David And Goliath

The location

One of the most beloved passages in Scripture recorded for us is that of 1Samuel 17, where a man after God’s own heart stands up to the giant that has the audac­ity to defy God. This wonderful record is what we will be going through for this article, for guidance, for an inspirational example to us, and to reclaim that zeal that our brotherhood needs now.

Beginning at the first verse, we are told that the Philis­tines gathered their armies and camped in Ephes­dammim, which in He­brew is the plural form of H1818 meaning “bound­ary of blood.”1There would be blood dropping from one of their own soon enough. In the third verse we are given the armies’ of the Philistines and Isra­elites’ positions: the Philistines on a mountain on one side and the Israelites on the mountain just across from them, and in between them, the valley of Elah.2Already we find a good lesson to keep in mind. As there was a valley between the Philistines and Israelites, so should there be separateness between the Brothers of Christ and the brotherhood of men.

Moving on we find that Goliath of Gath is introduced as being a champion of the Philistines. This giant man was over nine feet tall. After a description of his bronze armaments, it says he stood and cried out to the armies of Israel. He called them servants to Saul, really giving a hint to who he really wanted to fight. However he tells them to choose a man to fight him and gives them an offer. If the man chosen can actually stand his ground with and kill him, then they will be his servants. Nevertheless if he kills the chosen Israelite warrior then they would be his servants, therefore giving him his desired leadership. The Israelites immediately were consumed with fear. Where was their “giant warrior” (see 1 Sam 9:2, 10:23) with whom they put their trust in to call him their king? He also hid himself in great fear. The Israelites’ fear demonstrates their search for security in a human king had utterly failed.3

Goliath of Gath presented himself morning and evening every day for forty days to the Israelites, hoping a man would finally show himself, ready to fight. As we all know, forty represents probation. We have probation (period or process of testing or observing the character or abilities of a person in a certain role); it is this life we are living now. This life’s decisions have an eternal impact on us. We are being tested now, and when our brother King returns, let us be found ready.

David appears

Next, the man after God’s own heart was introduced. The soon to be hero is said to be from Beth-lehem-Judah and that his father is Jesse. Three of his oldest brothers, (Eliab, Abinadab, and Shammah) went to the battle grounds with Saul and his barmy. David was the youngest and he instead went to feed his father’s sheep, a task that King Saul before he was anointed couldn’t even do, back home (1 Sam 9:1-10).

The story then goes back to Bethlehem, where Jesse tells David to go to his breth­ren on the battlefield and bring corn and loaves of bread for his brothers to their camp. An allusion no doubt is brought into our minds of David’s greater son with the bread, later on recorded for us:

“Then said they unto him, Lord, evermore give us this bread. And Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst” (John 6:34-35).

In 1 Sam 17:19-20, we have written that Saul and all the men of Israel appear to fight with the Philistines. Isn’t that curious? How are they already fighting?4Well, they didn’t actually start fighting till after David had killed the giant. This verse is just saying that their armies were in formation and ready to fight. The verse following describes David up in the morning leaving his sheep with a keeper. Now that is a true leader. Not always looking out for his own but leaving them with someone responsible to keep them when he is gone. It is definitely worth highlighting the phrases that show David’s loyalty to his sheep: “…to feed his father’s sheep…left the sheep with a keeper,…kept his father’s sheep…delivered it out of his mouth” (1 Sam 17:15, 20, 34, 35).

David makes haste as he goes to see his brethren and how they fare. While talking with his brothers, the formidable Goliath comes out to the armies of Israel to give his daily speech. However, this time it was different. This time, there was someone in the enemy camp who would not tolerate him or his vain babblings. The men of Israel fled from this giant and were “sore afraid”. The NIV translation renders it “great fear”. This is a neat little connection back to 1Sam 17:11 — greatly afraid. The cowardly men talk about the gargantuan of a man that defies them and that if someone kills him, the king will give him riches, his daughter, and his house free in Israel. Then David interjects what should be done to the man who kills this giant. Nevertheless, it was not that David wanted all that the men had talked about, for his motivation was higher. He says that Goliath is an uncircumcised Philistine and who is he to defy the armies of the living God? That was his God that the stupid and blithering man was cursing. David understands that Goliath is a man who is one with his flesh-uncircumcised. Let us be the exact opposite of Goliath, a man that is one with his flesh. We must cut off ours and move as far away as we can from it.

After this great exclamation from David, his oldest brother Eliab comes down upon him. It says “his anger was kindled against David” (1 Sam 17:28, KJV).The NIV translates this as “he burned with anger at him”. Why did Eliab give such a cold reply to his own brother who was justly defending God, as they should have? Eliab was jealous of his brother, and that blinded him from truly understanding what kind of man his younger brother was (1 Sam 16:13). David replies in the NIV translation: “Can’t I even speak?” Fellow brothers and sisters, we must try our utmost not to be like this. We cannot grow jealous of each other. We must love and appreciate them, especially when they are only standing up for the Truth. And where are we in this conflict? Are we like Eliab who stood against his own brother? Or are we all on the same side, defending and holding on to the Truth as best we can, helping each other and picking each other up on our walk to the kingdom. We must be as a disciplined army, each man with his shield protecting his brother next to him, ready to fight against the fleshly lusts that race to consume us.

The fight begins

Saul’s messengers had come back to him telling him the same words that came out of David’s mouth. Immediately, Saul sent his men back out on the battlefield to bring David to him. David explains to Saul, whose heart had failed him as well as each and every one of the Israelites, that he will go and fight Goliath. Saul then tells David that he cannot because he is young and that Goliath, this Philistine that he would be going up against, has been trained to kill from a young age. Instantly David tells Saul he kept his father’s sheep, (instantaneously something that would trigger a memory by Saul of himself, when he was found wandering aimlessly when Samuel found him), and that while he (David) did, a lion and bear took a lamb out of the flock. With the help of Almighty God, he struck down both wild animals and saved his father’s sheep. Then he says that this Goliath of Gath will be taken out just like the lion and the bear and that Yahweh will deliver him as He did before. Such zeal we find in this young man! We should try our hardest to always be zealous for the Truth and our God. All of us brothers and sisters when we first were baptized had this same passion. We must not lose it! Hold onto it and spread it to others. We are the lights shining in this dark world; it is our responsibility to shine! Do not wax cold and grow dim, be bright, enthusiastic, eager to have such a bright future and hope ahead of us, let us show our God that we not only appreciate all that he has done for us, but also let us be like David’s Greater Son who intercedes on our behalf for all our foolish transgressions. Keep the zeal brethren and sisters!

Saul, understanding now that there is no way to turn this bright young individual away from fighting this giant, decides to give him his armor. But David could not take this defensive equipment with him for he had not “proved it”. This word for proved is ‘nasah’ which means to test; by implication to attempt. So he took them off and went on his way.5

David took his staff and went into the brook and chose five smooth stones, as we all know from our readings every year. Nonetheless this is a very interesting point. Five smooth stones, why five you might ask, if you remember this great story, it only took one to take out the giant. Maybe, he needed extra, just in case…WRONG! David took five stones because this was just the beginning. Five stones were put in the bag, one for each of Goliath’s brothers. After this, they would hunt down the rest of Goliath’s brothers (2 Sam 21:.16-22; 1 Chron 20:4-8). With his sling in his hand, he with his heart and mind in the right place, he walks with courage toward that big mouthed giant.

Goliath sees a man in the distance and walks toward the man he had been waiting for, for 40 long days. Probation was over, and so was this giant’s life. From the moment he saw this young man, he disdained him as is not surprising. He despised him because was just a boy to him, a young boy with a handsome face: not only that, but David was unarmored. “The army of the Israelites sends this pretty boy, to fight me?” is what probably went through his head. “Am I a dog, which thou comest to me with staves?” (1Sam 17:43) he exclaims. He threatens David and David sends it right back at him. He tells him he has defied the living God, that he will die, and all will know that there is a God in Israel. That all the assembly around him will know God saves not with weapons of man. The word for assembly in 1Sam 17:47 in the Septuagint is rendered ekklesia, which we use as “ecclesia”. Both David and the ecclesia together would defeat the giant with God’s help. So should we brethren and sisters have the same resolution that David had, that we stand up for the Truth.

This picture by Trune, I believe, shows a reasonable relationship between the sizes of Goliath and David. [Editor]

Goliath of Gath draws closer to Da­vid. So David in return runs with all he has to meet his enemy, the enemy that dared to defy his God. While running, David pulls out a stone from his shepherd’s bag and slings it right into the Philistine’s forehead. After he fells Goliath, David further goes to the giant’s body, unsheathes Goliath’s sword, and beheads him. This is symbolic of Christ destroying sin with death.

The Philistines saw their tall warrior die before the hands of the young shepherd and ran for their lives. Now, all the Israelite men on the battlefield had been strengthened by the courage of the young man who would later become their leader. With revitalized strength, they all together were strengthened by Da­vid’s example and chased their enemies away to Ekron and Gath6,and looted their camps. David brought the head to Jerusalem and the armor into his tent. Going back in time, as David runs to kill Goliath, Saul asks Abner, his right hand man and captain of the host, “Whose son is this youth?” At first this may seem an odd question but if you remember, he had seen David before; he was the boy that played the harp, to appease him. He knew who David was, but not of his background. After the Goliath’s death, David brought by Abner to Saul. Saul asks who he is and David respectively says, “I am the son of thy servant Jesse the Bethlehemite” (1Sam 17:58). What an ending to a fantastic record.

Concluding thoughts

This chapter in 1st Samuel is one of the best we could ever read. It contains so many lessons for us to keep in our minds and hearts as we endure through this life for the prize of the high calling in the next. We must keep ourselves completely separate from this world, for we are in it but not of it. There must always be a valley between the brothers of Christ and the brothers of men. We must also not put our faith in man, but in our Heavenly Father that predestination us from the very beginning. This life now is a test, to see if we are fit for the kingdom of God and let us be ready for that day. We must be separate from our nature, not like Goliath who was uncircumcised, or one with his flesh. Together, we have a responsibility to stand by our brothers and sisters, protecting and caring for them every step of the way. Our zeal and passion for the Truth must not undermined by the world. We cannot let our light wax cold, even for a second. Every day, we come out of our homes and into this dark world as lights, beacons of hope. Our lights must be burning much hotter and brighter than it did the day before. We must see David and the Israelite triumph over the Philistines as representative of the Greater Son of David helping us accomplish wonders: finally destroying death and sin and revealing Yahweh’s name throughout the entire Earth. Let us brethren and sisters be as David, never giving in to this world and showing forth his appreciation for all that his God has done for him through his never fading passion for the Truth. For the Truth was everything to David, and it must be everything to us.

  1. Ephes-dammim (called Pas-dammim in 1 Chron 11:13) was the site of some notable skirmishes between Israel and her warlike neighbors, and may have been named for its violent history: “Boundary of blood”.
  2. The place can readily be located today: any American would describe the “mountains as” “hills”, as the NIV translates it, with the Philistine Hill the steeper. There is around 1,000 ft elevation between the heights and the valley.
  3. The Jewish commentary, the Targum, adds “And ye, men of Israel, what noble exploit has Saul, the son of Kish, of Gibeah, done, that ye should have made him king over you? If he be a hero, let him come down himself and fight with me; but if he be a weak or cowardly man, then choose you out a man that he may come down to me.” This appears to give the true sense of Goliath’s speech.
  4. The NIV reads “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”( 1 Sam 17:20). This seems to give the sense of the Hebrew.
  5. [Editor] I have always argued that the reason for David not using the armor was lack of practice, not the armor being too big: that David in his young adulthood was close to Saul’s size.
  6. Of course, Gath was the home of Goliath