Giants of the Bible

This is fun, interesting and lends credence to the giants of the Bible.

The most famous giant of the Bible, if not in all of history was Goliath. This was the giant David as a young teenager fought. Goliath represented the Philistine nation and David represented the Israeli nation. Instead of an all-out war between these two peoples, it was decided that David and Goliath would fight representing both sides.

“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.” (1 Samuel 17:4)

A cubit was the measure of a man’s forearm. It was standardized at 18 inches. A “span” is a half cubit or 9 inches. This would make Goliath 9 feet 9 inches tall.

Robert Wadlow was born on February 22, 1918, in Alton, Illinois. He was the world’s tallest man standing at 8 feet 11 inches. This picture here has basketball star Shaquille O’Neal at 7 feet 1 inch standing beside a life size wax model of Wadlow.

Goliath would have been only 10 inches taller than Wadlow.

Goliath is not the only giant mentioned in the Bible. He had brothers. You don’t have to go very far in the Bible before giants are mentioned. Genesis 6:4 reads, “There were giants in the earth in those days”.

There were several cities and races of giants such as the Anakim, Nephilim, Amorites, and the Rephaim, of which Goliath belonged to. Giants were much more commonplace than many folks think.

This picture of Shaquille O’Neal beside a wax model of Robert Wadlow should, at least in my opinion, should offer some validity for giants in the Bible and take away some of the mystique and fantasy over it. Several NBA basketball players have been 7 feet 6 inches and even 7 foot 7 inches tall! Just a few decades ago it was quite the oddity to see someone 7 feet tall. Who knows, maybe in a few more decades 8 feet tall will be the norm!

Bill Hitchcock