The Torah teaches that David’s Philistine opponent, Goliath, was a giant who measured nine feet nine inches tall. While on first blush that height may seem inachievable, it’s not as far-fetched as it might sound. Goliath was likely a victim of a pituitary gland disorder known as acromegaly.
Acromegaly, one of the leading causes of gigantism, causes to pituitary gland to continue secreting human growth hormone to the body long after it would cease production in most normal adults. It causes unusual height as well as other body distortions, most notably of facial features.
Three of the most well-known sufferers of acromegaly in modern times are Andre Roussimoff (Andre the Giant), who died at 47 due to the effects of the disease, as well as Dalip Singh Rana (The Great Khali) and Paul Wight (The Big Show). Respectively, Roussimoff was seven feet five inches at his tallest, before the disease began to break his body down, while Rana is currently seven feet three inches and Wight is seven feet tall.
Not all seven feet and over people are sufferers of acromegaly; there are other causes of gigantism. For example, Kevin Garnett of the Boston Celtics (seven feet one inch) is not known to have acromegaly. Houston Rockets center Yao Ming (seven feet six inches) is also not known to suffer from the disease.
However, the disease may be the cause for the extreme heights reached by Bao Xishun (seven feet, nine inches), Leonid Stadnyk (eight feet five inches) and Robert Wadlow (eight feet, eleven inches). Stadnyk is currently in failing health due to the disease, and Wadlow, who lived from 1918 – 1940, died at the age of 22 from the affliction. Both Xishun and Stadnyk are still alive.
People afflicted with acromegaly tend to die young. In the time of David and Goliath, there was no modern medicine, let alone Medical Alert bracelets, to help diagnose such conditions, nor were there today’s treatments that have proven to extend the lives of such folks.
While even Wadlow, at eight feet eleven inches, would have been about 10 inches shorter than Goliath, the existance of such people shows that the existance of Goliath himself is not so far-fetched as some Biblical minimalists would have you believe.
