Introduction: David had learned some of the arts of defense by tending his flock of sheep. Lions, bears, and perhaps other predators were always looking for sheep so it was up to the shepherd to protect them. After Samuel had anointed him (to be the future king), David had served Saul in a number of ways (the last several verses of 1 Samuel 16) but always managed to find his way back to his home, back to his flock, and back to his family.
Then, war broke out again between Israel and the Philistines. This time they had a secret weapon that was anything but secret when the Israelites saw him! David’s father asked David to take some “goodies” from home to his brothers and bring back news. When David got there, he saw and experienced something that changed him and his life forever.
The conditions
This chapter, 1 Samuel 17, is rather long, so to conserve space I won’t be quoting all of the text. In no way does this distract from the narrative and the importance of the following events. Please take a moment to read this chapter in its entirety—it’s fascinating!
Verses 1-3 give the locations for this “campaign” between Israel and the Philistines. Each one of them occupied a hilltop on either side of a valley, called here the “valley of Elah”. The text doesn’t provide too many details for us, such as how many troops were in either army, or what role the valley of Elah had in this situation.
Those of us with a military background understand how important it is to hold the “high ground”. That way, the enemy would have to be climbing upwards to reach your territory and it would be relatively easy to roll rocks, logs, or other items (including ordnance!) down on those who are trying to climb up. A classic Korean War-themed movie, “Pork Chop Hill”, has at least one scene where soldiers of one army roll hand grenades down the slope of their side of a mountain against their enemy. This again proves how important it was and is to hold the “high ground” and use it to your advantage.
Now, that means if anybody tried to do or lead a charge against the enemy, they weren’t going to be very successful! We aren’t told what weapons Israel had, if any, but the Philistines had plenty of weapons. They had deliberately kept Israel from even having a blacksmith or weapons maker so that Israel couldn’t make metal weapons. The Israelites even had to visit the Philistines to sharpen their axes and other items (1 Sam 13:19-20)!
As a bit of an illustration, I’ve tried gardening—on a very small scale!—a time or two and it doesn’t take much for the edge of a garden hoe to become dull. In fact, I learned from one of my aunts, who came to visit me (I was in the military and stationed in a different state at the time) reminded me that she learned to keep a mill file close by so that they could stay in location and not have to stop and sharpen. She noticed me sharpening my garden hoe at the end of a row and laughed, then shared that memory from the days when Mom, this aunt, and the other three siblings worked together on the family farm. Sadly, that farming gene must have skipped me!
But again this proves how frustrating it had to be for Israel. Saul and Jonathan did have a sword apiece (13:22); maybe Israel had scavenged weapons from the Philistines in other battles or skirmishes, yet the fact remained: in terms of numbers and weapons, Israel was in a bad situation and everybody knew it. Having said that, it’s a tribute to Israel’s men of that time who were willing to fight with whatever they had to defend their home country.
No matter what would come, they were ready to fight if need be. Israelite soldiers of that day, thank you for giving us an example. May we, too, never surrender to the enemy one inch of our land, or one moment of our time, and may we too have the desire to stand and defend our own.
So then, the conditions weren’t really promising for either side. The nations were at war, but nobody seemed willing to attack. Even so, the Philistines had not one, but two weapons they used at this time. What did they have in mind?
The champions
The Philistines knew they couldn’t attack Israel successfully; likewise, Israel knew they couldn’t defeat the Philistines either. Both sides knew that they would be easy targets, running or marching or charging or whatever their strategy was, heading down into a valley and upwards out of that valley towards the hilltop. The text doesn’t say how long these two armies were in this “stalemate”—i.e., neither wanted to advance but neither wanted to retreat, either—but they were both in place long enough for the Philistines to propose a simple, easy, solution to this problem. Maybe they had thought they could simply conquer Israel with ease; that seems to be the reason for their victories over Israel in the Book of Judges and the earlier chapters of 1 Samuel. Now they thought they had a way to challenge Israel.
And to defeat Israel.
You’ll recall the Philistines had two “secret weapons” they seemed to hold in strategic reserve, so to speak. One of these was a giant, named Goliath, who came from the city of Gath in the land of the Philistines. He came to the front of the line of battle, such as it was (no battle had taken place as of yet) and began a “psy ops” or psychological campaign to discourage Israel. Verses 4 through 11 describe Goliath’s uniform, armor, and most importantly his size.
Allowing 18 inches to a “cubit”, the standard measure of distance in those days, Goliath’s height of six cubits would equal six half-yards or three yards in standard length—nine feet in height! Plus a span, roughly four inches, meant that Goliath stood nearly nine and a half feet tall!
Not only was his height impressive, so was his armor. The text lists Goliath’s helmet and a “coat of mail”, maybe chain mail or armor arranged like fish scales (there are various interpretations). The weight of his coat of mail was 5,000 shekels; there is no exact English equivalent for how much a shekel weighed in those days; one estimate was one-half ounce in avoirdupois weight (16 ounces to the pound). Hence, 5000 shekels, using that system of measurement, would yield 2500 ounces or slightly over 150 pounds of brass (or, bronze)! He also had “greaves (most likely shin- or leg-guards)” on his legs and a “target (perhaps a small shield)”on his back. All of this, too, was made out of brass (bronze) material. The weight of those two items is not given.
Besides this protective armor, he also had some weapons for offense. Verse 7 states Goliath had a spear, probably held in his hand; the weight of the spear’s head alone was 600 shekels. If the shekels of iron and brass/bronze were the same, a half-ounce to the shekel, then the spear’s head weighed 300 ounces or nearly 19 pounds! Try holding something that heavy, along with a staff that had its own weight as well!
Now compare this with Saul, the king—and champion—of Israel. True, he was the tallest man in Israel at the time, and he at least had a sword and maybe a spear (1 Sam 13:22). He also had a helmet of brass (bronze) and some other armor he tried to give David later, but that was about it. He didn’t measure up to Goliath in either terms of height or weaponry. Of interest is that the weight of Saul’s armor is never given. Was it anywhere close to what Goliath’s armor weighed?
The contest
Goliath approached the front lines one day, and every day for the next 40 days. That’s nearly six weeks of propaganda aimed directly at the Israelites and every day it was the same thing, “Why don’t you send me a man so that we may fight together?” Several commentators observed that this was a one-on-one match so that the losers became the slaves of the winners. On the surface, that makes sense because if the winners killed all the enemy, then who would be left to work the fields, reap the harvests, and the other things the victors didn’t want to do. Additionally, the slaves would make it easy for the victors to “eat, drink, and be merry” for a long time to come.
Understandably, the Israelites in general, and Saul in particular, were none too anxious to engage in this contest! Who, really, would want to be known as “the man who cost Israel our freedom”? President Franklin D. Roosevelt said of December 7, 1941 that it was “a day of infamy” and that could easily have been said of that day in Israel’s history if Israel—more specifically, the designated champion/contestant—would lose the battle!
This challenge (!) had been going on for 40 days (verse 16) but neither side had ventured to send a champion to engage in the battle. Saul knew it would be suicide to try and charge uphill against a giant like Goliath, who could perhaps point his spear at Saul or any other challenger—game, set, and match, let’s go home Philistines with our Hebrew captives in tow. Yet Goliath didn’t venture too far from his turf, either, probably because he knew he would be an easy target for every spear, stone, arrow, or anything else the Israelites had and would use against him. Even so, there was something unusual about to happen.
Another contestant was about to make his presence known and to accept that challenge.
But Saul and the rest of the army didn’t know who that was going to be.
The challenger
Verses 12-17 give a bit of an “oh by the way” narrative, concerning David. He had been anointed by Samuel in chapter 16, and later had served with Saul at Saul’s headquarters according to the last several verses of chapter 16. The text does not specify how much time did take place between these two chapters but certainly David matured during that time.
His father had also learned to trust him, too. Jesse sent David on a mission to take some food to his brothers and their commander, then to bring news back to Jesse. David obeyed promptly, arrived at the battlefield, and then began to ask questions.
The kind of questions that some people didn’t want to hear. David’s oldest brother heard about this and promptly got angry with him (verse 28). David replied, “I was just asking!”
Eventually David himself saw Goliath himself and offered to fight him! Saul was, some might say, nonplussed at this offer and reminded David, “You’re only a youth, and he’s been a fighter since his youth!” David said, “I killed both a lion and a bear when they came after my father’s sheep. The LORD will help me take care of this Philistine just like He helped me take care of those wild beasts”.
Saul offered David his (personal?) armor but David told him. “I’m not used to this” and indeed it would have been hard for a teenage boy to wear armor designed and built for a man who was probably several inches taller than he was! David had been accustomed to living and tending sheep and most likely had to be agile to make quick moves against enemies. Lions and bears were always in the area in those days and were eager to grab a sheep for a meal. David, then, was used to wearing little if any protective gear and trusted in God, not armor, for
protection.
Now David went to the battle line. One can imagine the thoughts that had to be racing through his mind as he prepared to fight this enemy of his people. Did he imagine what would happen if he didn’t slay this giant, this enemy? Was he even thinking of how God might provide victory in a situation like this?
He had picked five smooth stones and placed them in his “scrip (verse 40)”, then took his staff in one hand and his sling in the other. Now he was ready.
He was headed for the Philistine lines when the giant finally saw him. Oh, was he fit to be tied! He looked at David and said, “Am I some kind of a dog, that you’re coming to fight me with only a stick?” Then he cursed David by the gods of the Philistines—as if that was going to do any good—then gave David a challenge. He said, “Come on to me, and I’ll feed your flesh to the birds and beasts of the field”, as though he was expecting an easy victory. After all, he had made the Israelites afraid to advance one inch toward the Philistine lines, so what was one little boy (in his opinion) going to do?
As it turned out, this boy was different. Apparently nobody had said a word to Goliath during his 40-day campaign of “Send me somebody to fight with!”, and Saul, being the king and champion, did not attempt to fight him, either. Now here was a boy who shouted back at him, with confidence in his own God that He would give victory over this giant. Now here was a boy who had little in the way of armor but plenty in the way of ardor. He told Goliath, “No, I’m going to feed your flesh to the wild beasts! You not only defied Israel’s army but also Israel’s God and He will deliver you into my hands!”
When the giant heard this, he began heading in David’s direction. According to verse 48, Goliath started coming towards David. Remember that each army was camped on a hilltop, with a valley in between, and if Goliath was coming towards David he was literally going downhill.
He was a target nobody could miss.
So David sees this, grabbed a stone from the bag or “scrip”, slung it, and it hit the Philistine giant in the only unprotected spot in his whole body—his forehead. A word about “slinging”—remember that slings in those days were pieces of leather or perhaps some other material, with something like a patch where the stone or other “projectile” would be placed. The person doing the slinging would whirl the sling to a desired velocity and then would aim it at the target.
That’s exactly what David did, and that stone hit the giant right where it hurt. Goliath fell face down on the earth, maybe he was knocked out cold, and was basically helpless at this point. His strength, his armor, and his height—none of that mattered now, and none of that could help him now. David looked around but couldn’t find a sword. He wasn’t about to let this enemy get away. Then he found Goliath’s own sword and cut off the giant’s head.
There was no doubt about it. Goliath was dead. And instead of honoring the terms of the contest, by agreeing to be Israel’s servants (hey, that was the deal, no?), the other Philistines fled the battlefield and ran for their homeland. The Israelite soldiers for once took courage and chased the Philistines all the way back to their home cities (Gath and Ekron).
God had provided a great victory for Israel in general (the battle and war were over—for now) and David in particular. God showed a lot of people what He could do with one person who was completely dedicated to God and His will. Dr. Vance Havner wrote in one of his books that if the Israelites had worked to grow a Goliath to meet the challenge, they might still be camped by the Valley of Elah! Instead, God had developed David into the kind of person who put God first and trusted Him for everything. And the victory God provided was proof enough for all of them.
Conclusion: people like you and me face any number of enemies on a daily basis. Some are small, but others can seem bigger than Goliath himself. The same God Who gave victory to Israel through David can provide victory for us through faith!
David could see Goliath, all right, but even better, he could see God even better, May we too learn to keep our eyes on our own Heavenly Father and trust Him to provide all that we need!
Scripture quotations taken from the King James Version of the Bible (KJV).
