This brief study into a well-known, biblical narrative -- the story of David and Goliath -- aims to present what might be called in biblical terms, "The uncut version." By this, I do not mean to suggest that I have found some new extra-biblical text or other that sheds new light on the familiar account. I mean to convey rather, that a much closer study of the text's details we already know, against the backdrop of the rest of the law of the Lord, reveals quite an interesting "story going on behind the story."
Specifically, I intend to show that this account portrays a silent victory, not just the obvious one -- victory over a Philistine giant at the hand of an underdog -- but it aims to show instead to show that young David, a most unlikely candidate for the job, has the heart of a king. David's star is rising. And it contrasts his faithful heart with that of the then-present king, Saul of Benjamin, who does not have such a heart. It is the account, not of David versus Goliath, but of the beginning of a much longer narrative, of David versus Saul. So then, let us begin the venture. Here is the text from 1 Samuel 17:1-54:
... And the Philistines stood on a mountain on the one side, and Israel stood on a mountain on the other side: and there was a valley between them. And there went out a champion out of the camp of the Philistines, named Goliath, of Gath, whose height was six cubits and a span. And he had an helmet of brass upon his head, and he was armed with a coat of mail; and the weight of the coat was five thousand shekels of brass. And he had greaves of brass upon his legs, and a target of brass between his shoulders. And the staff of his spear was like a weaver's beam; and his spear's head weighed six hundred shekels of iron: and one bearing a shield went before him. And he stood and cried unto the armies of Israel, and said unto them, Why are ye come out to set your battle in array? am not I a Philistine, and ye servants to Saul? choose you a man for you, and let him come down to me. If he be able to fight with me, and to kill me, then will we be your servants: but if I prevail against him, and kill him, then shall ye be our servants, and serve us. And the Philistine said, I defy the armies of Israel this day; give me a man, that we may fight together. When Saul and all Israel heard those words of the Philistine, they were dismayed, and greatly afraid.
Now David was the son of that Ephrathite of Bethlehem in Judah, whose name was Jesse; and he had eight sons: and the man went among men for an old man in the days of Saul. And the three eldest sons of Jesse went and followed Saul to the battle: and the names of his three sons that went to the battle were Eliab the firstborn, and next unto him Abinadab, and the third Shammah. ...And the Philistine drew near morning and evening, and presented himself 40 days.
And Jesse said unto David his son, Take now for thy brethren an ephah of this parched corn, and these ten loaves, and run to the camp of thy brethren; And carry these ten cheeses unto the captain of their thousand, and look how thy brethren fare, and take their pledge. Now Saul, and they, and all the men of Israel, were in the valley of Elah, fighting with the Philistines. And David rose up early in the morning, and left the sheep with a keeper, and took, and went, as Jesse had commanded him ... and ran into the army, and came and saluted his brethren. And as he talked with them, behold, there came up the champion, the Philistine of Gath, Goliath by name, out of the armies of the Philistines, and spake according to the same words: and David heard them. And all the men of Israel, when they saw the man, fled from him, and were sore afraid. And the men of Israel said, Have ye seen this man that is come up? surely to defy Israel is he come up: and it shall be, that the man who killeth him, the king will enrich him with great riches, and will give him his daughter, and make his father's house free in Israel. And David spake to the men that stood by him, saying, What shall be done to the man that killeth this Philistine, and taketh away the reproach from Israel? For who is this uncircumcised Philistine, that he should defy the armies of the living God?
....And when the words were heard which David spake, they rehearsed them before Saul: and he sent for him. And David said to Saul, Let no man's heart fail because of him; thy servant will go and fight with this Philistine. And Saul said to David, Thou art not able to go against this Philistine to fight with him: for thou art but a youth, and he a man of war from his youth. And David said unto Saul, Thy servant kept his father's sheep, and there came a lion, and a bear, and took a lamb out of the flock: And I went out after him, and smote him, and delivered it out of his mouth: and when he arose against me, I caught him by his beard, and smote him, and slew him. Thy servant slew both the lion and the bear: and this uncircumcised Philistine shall be as one of them, seeing he hath defied the armies of the living God. David said moreover, The LORD that delivered me out of the paw of the lion, and out of the paw of the bear, he will deliver me out of the hand of this Philistine. And Saul said unto David, Go, and the LORD be with thee. ...And he took his staff in his hand, and chose him five smooth stones out of the brook, and put them in a shepherd's bag which he had, even in a scrip; and his sling was in his hand: and he drew near to the Philistine. And the Philistine came on and drew near unto David; and the man that bare the shield went before him. And when the Philistine looked about, and saw David, he disdained him: for he was but a youth, and ruddy, and of a fair countenance.
And the Philistine said unto David, Am I a dog, that thou comest to me with staves? And the Philistine cursed David by his gods. And the Philistine said to David, Come to me, and I will give thy flesh unto the fowls of the air, and to the beasts of the field. Then said David to the Philistine, Thou comest to me with a sword, and with a spear, and with a shield: but I come to thee in the name of the LORD of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom thou hast defied. This day will the LORD deliver thee into mine hand; and I will smite thee, and take thine head from thee; and I will give the carcases of the host of the Philistines this day unto the fowls of the air, and to the wild beasts of the earth; that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel. And all this assembly shall know that the LORD saveth not with sword and spear: for the battle is the LORD's, and he will give you into our hands. And it came to pass, when the Philistine arose, and came, and drew nigh to meet David, that David hastened, and ran toward the army to meet the Philistine. And David put his hand in his bag, and took thence a stone, and slang it, and smote the Philistine in his forehead, that the stone sunk into his forehead; and he fell upon his face to the earth. So David prevailed over the Philistine with a sling and with a stone, and smote the Philistine, and slew him . . .
Notes and Commentary.
1. The first of several points worth scrutinizing in the text comes from noting that the primary job of tackling the giant fell to Saul, for he was king, and the Bible specifies as belonging to the king the task of defending God's Name and punishing the wicked (see Romans 13). Now surely a king may delegate the task, but it rests with him to get the job done, so that, if no one else comes forward, he must bear the risk himself. In this task, Saul abdicated his role as king, failing to go forward as the champion of Israel against the wicked giant. David took up the slack.
2. Second, let the reader note that, at the first, Saul sought to discourage David from joining the fray because he judged David by mere outward appearance -- and Goliath also. But David's confidence rested in the fact that he had seen that GOD WAS WITH HIM. David thus rehearsed his deeds not to display his own greatness, but a summary of the greatness of God in these words: "The LORD that delivered me out of the paw of the lion, and out of the paw of the bear, he will deliver me out of the hand of this Philistine." Having been trained by the Lord Himself, David was a man of great faith because He understood the Lord, and knew His ways.
3. The third point needing attention comes by way of a flashback into the history of Israel. Let the reader take note that in the days of Joshua (son of Nun) and Caleb, Israel had faced a similar problem. God had commanded the armies of Israel -- just freed from Egypt -- to go up against the giants in the land to face them in battle. God expected them by then to have learned from his many mighty miracles, and especially his power displayed against Pharaoh's armies -- the lesson that David had grasped (namely the importance of God's covenant refrain: "And I will be with you").
But Joshua's contemporaries -- jut like David's -- "were sore afraid." They focused on just what Saul had -- outward appearances -- size, countenance and training. David -- like Joshua and Caleb -- regarded only the greatness and overpowering competence of the Lord. At the rebellion in the Sinai desert -- God had told the people, Go up and take the land FOR I WILL BE WITH YOU. But they were afraid of Giants like Goliath, so they would not fight. Like Saul's men, they were sore afraid.
4. God had placed the seven nations of Canaan under the ban for their extreme wickedness, whom Joshua's generation was commanded to slay. This command to eliminate these nations was transgenerational, meaning the obligation fell to each successive generation in Israel -- down to David's day. And there were then (quite obviously) still giants in the land, like the ones faced in battle and killed by Joshua and Caleb. The Philistines were their descendants, and David was the modern day "Joshua" and Caleb" -- two men of whom the Scripture says "whose hearts have fully followed after me." This is precisely the same sense in which it says of David he "was a man after God's own heart."
5. David went up against the giant with God's blessing, spoken upon him by God's lawfully appointed civil magistrate, King Saul. Saul had blessed David in the Name of the Lord, as it says, "And Saul said unto David, Go, and the LORD be with thee. ..." And so God was with David, for David aimed to obey God's command to go up and take the land, ridding it of a giant problem. David was doing Saul's job for him -- the job of the king of Israel.
6. The text says that Goliath cursed David by his gods. According to the word of the Lord, this act of blasphemy warranted the death penalty (Numbers 15); especially was this so in the case of cursing David, for David uniquely stood -- as we learn later in the text -- as a type of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord's anointed. Also, the Bible specifies that the king was to see the death penalty carried out by way of stoning. This is precisely what David did. He stoned Goliath to death in the Name of the Lord -- precisely fulfilling the duty of the chief civil magistrate. Here, we see in immediate and quite bold relief that David has the heart of a king, for he carries out the Law of God against the wicked to administer justice.
Finally, by way of summary then, since David challenged the blasphemous Philistine in the stead of Saul, and then slew him by stoning -- fulfilling the king's duty twice -- the Law of the Lord stipulates that "by the testimony of two or three witnesses is every matter established" (Deut. 19:15; 2 Cor. 13:1). This text then recounts that David was the true king of Israel in the place of Saul. Two witnesses had confirmed the matter. Saul would go on to earnestly seek to curse David by imposing the sword against him without just cause, showing that he was really just like Goliath, a man who despised David (i.e. Christ) and transgressed the law with no regard for the lives of the innocent. Saul was -- in the end -- a Philistine at heart, while David possessed the heart of a king.
David's star was rising.
Carson Day has written an outrageous number of essays and articles designed to help people in all aspects of life, from bettering their health, to understanding the Bible, and much more. He has broadly studied almost every subject under the sun, but has yet to make a foray into the field of botany because he is of the species florasimus hesitaticus.
To see Carson's blogsites, go to: http://ophirgold.blogspot.com (The Omniblog) or http://extremeprofit.blogspot.com (Carson's Day Trading Outpost) or http://ophirgoldcorp.blogspot.com (CD's Free Web Traffic)