of Goliath corresponded to his gigantic stature: “a helmet of brass upon his head, and clothes in scale armour, the weight of which was five thousand shekels of brass.” The meaning scales is sustained by the words קשׂקשׂת in Lev 11:9-10, and Deu 14:9-10, and קשׂקשׂות in Eze 29:4. קשׂקשּׂים שׁריון, therefore, is not θώραξ ἁλυσιδωτός (lxx), a coat of mail made of rings worked together like chains, such as were used in the army of the Seleucidae (1 Macc. 6:35), but according to Aquila's φολιδωτόν (scaled), a coat made of plates of brass lying one upon another like scales, such as we find upon the old Assyrian sculptures, where the warriors fighting in chariots, and in attendance upon the king, wear coats of scale armour, descending either to the knees or ankles, and consisting of scales of iron or brass, which were probably fastened to a shirt of felt or coarse linen (see Layard, Nineveh and its Remains, vol. ii. p. 335). The account of the weight, 5000 shekels, i.e., according to Thenius, 148 Dresden pounds, is hardly founded upon the actual weighing of the coat of mail, but probably rested upon a general estimate, which may have been somewhat too high, although we must bear in mind that the coat of mail not only covered the chest and back, but, as in the case of the Assyrian warriors, the lower part of the body also, and therefore must have been very large and very heavy.[1]
Verse 6
And “greaves of brass upon his feet, and a brazen lance (hung) between his shoulders,” i.e., upon his back. כּידון signifies a lance, or small spear. The lxx and Vulgate, however, adopt the rendering ἀσπὶς χαλκῆ, clypeus aeneus; and Luther has followed them, and translates
- ↑ According to Thenius, the cuirass of Augustus the Strong, which has been preserved in the historical museum at Dresden, weighted fifty-five pounds; and from that he infers, that the weight given as that of Goliath's coat of mail is by no means too great. Ewald, on the other hand, seems to have no idea of the nature of the Hebrew eights, or of the bodily strength of a man, since he gives 5000 lbs. of brass as the weight of Goliath's coat of mail (Gesch. iii. p. 90), and merely observes that the pounds were of course much smaller than ours. But the shekel did not even weight so much as our full ounce. With such statements as these you may easily turn the historical character of the scriptural narrative into incredible myths; but they cannot lay any claim to the name of science.
