1 Samuel 17:4-7
KJV
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. ... 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.
Goliath of Gath, the giant champion of the Philistines. The Masoretic Text gives his height as "six cubits and a span" (about 9 feet 9 inches), while the older Dead Sea Scrolls and Septuagint read "four cubits and a span" (about 6 feet 9 inches), the reading most textual scholars favor.
Goliath comes from Gath, exactly the surviving Anakim pocket named in Joshua 11:22. 2 Samuel 21:22 ties him to "the giant," the Rephaim line, marking him as a son of a giant rather than a giant in his own right.
CKQ Commentary
C.K. Quarterman favors the shorter reading of Goliath's height, "four cubits and a span," from the older Dead Sea Scrolls and Septuagint witnesses, putting him near 6 feet 9 inches rather than the inflated Masoretic 9 feet 9 inches. Scribes were far more likely to enlarge a hero-villain's stature over centuries than to shrink it. Even so, Goliath is described as descended from the giant, not the giant himself, and his diluted height lines up with that: he is a son of the line, well short of Og's measured 10.5-to-13.5-foot range. See the blog post "How Tall Was Enoch's 3,000-Cubit Giant, Really?" for the full breakdown of the height math.
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