David and Goliath

Not very long afterward the Philistines gathered together again and, having raised a great army, made war on the Israelites. They seized a place between Socoh and Azekah and pitched their camp there. Saul too led out his army to oppose them, and by pitching his own camp on a certain hill he forced the Philistines to leave their first camp and to encamp on another such hill, opposite the one where Saul’s army lay, so that the valley between the two hills separated their camps. [a]

Then a man came down out of the camp of the Philistines whose name was Goliath, from the city of Gath, a man of enormous bulk. He was about six feet nine inches tall, and he wore armor to match the size of his body: he had a breastplate that weighed about 125 pounds, and a helmet and greaves of bronze as large as you would expect to cover the limbs of so huge a body. His spear was not the kind carried lightly in the right hand; he carried it lying on his shoulders. He also had a lance weighing about 15 pounds, and many men followed him to carry his armor. This Goliath stood between the two armies as they were drawn up for battle, shouted aloud, and said to Saul and the Hebrews, “I will spare you from fighting and from danger. What need is there for our armies to clash and suffer? Give me a man of yours who will fight me, and whoever wins shall have the conqueror’s reward and decide the war; for one side shall serve the other, whichever side the conqueror belongs to. Surely it is much better and wiser to gain what you want by risking one man than by risking all.” When he had said this, he went back to his own camp. But the next day he came again and used the same words, and for forty days on end he did not stop challenging the enemy in the same words, until Saul and his army were terrified by it; they drew themselves up as if they would fight, but never came to close battle.

While this war between the Hebrews and the Philistines was going on, Saul sent David away to his father Jesse, and was content with the three sons Jesse had sent to help him and to share the dangers of the war. At first David went back to feeding his sheep and his flocks; but before long he came to the camp of the Hebrews, sent by his father to carry provisions to his brothers and to find out what they were doing. Goliath came again and challenged them, taunting them that they had no brave man among them who dared to come down and fight him. As David was talking with his brothers about the errand his father had sent him on, he heard the Philistine insulting and abusing the army. He was indignant at it, and said to his brothers, “I am ready to fight this enemy in single combat.” At this Eliab, his eldest brother, rebuked him, saying that he spoke too rashly and improperly for one of his age, and told him to go back to his flocks and to his father. David was abashed at his brother’s words and went away; but he still told some of the soldiers that he was willing to fight the man who had challenged them. When they had told Saul what the young man was resolved to do, the king sent for him; and when the king asked what he had to say, he replied, “King, do not be downcast or afraid, for I will humble this enemy’s insolence. I will go down and fight him and bring him under me, tall and huge as he is, until he is thoroughly laughed at and your army wins great glory, when he is killed by one who is not yet a grown man, not fit for fighting, nor able to be trusted with marshaling an army or ordering a battle, but by one who looks like a child and really is no older than a child.” [e]

Saul marveled at David’s boldness and eagerness, but did not dare to rely on his ability because of his age, and said that for that very reason he must be too weak to fight a man skilled in the art of war. David answered, “I undertake this task relying on God being with me, for I have already had experience of his help. Once I chased and caught a lion that attacked my flocks and carried off a lamb from them. I snatched the lamb out of the wild beast’s mouth, and when it sprang at me violently, I took it by the tail, dashed it against the ground, and killed it. In the same way I took revenge on a bear also. Let this enemy of ours be counted like one of these wild beasts, since he has long been taunting our army and blaspheming our God, who will yet bring him under my power.” [f]

Saul prayed that, with God’s help, the outcome might be no less than the boy’s eagerness and boldness deserved, and said, “Go to the fight.” So he put his own breastplate on him, fastened his sword on him, fitted the helmet to his head, and sent him off. But David was weighed down by the armor, for he had not been trained in it and had not learned to walk in it. So he said, “Let this armor be yours, King, for you are able to bear it; but let me, your servant, fight as I myself wish.” So he laid the armor aside, took his staff with him, put five stones from the brook into a shepherd’s bag, and with a sling in his right hand went toward Goliath. When his enemy saw him coming in this way, he scorned him and mocked him, as though he did not have the weapons usual when one man fights another, but the kind used to drive dogs away and keep them off. He said, “Do you take me not for a man, but for a dog?” David replied, “No, not for a dog, but for a creature worse than a dog.” This provoked Goliath to anger, and he cursed him by the name of God and threatened to give his flesh to the beasts of the earth and the birds of the air to be torn to pieces by them. David answered him, “You come at me with a sword and a spear and a breastplate; but I have God for my armor in coming against you, and he will destroy you and all your army by my hands. For today I will cut off your head and throw the rest of your body to the dogs, your own kind, and all men will learn that God is the protector of the Hebrews, that our armor and our strength lie in his providence, and that without God’s help all other preparations and power for war are useless.” So the Philistine, slowed by the weight of his armor, came on only slowly when he tried to hurry to meet David, scorning him and counting on killing him without any trouble at all, since he was both unarmed and a child as well. [g]

But the young man went to meet his opponent with an unseen helper at his side, who was none other than God himself. Taking one of the stones he had taken out of the brook and put into his shepherd’s bag, he fitted it to his sling and slung it at the Philistine. The stone struck his forehead and sank into his brain, so that Goliath was stunned and fell on his face. David ran and stood over his enemy as he lay there, and cut off his head with Goliath’s own sword, for he had no sword himself. [i]

At the fall of Goliath the Philistines were beaten and fled. When they saw their champion stretched on the ground, they were afraid for the whole outcome of their affairs and resolved to stay no longer, but gave themselves up to a shameful and disorderly flight, and so tried to save themselves from the dangers they were in. But Saul and the whole army of the Hebrews raised a shout and rushed on them, killed a great number of them, and pursued the rest to the borders of Gath and to the gates of Ashkelon. Thirty thousand of the Philistines were killed, and twice as many wounded. Saul returned to their camp, tore down their fortification and burned it; and David carried Goliath’s head into his own tent, but dedicated his sword to God.