third in the Hermitage Museum in Leningrad (E. Michon, Rebords de bassins chrétiens ornés de reliefs, in Revue biblique, new series, 13 [1916], p. 128).
The scene is also found in the Greek Psalter 139 of the 10th century in the National Library of Paris (H. Omont, Fac-similes des plus anciens manuscrits grecs de la Bibliothèque nationale, Paris 1902, pl. 4, 7).
The "ordo commendationis animae" preserves the invocation "Free, O Lord, the soul of your servant, as you freed David... from the hand of G.". - See pl. LXII.
Bibliography
Enrico Josi