I Samuel 17, A Philistine Giant

David occasionally plays the lyre for Saul. Now we have another important event in young David's life.

I Samuel 17: 1-7, Goliath

Now the Philistines gathered their forces for war and assembled at Socoh in Judah. They pitched camp at Ephes Dammim, between Socoh and Azekah. Saul and the Israelites assembled and camped in the Valley of Elah and drew up their battle line to meet the Philistines. The Philistines occupied one hill and the Israelites another, with the valley between them.

A champion named Goliath, who was from Gath, came out of the Philistine camp. He was over nine feet tall. He had a bronze helmet on his head and wore a coat of scale armor of bronze weighing five thousand shekels; on his legs he wore bronze greaves, and a bronze javelin was slung on his back. His spear shaft was like a weaver's rod, and its iron point weighed six hundred shekels. 

His shield bearer went ahead of him.

As before, the Israelites and Philistines face each other across a ravine or wadi, called the Valley of Elah. 

The Philistines have a giant in their army! Even his weapons and armor are heavy!

Gath was an ancient Philistine city. Its ruins have been identified by archaeologists, see here. Later David will take refuge there when he is running from Saul.

I Samuel 17: 8-11, Taunts

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. 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."

Then the Philistine said, "This day I defy the ranks of Israel! Give me a man and let us fight each other."

On hearing the Philistine's words, Saul and all the Israelites were dismayed and terrified.

Goliath taunts the Israelites and offers a challenge. Once again, Saul appears to be tentative and timid, unlike his son Jonathan.

I Samuel 17: 12-16, 

Now David was the son of an Ephrathite named Jesse, who was from Bethlehem in Judah. Jesse had eight sons, and in Saul's time he was old and well advanced in years. Jesse's three oldest sons had followed Saul to the war: The firstborn was Eliab; the second, Abinadab; and the third, Shammah.

David was the youngest. The three oldest followed Saul, but David went back and forth from Saul to tend his father's sheep at Bethlehem.

For forty days the Philistine came forward every morning and evening and took his stand.

This passage introduces David as if chapter 16 did not exist. David's older brothers have gone to war. As in the previous chapter, we are told the names of the oldest three.

The passage does have David going back and forth from Saul to Bethlehem.  Is that because he occasionally plays his harp for Saul?

I Samuel 17: 17-19, "Go check on your brothers"

Now Jesse said to his son David, "Take this ephah of roasted grain and these ten loaves of bread for your brothers and hurry to their camp. Take along these ten cheeses to the commander of their unit. See how your brothers are and bring back some assurance from them. They are with Saul and all the men of Israel in the Valley of Elah, fighting against the Philistines."

In this case, David is sent by his father to take food to the brothers and to check on them. Additional food is to be given to the brothers' commander.

I Samuel 17: 20-25, 

Early in the morning David left the flock with 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. Israel and the Philistines were drawing up their lines facing each other.

David left his things with the keeper of supplies, ran to the battle lines and greeted his brothers. 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. 

When the Israelites saw the man, they all ran from him in great fear. Now the Israelites had been saying, "Do you see how this man keeps coming out? He comes out to defy Israel. The king will give great wealth to the man who kills him. He will also give him his daughter in marriage and will exempt his father's family from taxes in Israel."

David arrives at the battlefield during one of Goliath's challenges. He is told of great wealth being given to the one who defeats the giant.

I Samuel 17: 26-30, Uncircumcised Philistine

David asked the men standing near him, "What will be done for the man who kills this Philistine and removes this disgrace from Israel? Who is this uncircumcised Philistine that he should defy the armies of the living God?"

They repeated to him what they had been saying and told him, "This is what will be done for the man who kills him."

When Eliab, David's oldest brother, heard him speaking with the men, he burned with anger at him and asked, "Why have you come down here? And with whom did you leave those few sheep in the desert? I know how conceited you are and how wicked your heart is; you came down only to watch the battle."

"Now what have I done?" said David. "Can't I even speak?" He then turned away to someone else and brought up the same matter, and the men answered him as before.

 

David asks some questions.  He is especially bothered by the giant's insult of the God of Israel.  David's older brother accuses David of rubbernecking, of coming to the frontlines just to watch the battle.  David talks to a third person to once again here the details about Goliath and the reward for defeating him.

I Samuel 17: 31-37, Lion and bear

What David said was overheard and reported to Saul, and Saul sent for him.

David said to Saul, "Let no one lose heart on account of this Philistine; your servant will go and fight him."

Saul replied, "You are not able to go out against this Philistine and fight him; you are only a boy, and he has been a fighting man from his youth."

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, 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. 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. The LORD who delivered me from the paw of the lion and the paw of the bear will deliver me from the hand of this Philistine." 

Saul said to David, "Go, and the LORD be with you."

 

David meets with Saul and stands up to the challenge.  David, while in the fields as a shepherd, has already defeated powerful enemies.  Robert Alter notes that David's vague statement, "Let no one lose heart..." is an indirect challenge to a king who has timidly and passively watched this giant taunt Israel and the God of Israel.  David, like Jonathan in the previous chapter, wants action.

I Samuel 17: 38-40, Armor or sling?

Then Saul dressed David in his own tunic. He put a coat of armor on him and a bronze helmet on his head. 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.

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.

The heavy armor is cumbersome and David is accustomed to a slingshot.  (The bulky armor may give David insight into Goliath's weaknesses!)

David searches out five smooth stones from a nearby stream, stones that he can use as ammunition.

I Samuel 17: 41-44, More taunts

Meanwhile, the Philistine, with his shield bearer in front of him, kept coming closer to David. He looked David over and saw that he was only a boy, ruddy and handsome, and he despised him.

He said to David, "Am I a dog, that you come at me with sticks?" And the Philistine cursed David by his gods."Come here," he said, "and I'll give your flesh to the birds of the air and the beasts of the field!"

Goliath looks on the small man and taunts him some more, describing what will happen to David's corpse after they meet.

I Samuel 17: 45-47, In the name of YHWH, Almighty

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. This day the LORD will hand you over to me, and I'll strike you down and cut off your head. Today I will give the carcasses of the Philistine army to the birds of the air and the beasts of the earth, and the whole world will know that there is a God in Israel.

 

"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."

David responds that it is only YHWH who gives victory.  This response is part of David's past experience and one reason he has been picked as future king. David shows no fear or timidity.

I Samuel 17: 48-51, 

As the Philistine moved closer to attack him, David ran quickly toward the battle line to meet him. 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 facedown on the ground.

So David triumphed over the Philistine with a sling and a stone; without a sword in his hand he struck down the Philistine and killed him. David ran and stood over him. He took hold of the Philistine's sword and drew it from the scabbard. After he killed him, he cut off his head with the sword. When the Philistines saw that their hero was dead, they turned and ran.

 

David runs at the Philistine as if to engage him, but while doing so, arms his slingshot.  Before he is within the reach of Goliath, a well thrown stone knocks the Philistine unconscious. David then kills the man with the man's own sword.  The surprising upset frightens the Philistines and they flee.

I Samuel 17: 52-54, Rout

Then the men of Israel and Judah surged forward with a shout and pursued the Philistines to the entrance of Gath and to the gates of Ekron. Their dead were strewn along the Shaaraim road to Gath and Ekron. When the Israelites returned from chasing the Philistines, they plundered their camp.

David took the Philistine's head and brought it to Jerusalem, and he put the Philistine's weapons in his own tent.

 

The Israelite army takes advantage of the fleeing Philistines and routs them.  David takes the Philistine's head to Jerusalem and puts the giant's weapons in his own tent.

In many ways, David parallels Jonathan.  They are both aggressive, both loudly state their defiance of the Philistines and their reliance on YHWH.  Both strike suddenly and quickly, sending the Philistines into chaotic retreat.

I Samuel 17: 55-58, Who is that man?

As Saul watched David going out to meet the Philistine, he said to Abner, commander of the army, "Abner, whose son is that young man?" 

Abner replied, "As surely as you live, O king, I don't know."

The king said, "Find out whose son this young man is."

As soon as David returned from killing the Philistine, Abner took him and brought him before Saul, with David still holding the Philistine's head. "Whose son are you, young man?" Saul asked him. 

David said, "I am the son of your servant Jesse of Bethlehem."

At the end of this chapter, Saul does not appear to know David, and insists on meeting with David and learning his lineage.  Are the events of the previous chapter out of order?  (Is it after this that David plays the harp for Saul? Flashbacks of this type do appear in the Old Testament but are usually noted.) Or did Saul pay no attention previously to the identity of the young harpist in playing in the corner and is he only now learning of him? Even here, Saul does not seem to have paid much attention to David before, when David tried on Saul's armor, and only gets serious about the identity of the young man when the man gives the army victory over the Philistines.

We have now been introduced to David three times.  First, in chapter 16, David is anointed by Samuel as future king and then he is introduced to Saul as a harpist.  Finally, in this chapter, he is introduced to Saul as a shepherd who will take on Goliath.  There have long been rabbinic discussions on the two introductions of David to Saul (harpist, Goliath-slayer.) These questions about David may explain some discrepancies between the ancient Masoretic Text (MT) and the Septuagint (LXX). Those discrepancies, and one possible explanation, are given here.