1Samuel 17:1 Now the Philistines gathered their forces for
war and assembled at Sokoh in Judah. 4 A champion named Goliath, who was from
Gath, came out of the Philistine camp. His height was six cubits and a span. 5
He had a bronze helmet on his head and wore a coat of scale armor of bronze
weighing five thousand shekels;6 on his legs he wore bronze greaves, and a
bronze javelin was slung on his back. 7 His spear shaft was like a weaver’s rod,
and its iron point weighed six hundred shekels. His shield bearer went ahead of
him. 8 Goliath stood and shouted to the ranks of Israel, “Why do you come out
and line up for battle? Am I not a Philistine, and are you not the servants of
Saul? Choose a man and have him come down to me. 9 If he is able to fight and
kill me, we will become your subjects; but if I overcome him and kill him, you
will become our subjects and serve us.” 10 Then the Philistine said, “This day
I defythe armies of Israel! Give me a man and let us fight each other.” 11 On
hearing the Philistine’s words, Saul and all the Israelites were dismayed and
terrified. 20 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. 21 Israel
and the Philistines were drawing up their lines facing each other. 22 David
left his things with the keeper of supplies, ran to the battle lines and asked
his brothers how they were. 23 As he was talking with them, Goliath, the
Philistine champion from Gath, stepped out from his lines and shouted his usual
defiance, and David heard it. 32 David said to Saul, “Let no one lose heart on
account of this Philistine; your servant will go and fight him.” 33 Saul
replied, “You are not able to go out against this Philistine and fight him; you
are only a young man, and he has been a warrior from his youth.” 34 But David
said to Saul, “Your servant has been keeping his father’s sheep. When a lion or
a bear came and carried off a sheep from the flock, 35 I went after it, struck
it and rescued the sheep from its mouth. When it turned on me, I seized it by
its hair, struck it and killed it. 36 Your servant has killed both the lion and
the bear; this uncircumcised Philistine will be like one of them, because he
has defied the armies of the living God. 37 The Lord who rescued me from the
paw of the lion and the paw of the bear will rescue me from the hand of this
Philistine.” Saul said to David, “Go, and the Lord be with you.” 38 Then Saul
dressed David in his own tunic. He put a coat of armor on him and a bronze
helmet on his head. 39 David fastened on his sword over the tunic and tried
walking around, because he was not used to them. “I cannot go in these,” he
said to Saul, “because I am not used to them.” So he took them off. 40 Then he
took his staff in his hand, chose five smooth stones from the stream, put them
in the pouch of his shepherd’s bag and, with his sling in his hand, approached
the Philistine. 41 Meanwhile, the Philistine, with his shield bearer in front
of him, kept coming closer to David. 42 He looked David over and saw that he
was little more than a boy, glowing with health and handsome, and he despised
him. 43 He said to David, “Am I a dog, that you come at me with sticks?” And
the Philistine cursed David by his gods. 44 “Come here,” he said, “and I’ll
give your flesh to the birds and the wild animals!” 45 David said to the
Philistine, “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. 46 This day the Lord will deliver you into my hands, and
I’ll strike you down and cut off your head. This very day I will give the
carcasses of the Philistine army to the birds and the wild animals, and the
whole world will know that there is a God in Israel. 47 All those gathered here
will know that it is not by sword or spear that the Lord saves; for the battle
is the Lord’s, and he will give all of you into our hands.” 48 As the
Philistine moved closer to attack him, David ran quickly toward the battle line
to meet him. 49 Reaching into his bag and taking out a stone, he slung it and
struck the Philistine on the forehead. The stone sank into his forehead, and he
fell face down on the ground.
The David Saga, Pt 3: Only a boy named David, Only a little sling. Only a boy
named David, But he could pray and sing. Only a boy named David, Only a
rippling brook, Only a boy named David, But five little stones he took. And one
little stone went in the sling And the sling went round and round And round and
round and round and Round and round and round and round, And one little stone
went up in the air. And the giant came tumbling down.
So goes the children’s Sunday School song I recall singing
as a boy. It’s not a bad song. At its essence it teaches that with prayer AND
faithful action, giants can be conquered. Although, at the risk of being a
stickler for details, I should mention that the “one little stone” that he let
fly was, in all likelihood, the size of a tennis ball. I grew up in an era when
a slingshot was thought of primarily as a boy’s tool. A lad too young (or poor)
for a rifle could, with practice, learn how to take down small game with a
slingshot and marble sized pellet or stone. I and all my friends had ‘wrist-rocket’
style slingshots (though I never hunted with mine).
Archaeologists, however, tell us that in the Iron Age of
Bible times the sling was a formidable battle weapon. A skilled slinger could
hit a target with authority at roughly 100 yards. Peak velocity of the tennis
ball sized projectile would be between 60 and 100 mph. Slingers were as skilled
and important in battle as archers, and Israel had an established tradition of
having trained slingers [see Judges 20:15-16 and 1Chronicles 12:2]. A couple of
years ago the popular author Malcolm Gladwell came out with a book entitled
“David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants.” In it
he claimed that the iconic battle between the giant Goliath and the helpless
shepherd boy David has been misinterpreted; that in reality, David was
not the underdog...or that at least he would not be the underdog as long as he
capitalized on the superior distance-fighting capabilities of his sling vs
Goliath’s sword and javelin.
Maybe. As usual Gladwell gives us a LOT of food for thought,
but I prefer to stick a bit closer to the biblical record which gives every
indication that if Saul and the armies of Israel were betting men, they
probably wouldn’t have wagered much on David’s chances for success. Still, the
archaeological record goes a long way in de-mystifying this battle. Even as a
boy I used to wonder about that part where David said he took down a lion and a
bear with his wrist-rocket. Turns out, that wasn’t quite the case.
And in the end that puts this story somewhere between the
mundane and the miraculous. This isn’t a walk in the park, but nor is David
feeding the 5000 or walking on water. David is an ordinary boy who has, over
the course of time, developed the ordinary skills and methods of his environment.
On the other hand, there is no doubt that the giant Goliath is a scary
figure. The giant possess instruments of pain and death, and seems to have no
compunction against using them. This is real danger; this is an
emergency. Someone has to do something…. the let’s do nothing and
hope the problem goes away strategy has run its course.
Into the midst of this scenario, David acts. And he acts
with faith. Did David foresee that the battle would end this way? Maybe. In
last week’s reading it said that the Spirit of the Lord had come mightily upon
David after his anointing (1Sam 16:13). Or, maybe David felt that the sight of
a young boy fighting on their behalf would so embolden and inspire Saul’s
troops that they would be roused to battle and win the victory. In the end, it
didn’t matter. David recognized three things: (1) the giant was there (2) the
giant wasn’t going to go away on his own (3) in faith action was called
for.
Questions to ponder… How can we equate all of this to the ultimate
David, “Great David’s Greater Son,” as the hymn calls our Savior Jesus? And
as we live our Christian lives, what does this mean for us?
Cheers,
T.M.
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