David and Goliath has to be one of the top 3 OT stories of all time. 🏆 It’s up there with the parting of the Red Sea and Noah’s Ark. Culturally, it may be the MOST famous. Even an unbeliever who is biblically illiterate would know what was meant by a “David vs Goliath” match – be it in a sport or a court of law.
The Beginner’s Bible has of course sanitized this story to make it safe for children…
Nice blue brass ya got there, Goliath. 😏
But make no mistake, this narrative ends with a decapitation and David taking the head of the giant with him as if he was going to have it stuffed and mounted like 12-point trophy buck. 🦌
Remember how Jonathan and his armor bearer attacked the Philistine garrison then God sent confusion and Israel chased the big Philistine army out of the country?
Politically, Israel is in the middle of their own War for Independence. The Philistines are not going to just go off and leave Israel alone. They have regrouped and gathered a large army well inside Judah’s territory in the Valley of Elah between the hills of Socho and Azekah. And they mean business this time. They bring out one of the giants.
David has left the palace of Saul and has returned home to Bethlehem to help on the farm. But when he brings provisions to his older brothers serving in the army, he gets a glimpse of Goliath and hears his taunts.
I LOVE David’s zeal for Yahweh. David gets it- that the odds DO NOT MATTER when Yahweh is with you. Say it with me, class:
“God does not require
favorable circumstances.”
You have probably heard (as have I) sermons on how you can’t wear someone else’s armor (calling). And that you fight with the weapon you know. And how David picked up 5 stones – one for Goliath and one for each of his 4 brothers. All great stuff.
I’d like to look at some things you may not have thought of. Like – the importance of the staff.
Now, operating a sling (technically called a balearic sling), is something you’d want both hands free to do. But David carried his staff with him. Goliath is insulted by his choice of “weapon” as if he’s no more than a mangy dog to be scared off by a stick.
The text is very detailed about David reaching into his shepherd’s pouch and taking out a stone and slinging it.
Did David throw down his staff? Or might he have used it as part of the slinging attack? Staff-slings are first mentioned in history in a book written in the 4th century A.D. That’s a LONG time after David, but perhaps they were in use before that.
With a staff-sling, you can launch fist-sized rocks a long way. They are basically hand-held trebuchets and pack a LOT of punch. Type “staff sling” into YouTube’s search bar and have fun watching guys launching rocks out of sight.
Or, David may have tossed down his staff and used a regular sling like this:
Let’s look at the location: the Valley of Elah.
Here are a couple more pics I found online to help give us some context of the battle site. If you look back up at my picture and see the distant hill on the left, that’s where the next picture was taken from.
Ok, back to the field with the creek bed…
It was pretty surreal to stand in this dry ancient creek bed and read 1 Samuel 17.
One of my favorite channels on YouTube – Sergio and Rhoda in Israel – did a video on this location. They’re a such a fun, energetic couple and this video is a blast to watch. If you pause it at exactly 0:07 seconds in, you’ll see the creek bed where I stood to take the picture above…
Now, Let’s Talk About Goliath…
Goliath was nearly 10 feet (3m) tall! 😲
The tallest man that we have definitive proof for was Robert Wadlow. He was 8ft, 11in.
Robert suffered from Gigantism caused by an overactive pituitary gland. He died at only 22 years old because of a sceptic blister on his ankle from a poorly fitted leg brace.
The tallest living man right now is Sultan Kosen, born in Turkeye in 1982. He is 8ft 3in and also has gigantism and uses crutches to walk.
Goliath was not only nearly a foot taller than Robert Wadlow at 9ft 9in, he was also VERY strong. No leg braces or crutches for him. His breastplate of scale armor alone weighed 125 pounds or 57 kilos!
And it’s not “chain mail.” The Hebrew word qasqeseth (kas-keh-seth) means like fish scales. Brass would be pounded into little plates which would be sewn onto a coat of leather. Now think about how Goliath would’ve looked for a second in those brassy, coppery scales…
The Philistines were technologically more advanced than Israel. Goliath’s spear shaft was 2-2.5 inches thick and topped with a 15-pound iron spear head. The Philistines and Canaanites have entered the Iron Age (remember the iron chariots?) while Israel is barely in the Bronze Age.
Remember that we just read that only Saul and Jonathan even have swords; likely bronze ones. The rest of Israel is armed with slingshots, sharp sticks, and dull garden hoes. This is like some primitive tribe still mainly in the Stone Age armed with bows and spears going up against the US Army.
There is only one Hebrew word for brass and bronze and copper. And that makes sense because bronze is copper plus tin and brass is copper plus zinc. The Hebrew word is N’chosheth (neck-o-sheth). It comes from a word we’ve run into before: nachash, the shiny serpent.
So Goliath is standing there in his shiny brassy scale armor, with bronze or brass leg-guards and helmet and some kind of bronze/brass either weaponry (like a dart?) or perhaps spikes sticking out from his shoulders or back.
I think the overall effect Goliath might’ve been going for, is to make people think of something like this:
Recall the origins of giants. Rebel angels produced offspring with human women. Goliath can trace his ancestry to a fallen angel. Let that sink in.
What fallen angel is known as “the dragon” or “that old Serpent?”
Goliath and other giants would be proud of their divine ancestors. And would probably want to flaunt it at every opportunity.
So the battle between David and Goliath is a microcosm of the battle between the Son of David and the Dragon.
Jesus became human and – in his humanity – was young and small and weak compared to the Ancient Dragon. Jesus, the Good Shepherd came at the dragon with a stick too. We call it Calvary. He appeared to be defeated, but a smooth moving stone also spelled defeat for His enemy.
Interesting that Nebuchadnezzar has a dream about the future kingdoms of the world (Dan. 2) and the image is destroyed by a stone cut from a mountain without hands that is hurled, not at the head, but at the feet (the final kingdom) of the image. The stone is Christ Himself. But in Revelation 13 we see one of the heads of the dragon-empowered Beast wounded to death.
Goliath and David engage in some pre-fight trash talk in which they each promise to feed each other’s entrails to the birds. Lovely. 😐
David comments on Goliath’s armor and weaponry and then explains his own: “I come to you in the name of the LORD Almighty.” I love how Josephus paraphrases this. “Thou comest to me with a sword and a spear and with a breastplate, but I have God for my armor in coming against thee.”
God IS his armor.
God IS your IronMan suit. Get IN Him.
PUT ON Christ. We wear Him like armor.
Are ya hearin’ me?
Now, with that in mind, read this with fresh eyes:
“Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand firm. Stand therefore, having fastened on the belt of truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and, as shoes for your feet, having put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace. In all circumstances take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one; and take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.”
Ephesians 6:11-17 ESV
Every element of your “super suit” is the LORD Himself. He is Truth. He is our righteousness. Etc.
David knew this. And He trusted his Armor.
So David runs toward his adversary. He didn’t sling stones from behind a rock. And it only took one stone in Goliath’s one unprotected area. 🪨
I imagine that as soon as that stone launched it got quiet on the battlefield – like watching a basketball hurled from the half court line as the buzzer sounds…
And then a collective gasp…probably followed by more silence as David approaches Goliath.
David decapitates Goliath with the giant’s own sword. Now I find it terribly gross, but David kept the head as a trophy. 🤢 I guess he couldn’t exactly have taken a pic and posted it to Instagram. The note in verse 54 that says David took Goliath’s head to Jerusalem may mean that he took it there later when he became king and had it on display. I say that because we don’t see David going to the Jebusite city until he conquers it much later.
David also kept Goliath’s armor – probably as proof for how huge he was. It’s also basically a trophy. 🏆
But – the sword of Goliath gets dedicated to Yahweh. David takes it to the tabernacle. And it’s a good thing he did because in a few years, David is going to need it. 🗡️
To The Reader 