Goliath
The David and Goliath story is well known to many of us, yet I was asked a question that I could not give a solid answer on and that was “Did Goliath have 4 brothers?”. I have heard may people say he had 4 brothers’, but I don’t like answering with here say, so I had to take a deeper look for myself and as always, the deeper into the rabbit hole you dig so to speak the more interesting it gets. So, let’s get started answering this question and learning everything we can about Goliath while we are at it.
Did Goliath have 4 Brothers?
To begin with in 1 Chronicles 20 only one of the great warriors, who are the people assumed to be Goliath’s brother is directly called "brother of goliath". However, there is some conflict here as in 1 Chronicles 20 it is Elhanan who kills the brother of Goliath however in 2 Samuel 21:19 it says he killed Goliath. This problem arises from what appears to be a scribal error in copying the word for brother from the Mikraot Gedolot (MG) “rabbinic bible” as אֲח “akh” into the Masoretic Text (MT) as אֵ֚ת “et” being the direct object maker which wrongly says that Elhanan killed Goliath not his brother. This scribal error appears even in the Greek Septuagint (LXX) which then does bring into question the whether or not the change from MG to the MT was in fact a scribal error or just a correction. I feel comfortable with calling this a scribal error as it directly conflicts with the narrative of David being the one to kill Goliath and is thus corrected in 1 Chronicles 20. Scribes only copy what is before them and thus sometime unknowingly copy errors, they also can make their own errors as the best scribe is only human.
Why are these people called giants?
These warriors are quite often called “sons of the giants” in many translations, however the word that is being translated as giant is רָפָֽא “Rapha” and sometimes in the plural being רְפָאִ֖ים “Rephaim” these come from the proper noun Rapha who is the fifth son of Benjamin (1 Chronicles 8:1-2). The Rephaim who are a people group known for being tall, appear to be descendants of Rapha who we can now potentially link to Rapha the Benjaminite as he is the only one of that spelling in the scriptures pre this story. Interestingly here the sons of Elpaal, son of Shaharaim, son of Benjamin, are recorded as displacing the inhabitants of Gath, the same place that these sons of Rapha where to later come from. This leads even further to the possibility of them being descendants of Rapha son of Benjamin.
Talmud
In the Talmud in Sotah 42b there is a discussion taking place that understands these sons of Rapha as brothers. The discussion understands that Goliath is the middle with two older and two younger brothers. Being that the Talmud is based on oral tradition and debate between rabbis concerning the interpretation of scripture, we cannot always us it a factual evidence other than being the thought process or understandings of these rabbis. However it’s a great tool for helping us to understand the cognitive environment of the early rabbinical Judaism movement.
Goliaths name is in the Talmud in Sotah 42b says that Goliath of Gath means son of the winepress this is through the Aramaic word for winepress being “Gat” גַּת. The Talmud reasoning for this is that they are trying to portray his mother as a promiscuous harlot in that she was the winepress, being that everyone threshed her like people do to grapes in a winepress, they even go into detail about a story of her having intercourse with 100 men and a dog. This alludes to Goliaths taut to David “Am I a Dog that you come at me with sticks.”
However, as Goliath גׇלְיָת is not a semitic name those stories hold little credit, though in the language that would be referred to as Hittite his name means “Lion man” which is more likely the reason for David’s story to Saul was about how a lion threatened his flock (flock is used as a description of the Hebrew people elsewhere) and how he slew that lion to protect his flock. This could be considered a prophetic speech about how David who was already anointed by Samuel at this point to become king was going to protect his soon to be “flock” the Hebrew people. Which is the opposite of how Saul was introduced in 1 Samuel 9:3-18 as he had lost his fathers donkeys and was even searching for them in the wrong place, thus a bad shepherd of his fathers flock. Interestingly regarding the Hittie origin of Goliaths name, in 2 Samuel 21:19 the LXX changes the translation of the word הַגִּתִּ֔י “Hagiti” which means the Gittite from Γεθθαιου “Geththaiou” which means a person from Gath to χετταιον “Chittaion” which also means Hittite.
Secular writings
In an anonymous letter that is dated 135BCE-70CE called Pusedo-philo it also says suggests that David and Goliath are related through David’s great-grandmother Ruth and Goliaths great-grandmother, Ruth's sister in law Orpah, whether true or not this at least suggests that in the second temple period it was believed to be the case. This opinion is also echoed in the Sotah 42b section of the Talmud and may shed insight into the long tradition of this being part of the oral understanding of the connection between David and Goliath that was latter officially adopted in the writings of the Talmud.
Goliath’s Height
Goliath’s height varies between both the MT and LXX texts with the LXX being 4 cubits and a span (6ft 9in) and the MT being 6 cubits and a span (9ft 9in) we have 2 other sources that agree with the LXX. The first is from Josephus’s writings, however this one would have to be omitted as it could be argued that he was writing based on the possibility of him quoting the height from the LXX the other is in the DSS (dead sea scrolls) which written in Hebrew it also agrees with the LXX height.
To explain this there are two explanations. The first is the fishing analogy “how big was the fish?” being that don’t let the truth get in the way of a good story, the bigger Goliath is the better the story. The second can be explained by the influence of Hellenistic and Roman stories, though obviously the LXX has a lower height the popularity of these stories may have indirectly influenced the later MT. In the Iliad there is a parallel story of the hero Nestor defeating the Giant Ereuthalion who is a giant in Greek mythology thus has the height of a Greek giant. There are more similarities in this story than just the characters height. Interestingly the Iliad is believed to of been composed around 750BCE and the story of David and Goliath takes place around 1020BCE which means there may be a possibility of Homer taking inspiration for Nestor form David. Along with this the term in 1 Samuel 17:4 “Ish-Habenyim” אִֽישׁ־הַבֵּנַ֙יִם֙ a literal translation would be “man of the in-between” which usually is translated as champion. This phrase is also used in the story of Nestor to describe Ereuthalion being the man of μεταιχμιουν “Μetaichmioun” which translates as the man in the space between army camps. This is the space where the champions of the opposing armies would do combat.
Back to the Beginning
To answer the original question, yes at least one of these Philistine warriors from Gath was directly called his brother. I feel confident in saying that they are all descendants of Rapha the Benjaminite. Interestingly, Saul is also a descendant of Benjamin and Saul's lineage is incomplete, so we cannot say which son of Benjamin he descends from however his lineage in 1 Chronicles 8 comes directly after Benjamins, which is on purpose. This along with his description of being taller than all of Israel (6ft+) suggests that he may have been from the same line of Rapha as well. Which may explain his hesitancy to fight Goliath.
