Was Goliath a Nephilim?

## Was Goliath a Nephilim?

Goliath came from a family of giants that Scripture traces from the Anakim to Gath. The Watchers Fallen reads the text closely, including what it never says about him.

Anakim: a clan of giants in Canaan, descendants of Anak, whom the spies said “come of the Nephilim” (Numbers 13:33).

Rephaim: a name for giant clans in Canaan and east of the Jordan. The giant family of Gath descends from Rapha, the root behind the word.

## Was Goliath a Nephilim?

Goliath belonged to the giant bloodline that the book traces from the Nephilim through the Anakim to the Rephaim of Gath. The text is precise. First Samuel 17 never calls him a giant. First Chronicles 20 calls members of his family “the son of the giant.” By that reading, Goliath was a son of the giant.

## Where Goliath Came From

Joshua drove the Anakim out of most of Canaan. Joshua 11:22 says they remained in three cities: “only in Gaza, in Gath, and in Ashdod, there remained.” All three were Philistine cities. Goliath came from Gath.

## How Big Was He?

First Samuel 17:4 gives his height as six cubits and a span, about nine feet nine inches. Some manuscript traditions, including portions of the Septuagint, read four cubits and a span, about six feet nine. Textual scholars are divided on which reading is original. The description that follows leaves no doubt about his size.

His bronze coat weighed five thousand shekels, about 125 pounds. His spearhead weighed six hundred shekels of iron, about fifteen pounds, on a shaft like a weaver’s beam. Every detail marks him as a man no one in Israel’s camp wanted to face.

## Son of the Giant

First Samuel 17 never uses the word giant for Goliath. The identification comes from a different book. First Chronicles 20:6 describes another warrior of Gath, a man of great stature with six fingers on each hand and six toes on each foot, and says “he also was the son of the giant.”

The passage names a family. Ishbi-benob nearly killed David. Saph fell to Sibbechai. The six-fingered man fell to Jonathan, David’s nephew. Lahmi is identified as Goliath’s brother. Chronicles says “these four were born to the giant in Gath, and fell by the hand of David, and by the hand of his servants.” The giant behind them is Rapha, the root of the word Rephaim. Goliath stands as a fifth, the most famous member of the family.

## One Bloodline

The line runs in order. The spies tied the Anakim to the Nephilim. The Anakim survived in Gaza, Gath, and Ashdod. Centuries later Gath was still producing men of unusual size, still naming them by descent from one giant, still arming them with equipment built for larger frames. David did not kill a monster that appeared from nowhere in a valley. He killed a member of a family Scripture had tracked for hundreds of years.

## Why the Distinction Matters

Calling Goliath a giant outright would not be a large error, but it would not be accurate. The book holds that accuracy is what protects the angelic view against critics looking for an excuse to dismiss it. Goliath was a son of the giant. That ties him to the bloodline from Mount Hermon through the Flood and through Numbers 13 without rounding up what the text says.

## Keep Reading

Read the story: The Giant’s Shadow, Book One of Sons of the Flood: The Deliverance Chronicles, follows deliverance minister Nathaniel Cross as he faces a giant from the Book of Giants tradition.

Go deeper: The Watchers Fallen: They Were Not Supposed to Walk Among Us, by CK Quarterman.