David and Goliath

Every morning and every evening, for forty days, he came out. A giant in bronze armour, shouting across the valley. And every morning and every evening, the army of Israel shrank back in fear.

This happened about three thousand years ago, in the days of Saul, Israel’s first king. The Philistines were a powerful people living along the coast. They were well armed, with seasoned warriors, and they were pushing up into the hill country where Israel lived. Now the two armies faced each other across the Valley of Elah. The Philistines on one hill. Israel on the other. And the valley floor in between, with a stream running through it.

The Philistines had a champion named Goliath, from the city of Gath. He was enormous. He wore a bronze helmet and a coat of scale armour weighing about fifty-seven kilos. Bronze greaves protected his legs. A bronze javelin was slung on his back. The shaft of his spear was like a weaver’s beam, and its iron point alone weighed about seven kilos. A shield-bearer walked ahead of him. And he shouted across the valley: “Choose a man and send him down to fight me. If he wins, we will be your servants. If I win, you will serve us. I defy the armies of Israel today!” King Saul and all his soldiers heard it. And they were terrified.

Meanwhile, back in Bethlehem, a man named Jesse had eight sons. The three oldest were with Saul’s army. The youngest, David, looked after his father’s sheep. One day Jesse sent David to the camp with roasted grain and loaves of bread for his brothers, and cheeses for their commander. David arrived just as Goliath came out to shout again. He watched the soldiers run. “Who is this Philistine,” David asked, “that he should defy the armies of the living God?” His eldest brother, Eliab, was furious with him. But word reached King Saul, and David was brought to him. “Don’t let anyone lose heart,” David said. “I will go and fight him.” Saul looked at him. “You are only a young man.” But David said, “I have kept my father’s sheep. When a lion or a bear came and took a lamb, I went after it and rescued the lamb. The Lord who rescued me from the paw of the lion and the bear will rescue me from this Philistine.” So Saul put his own armour on David. A bronze helmet. A coat of mail. David tried to walk, and could barely move. “I can’t go in these,” he said. “I’m not used to them.” And he took them off.

Instead, David took his shepherd’s staff. He went down to the stream and chose five smooth stones, and put them in his shepherd’s bag. With his sling in his hand, he walked out to meet the giant. Goliath looked at him and sneered. He cursed David by his gods. But David called back, “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. Today, the whole world will know that there is a God in Israel. The battle is the Lord’s.” Goliath moved closer. David ran toward him. He reached into his bag, took out a stone, slung it, and struck the Philistine on the forehead. The stone sank in, and Goliath fell face down on the ground. David had no sword in his hand. But the giant was beaten. And when the Philistines saw that their champion had fallen, they turned and ran.

Don’t picture David’s sling as a toy. In the ancient world, slingers were real soldiers. The book of Judges mentions seven hundred chosen men of Benjamin who could each sling a stone at a hair and not miss. Centuries after David, Assyrian kings carved scenes of their battles on palace walls, including the famous siege of the Judean city of Lachish, and those carvings show rows of slingers in action. Archaeologists have found slingstones at many sites in the land. In skilled hands, a sling could strike hard and fast from well beyond the reach of a spear.

This story is found in First Samuel, chapter seventeen. Everyone else looked at the size of the giant. David looked at the greatness of his God. So here is something to think about. What giant are you facing right now, and what would it mean to face it in the name of the Lord?