By stating Goliath’s name at the beginning of the first sentence and breaking this verse down into two sentences, Good News Translation has restructured the order to read more naturally in English style. Similar restructuring in other languages may sound more normal.
Goliath, of Gath: it may be helpful to add a qualifier, indicating that Gath is a city (see the comments on 5.8). The Hebrew word translated champion in Revised Standard Version (and for some unknown reason left untranslated in Good News Translation) occurs only here and in verse 23 below in all the Old Testament. The word comes from a preposition meaning “in between.” It is often understood to mean a champion in the sense of one who steps out between two opposing armies to do single combat. It is questionable, however, whether the word itself means champion, though Goliath surely was. This same word appears in one of the writings from Qumran, where it means “an infantryman,” who fights between the battle lines. It is better to translate this as “an infantryman” (so Anchor Bible). See also Bible en français courant, “A Philistine soldier.”
Six cubits and a span: a cubit is about forty-five centimeters (eighteen inches). It is based of the distance from the elbow to the tip of the middle finger of an adult male. A span (the distance from the tip of the thumb to the tip of the little finger when a man’s hand is spread out) is nearly half a cubit, that is, about eight inches or about twenty-two centimeters. The height of Goliath will need to be expressed in an understandable form in the receptor language. But it need not be expressed in precise terms. Good News Translation says “over nine feet tall.” New Century Version is probably too specific: “about nine feet and four inches tall.” Where the metric system is used, the equivalent will be “nearly 3 meters” (Bible en français courant, La Bible du Semeur, and Parola Del Signore: La Bibbia in Lingua Corrente).
As the note in Good News Translation indicates, there is a textual problem in this verse. The Septuagint and a Hebrew manuscript from Qumran state that Goliath was four cubits and a span, which equals “six and a half feet tall” (New American Bible). But the failure to mention this problem in Hebrew Old Testament Text Project suggests that the Masoretic Text should be followed here.
Quoted with permission from Omanson, Roger L. and Ellington, John E. A Handbook on the First and Second Books of Samuel, Volume 1. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 2001. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .