1 Samuel 17:4, how tall was Goliath?
Goliath’s height is four cubits and a span in Dead Sea Scrolls (4QSamᵃ) and Septuagint (Codex Vaticanus), and six cubits and a span in the Masoretic Text. The difference is roughly three feet.
The APB text at this verse
The manuscripts, editions, and versions
The committee record at this verse
The APB is translated by a committee of language models that works blind. The translators are never told they are translating the Bible, never given a book name or a verse number, and never shown the witnesses listed above. Where the manuscripts disagree, the choice between readings is made before translation by the same kind of translator working the same way: it sees the competing readings and the witnesses by age and class, but never a reference or a manuscript name. There are 14,877 such places. For APB 4.0 every one was decided again in October 2026. GPT-6.1 Sol decided every one first. Claude Fable 5.1, from another model family, decided 2,483 of them second, including every place where the first translator left the base text. A departure from the base text needs both translators to agree and the first to be at least 0.8 confident. There is no third translator, so the base text stands when the two disagree. APB 4.0 is translated over those decisions. Whatever was done at this verse was done on the language and the evidence alone, and the record is public.
“The base text reads 6; the committee adopted 4 on the evidence of the copies. The older and independent witnesses agree on four, and growth to six is the likelier direction.”
The committee adopted four: "The base text reads 6; the committee adopted 4 on the evidence of the copies." GPT-6.1 Sol (OpenAI) served as the first translator; Claude Fable 5.1 (Anthropic) served as the second translator. After the committee’s run, the chair changed the verse’s height from six cubits and a span to four because the textual reconsideration had changed the decided source text. The committee retranslated the verse from that source, and the revised wording passed the recorded checks. The APB prints: "His height was four cubits and a span."
Before: And a champion came out from the Philistines’ camps. His name was Goliath, and he was from Gath. His height was six cubits and a span.
After: And a champion came out from the Philistines’ camps. His name was Goliath, and he was from Gath. His height was four cubits and a span.
“The decided source text changed in the textual re-read of 2026-10-04 (GPT-6.1 Sol and Claude Fable 5.1, blind): שֵׁ֥שׁ is replaced by אַרְבַּ֥ע. The committee retranslated the verse from the source (source_fix rr1004) and the wording passed the code gates, the fidelity audit, the meaning review and the recall check.”
The argument for each reading
If four cubits
Four cubits and a span has support in both Hebrew and Greek. Dead Sea Scrolls (4QSamᵃ), the oldest Hebrew witness to this verse, reads four. Septuagint (Codex Vaticanus) gives the same height in Greek. Their agreement gives the shorter measurement support across two languages. At approximately six feet nine inches, Goliath remains an enormous man. This reading changes the scale of his physical stature while preserving the description of him as the champion who comes out from the Philistines’ camps.
If six cubits
Six cubits and a span is the reading of the Masoretic Text (Westminster Leningrad Codex). Its support rests on the received Hebrew text and a tradition described as centuries older than the codex itself. The age of that codex therefore does not establish when the reading six arose. At approximately nine feet nine inches, this measurement gives Goliath the stature of a giant out of legend. The case for six rests on its place in the Hebrew transmission, while four has the agreement of the older Hebrew witness and the Greek witness.
The witnesses preserve two measurements, but their readings alone cannot establish how the difference arose. The committee’s choice of four records its judgment about that uncertainty. Either measurement leaves Goliath as the named champion from Gath who comes out from the Philistines’ camps. His helmet and armor remain part of the surrounding description. The disputed number changes his height and the reader’s picture of his size.
Related entries
Witness readings for critical editions are quoted from the SBLGNT apparatus (CC BY 4.0); Hebrew text from the Westminster Leningrad Codex (Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible). Readings of ancient manuscripts and versions are cited from the sources linked above.