The Rhetoric of Height: Giants, Babel, Babylon and Sodom in Biblical Exegesis.

Article argues that biblical texts employ "height" as a recurring rhetorical and theological marker of human pride, self-exaltation, and institutional overreach. Reading the giant traditions (1 Sam 17; 2 Sam 21), the Tower of Babel (Gen 11), Babylon in prophetic and apocalyptic literature (Isa 13–14; Jer 50–51; Dan 4; Rev 17–18), and Sodom and Gomorrah (Gen 19; Ezek 16) in canonical relation, study traces a shared pattern of ascent, divine descent, reversal. Giants, towers, empires, morally insulated cities each function as variations on a single biblical grammar which height signifies attempted autonomy from God. Drawing on Fishbane, Childs, and Brueggemann, article demonstrates that these texts form a coherent biblical critique of pride, violence, and imperial self-assertion. David's defeat of Goliath serves as personal-scale prototype for fall of Babel, Babylon, and Sodom. The God who "comes down" consistently brings down the high and lifts up the lowly.