Set the scene…
See how, in spite of the size-difference, Goloath had no chance.
1 SAMUAL 17:1 Now the Philistines gathered their forces for war and assembled at Sokoh in Judah. They pitched camp at Ephes Dammim, between Sokoh and Azekah. 2 Saul and the Israelites assembled and camped in the Valley of Elah and drew up their battle line to meet the Philistines. 3 The Philistines occupied one hill and the Israelites another, with the valley between them.
4 A champion named Goliath, who was from Gath, came out of the Philistine camp. His height was 9 ft 9 inches or 3 metres.
5 Goliath had a bronze helmet on his head and wore a coat of scale armour of bronze weighing five thousand shekels 6 on his legs he wore bronze greaves, and a bronze javelin was slung on his back.7 His spear shaft was like a weaver’s rod, and its iron point weighed six hundred shekels. That totals 140 lbs or 10 stone.
His shield bearer went ahead of him. It is important to take note of these details and try to visualise what Goliath looked like during the days that the philistines and the Israelites confronted each other. 8 Goliath stood and shouted to the ranks of Israel, “Why do you come out and line up for battle? Am I not a Philistine, and are you not the servants of Saul? Choose a man and have him come down to me. 9 If he is able to fight and kill me, we will become your subjects; but if I overcome him and kill him, you will become our subjects and serve us.” (Excellent idea, would have saved many lives over the centuries)
10 Then the Philistine said, “This day I defy the armies of Israel! Give me a man and let us fight each other.” 11 On hearing the Philistine’s words, Saul and all the Israelites were dismayed and terrified. Where was their faith?
12 Now David was the son of an Ephrathite named Jesse, who was from Bethlehem in Judah. (Bethlehem certainly was the birthplace of kings)! Jesse had eight sons, and in Saul’s time he was very old.13 Jesse’s three oldest sons had followed Saul to the war: The firstborn was Eliab; the second, Abinadab; and the third, Shammah. 14 David was the youngest. The three oldest followed Saul, 15 but David went back and forth from Saul to tend his father’s sheep at Bethlehem.
16 For forty days the Philistine came forward every morning and evening and took his stand. (What’s going on here? 40 days of just shouting at one another each morning, surely, they had better things to do at home or in the fields?)
But yet again see now the beginning of one of those unfolding events in life that at first glance mean nothing to us but lead to unimagined great things as David simply takes food to his brothers out in the field.
17 Now Jesse said to his son David, “Take this ephah (36 lbs) of roasted grain and these ten loaves of bread for your brothers and hurry to their camp. 18 Take along these ten cheeses to the commander of their unit. See how your brothers are and bring back some assurance from them. 19 They are with Saul and all the men of Israel in the Valley of Elah, fighting against the Philistines.”
That last statement says to me that up to that point David had no idea his brothers had gone away anywhere because only now his father Jesse tells David where they are and what they are doing.
20 Early in the morning David left the flock in the care of a shepherd, loaded up and set out, as Jesse had directed. He reached the camp as the army was going out to its battle positions, shouting the war cry. (This doesn’t sound like a normal ‘battle’ at all does it, it’s just early morning name calling!)
21 Israel and the Philistines were drawing up their lines facing each other. 22 David left his things with the keeper of supplies, ran to the battle lines and asked his brothers how they were. (His brothers don’t appear to mention the Goliath problem at all up to now.)
23 As he was talking with them, Goliath, the Philistine champion from Gath, stepped out from his lines and shouted his usual defiance, and David heard it. 24 Whenever the Israelites saw the man, they all fled from him in great fear. (It’s not making sense to me at the moment, this happens every morning, Goliath shouts for an Israelite champion, no one seems to have any kind of a plan and they flee. Surely they don’t flee every morning? I have a picture of them on one hill and the Philistines on the other over the valley. Does Goliath really pop out, shout and the Israelites flee, every morning? It begs the question “how long would this have gone on for if it were not for the intervention of David”?)
25 Now the Israelites had been saying, “Do you see how this man keeps coming out? He comes out to defy Israel. The king will give great wealth to the man who kills him. He will also give him his daughter in marriage and will exempt his family from taxes in Israel.” So instead of the king organising his army to attack as armies normally do he asks for ‘A MAN’ to step forward and kill Goliath. Isn’t this odd?
26 David asked the men standing near him, “What will be done for the man who kills this Philistine and removes this disgrace from Israel?
You see David’s attitude straight away, God is with us, who is this oik who is arrogant enough to challenge the people of God? David actually says…Who is this uncircumcised Philistine that he should defy the armies of the living God?”
He must have been puzzled… why the delay in dispatching this hooligan even though the brute is 9 foot tall. At 9ft tall I think this is a test of faith that I may well have failed at myself! (I’m sure I would!)
27 They repeated to David what they had been saying and told him, “This is what will be done for the man who kills him.” 28 When Eliab, David’s oldest brother, heard him speaking with the men, he burned with anger at him and asked, “Why have you come down here? And with whom did you leave those few sheep in the wilderness? I know how conceited you are and how wicked your heart is; you came down only to watch the battle.” 29 “Now what have I done?” said David. “Can’t I even speak?” (brothers eh!) 30 He then turned away to someone else and brought up the same matter, and the men answered him as before. 31 What David said was overheard and reported to Saul, and Saul sent for him. (Now God’s plan is unfolding) 32 David said to Saul, “Let no one lose heart on account of this Philistine; your servant will go and fight him.” 33 Saul replied, “You are not able to go out against this Philistine and fight him; you are only a young man, and he has been a warrior from his youth.” 34 But David said to Saul, “Your servant has been keeping his father’s sheep. When a lion or a bear came and carried off a sheep from the flock, 35 I went after it, struck it and rescued the sheep from its mouth. When it turned on me, I seized it by its hair, struck it and killed it. (I wonder if this bit was ‘youth talk’?) 36 Your servant has killed both the lion and the bear; this uncircumcised Philistine will be like one of them, because he has defied the armies of the living God. 37 The Lord who rescued me from the paw of the lion and the paw of the bear will rescue me from the hand of this Philistine.”
How's that for faith, there’s not a shred of doubt in this young man’s mind which has been typical in many wars since, the young men know no fear but this was no ordinary young man, he knew God was with him and he wanted to dispatch this noisy adversary without haste.
Saul said to David, “Go, and the Lord be with you.” 38 Then Saul dressed David in his own tunic. He put a coat of armour on him and a bronze helmet on his head. 39 David fastened on his sword over the tunic and tried walking around, because he was not used to them. “I cannot go in these,” he said to Saul, “because I am not used to them.” So, he took them off. 40 Then he took his staff in his hand, chose five smooth stones from the stream, put them in the pouch of his shepherd’s bag and, with his sling in his hand, approached the Philistine. 41 Meanwhile, the Philistine, with his shield bearer in front of him, kept coming closer to David. 42 He looked David over and saw that he was little more than a boy, glowing with health and handsome, and he despised him. 43 He said to David, “Am I a dog, that you come at me with sticks?” And the Philistine cursed David by his gods. 44 “Come here,” he said, “and I’ll give your flesh to the birds and the wild animals!”
Don’t forget, Saul had now designated a man (David) to represent the Israelites and if he failed…
45 David said to the Philistine, “You come against me with sword and spear and javelin, but I come against you in the name of the Lord Almighty, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied. 46 This day the Lord will deliver you into my hands, and I’ll strike you down and cut off your head. This very day I will give the carcasses of the Philistine army to the birds and the wild animals, and the whole world will know that there is a God in Israel. 47 All those gathered here will know that it is not by sword or spear that the Lord saves; for the battle is the Lord’s, and he will give all of you into our hands.” 48 As the Philistine moved closer to attack him, David ran quickly toward the battle line to meet him. 49 Reaching into his bag and taking out a stone, he slung it and struck the Philistine on the forehead. The stone sank into his forehead, and he fell face down on the ground. But is he dead yet, I am not sure. 50 So David triumphed over the Philistine with a sling and a stone; without a sword in his hand he struck down the Philistine and killed him. 51 David ran and stood over him. He took hold of the Philistine’s sword and drew it from the sheath. After he killed him, he cut off his head with the sword. (He’s dead now)! When the Philistines saw that their hero was dead, they turned and ran. 52 Then the men of Israel and Judah surged forward with a shout and pursued the Philistines to the entrance of Gath and to the gates of Ekron. Their dead were strewn along the Shaaraim road to Gath and Ekron. So the Israelites were certainly not interested in Goliath’s terms of a one man war. 53 When the Israelites returned from chasing the Philistines, they plundered their camp.
54 David took the Philistine’s head and brought it to Jerusalem; he put the Philistine’s weapons in his own tent. 55 As Saul watched David going out to meet the Philistine, he said to Abner, commander of the army, “Abner, whose son is that young man?” Abner replied, “As surely as you live, Your Majesty, I don’t know.” 56 The king said, “Find out whose son this young man is.” 57 As soon as David returned from killing the Philistine, Abner took him and brought him before Saul, with David still holding the Philistine’s head. 58 “Whose son are you, young man?” Saul asked him. David said, “I am the son of your servant Jesse of Bethlehem.”
If you are a book-reader don’t you just love stories of courage? The story of David and Goliath seems on the surface to be a story of great courage on the part of young David but no courage was needed for two reasons, David had complete and unflinching faith in God and it was unthinkable that anyone was going to overcome God’s people, secondly, David’s role as a shepherd was much like that of God’s role, God protects his people, David protects his sheep against all foes.
Unless you contemplate very carefully what daily problems and threats David faced as a shepherd in those far off days of lions, bears, wolves etc you will be unable to appreciate David’s thoughts when he spoke to his brothers on the battle front and took a look at what was threatening God’s people; this lumbering giant Goliath.
If you were born and raised in town with little knowledge of the countryside you will not know what a lethal and accurate weapon a sling shot is. The catapult, a very similar weapon, is as accurate as a rifle, they don’t have the distance of a rifle but the accuracy up to about 30 feet using SMOOTH STONES is superb. We have already read that David, as a shepherd killed bears and lions so when he saw Goliath what did he think? First thoughts must have been “this hooligan dares to threaten God’s people, surely he knows he cannot possibly win.”
David’s faith in God’s protection is very strong. David is used to confronting large beasts, he has done it many times. He knows his own abilities and he will certainly have looked at that giant of a man and thought… How slow and lumbering he moves, he is overwhelmingly handicapped with all that weight he is carrying. His scale armour and helmet weighed ca 125 lbs, his bronze spear was like a weaver’s rod so I imagine slightly thicker than a broom handle, we are not told what the spear weighed but the iron spear head weighed 15 lbs. He also wore bronze greaves on his legs… David would see all this and after watching how that man moved, knew that this was going to be easy.
David was young and agile and could move swiftly from side to side easily able to out manoeuvre Goliath. David did only need one clear shot at him. Although Goliath had a shield bearer who went ahead of him in the beginning of this encounter, that shield bearer seems to have vanished as Goliath is now confronted by David. Although David did not want to go against the wishes of Saul, David had to insist he could not go into battle wearing all that armour, it slowed him down and in any case he knew he did not need it because he had the equivalent of a rifle and the certain protection of God.
I cannot imagine David speaking out for God in front of those armies, representing God in battle and losing!!! It was never going to happen was it and I’m sure that’s how David felt too. David might have looked really vulnerable as the distance between Goliath and himself got closer but Goliath could do nothing until David was close enough to reach with his sword. I can’t imagine why Goliath carried a spear. It is a distance weapon but raising it up into the air to throw, especially such a large heavy spear, it would have been really easy to watch it coming and step aside. Goliath must have been relying on using a sword so needed to get within striking distance. David only needed to get about 30 feet away from Goliath for that very easy head shot.
And what about those 5 SMOOTH stones David picked up? Smooth stones (pebbles from a stream) are aerodynamically accurate whereas rough stones with sharp edges catch in the wind and are deflected. Some say the other 4 stones were for Goliath’s 4 brothers who may have attacked when they saw Goliath on the ground but we are not really told why David chose 5 stones. It wasn’t as though David needed more than one stone to fell Goliath, I’m sure David knew that. My thoughts on the 5 stones are… once Goliath was down on the ground what else might happen? It would be very wise to ‘be prepared’. So why not… ten stones, twenty and already you can see the answer, 5 stones was enough to deal with the situation to hand, any more would be an unnecessary weight and we know what he thought about carrying too much weight.
Yes, the other four brothers may have attacked, anything may have happened but the main target was Goliath and eliminating him was key which David did.
If someone with a rifle was threatened with an 9 foot man wearing armour and carrying a spear, who would win? David had God as his shield bearer and unlike Goliath’s shield bearer God was with him all the time. These are my thoughts on the Goliath story.
Goliath’s shield bearer seems to have vanished when needed most but David’s shield bearer never left his side. When David left his sheep to go to the battle front he left someone else in charge of the flock while he was gone, do you see another parallel? Our shepherd watches over us all the time, even when some kind of Goliath shows up.
David, an important character in scripture and in spite of all his faults God still loved him, in fact; bizarrely, God said “I have found David, son of Jesse, a man after my own heart”. “Thank goodness for David” I say.
