The Book of 1 Samuel

Word Study

"champion," Hebrew ish ha-benayim (אִישׁ הַבֵּנַיִם), literally "the man between the two", the representative who fights between the armies. Goliath was the ish ha-benayim, the champion who stands "between" the two hosts to fight on behalf of all, so that the outcome of single combat would decide the whole war. This is representative, substitutionary warfare: one man fights, and all stand or fall in him. The whole chapter turns on this idea, and it is the deepest key to its meaning. For God would send His own Champion, the true "man between," to fight the great enemy on behalf of His helpless people, so that His victory becomes theirs and His triumph their freedom. As by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so "by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous" (Romans 5:19). David the champion prefigures Christ, the one Man who steps into the valley to fight the battle no one else can, that His people might share His victory.

Explanation

The armies face off across the valley of Elah, and out steps Goliath of Gath, a giant nearly ten feet tall, clad in massive brass armor, wielding a spear like a weaver's beam. Day after day he issues the challenge of representative combat: send one man to fight me; loser's nation serves the winner. "I defy the armies of Israel." The word "defy" means to taunt, to reproach, to hurl contempt. And the response of God's people is total paralysis: "When Saul and all Israel heard those words of the Philistine, they were dismayed, and greatly afraid." Saul, the tall king who once looked the part, is as terrified as the rest. For forty days the giant's defiance goes unanswered, and the armies of the living God cower before an uncircumcised Philistine.

Gospel Focus

Goliath is a picture of every towering enemy that defies God's people and paralyzes them with fear, sin, death, the devil, the giant obstacle that seems unbeatable. And the sobering truth is that God's people, in themselves, are "dismayed, and greatly afraid," powerless before it. No one in Israel could beat Goliath; the problem was too big for them. This is exactly our condition before the great enemies of the soul. We need a champion, one who can fight the battle we cannot. The good news of this chapter, and of the gospel it foreshadows, is that God provides such a champion. Where we stand helpless before the giant, another comes down into the valley to fight for us. Do not despair before the Goliaths that dismay you; a Champion is coming.

Word Study

"the living God," Hebrew Elohim chayyim (אֱלֹהִים חַיִּים). David alone sees the situation rightly, and the difference is one phrase: "who is this uncircumcised Philistine, that he should defy the armies of the living God?" Everyone else saw a giant defying Israel; David saw a mortal man defying the living God. The others measured Goliath against themselves and were terrified; David measured him against God and was indignant. That is the whole difference faith makes. The "living God" is a favorite title contrasting the true God, who acts, saves, and reigns, with the dead idols of the nations: "their idols... cannot speak... but the LORD is the true God, he is the living God" (Jeremiah 10:5, 10). To know God as living, present, and mighty is to see every giant shrink to its true size. The same title thrills the New Testament: "the church of the living God" (1 Timothy 3:15), and "it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God" (Hebrews 10:31). When we truly reckon with the living God, the giants that dismay others cannot stand.

Explanation

David, still shuttling between Saul's court and his father's sheep, is sent by Jesse with food for his brothers at the front. Arriving, he hears Goliath's defiance and, unlike everyone else, is stirred, not with fear but with holy indignation: "who is this uncircumcised Philistine, that he should defy the armies of the living God?" While Israel flees "sore afraid," David asks about the reward and the reproach. His eldest brother Eliab, the one passed over for kingship, turns on him with contempt: "I know thy pride, and the naughtiness of thine heart." David's reply is telling, "Is there not a cause?", there is a righteous reason to act. He is not seeking a fight for pride's sake, but cannot bear the living God being defied. Faith sees the cause where fear sees only the giant.

Gospel Focus

The difference between David and everyone else was perspective: they saw the giant and forgot God; David saw God and sized up the giant accordingly. "If God be for us, who can be against us?" (Romans 8:31). The believer who reckons with the living God is not paralyzed by the enemies that terrify the faithless. And note the opposition David faced, not from Goliath first, but from his own brother, who questioned his motives and despised him. Those who step out in faith are often first attacked by those closest to them; "a man's foes shall be they of his own household" (Matthew 10:36). David did not let Eliab's scorn deter him, "Is there not a cause?" When God's honor is at stake, there is always a cause worth standing for, whatever the discouragement from those who should have believed with us.

Word Study

"delivered," Hebrew natsal (נָצַל), "to snatch away, rescue, deliver." David's confidence rests on the LORD who "delivered (natsal) me out of the paw of the lion, and out of the paw of the bear." His faith for the giant was built on the memory of past deliverances. God had rescued him in the secret trials of the sheepfold, unseen battles with wild beasts, and those hidden victories became the foundation of his public courage. This is how faith grows: "he will deliver me... he hath delivered me... he will deliver me," the same God, the same rescuing hand, from lion to bear to giant. Paul reasoned the same way: "who delivered us from so great a death... in whom we trust that he will yet deliver us" (2 Corinthians 1:10). Remembering how God has rescued us before is the fuel of courage for the battle before us. The private faithfulness of the sheepfold prepared David for the public field of Elah; God's hidden deliverances prepare us for the giants ahead.

Explanation

Brought before Saul, David volunteers, "thy servant will go and fight with this Philistine." Saul objects that he is only a youth, but David testifies to the school of the sheepfold: he had killed a lion and a bear to rescue his flock, and "the LORD that delivered me out of the paw of the lion... he will deliver me out of the hand of this Philistine." His courage is not self-confidence but confidence in God. Saul tries to dress David in his own royal armor, but David, unproven in it, wisely puts it off: "I cannot go with these." He will not fight God's battle in Saul's borrowed strength. Instead he takes what God had trained him to use, his shepherd's staff, sling, and five smooth stones from the brook, and draws near to the giant. He goes as himself, armed by faith, not by Saul's mail.

Gospel Focus

David refused Saul's armor because we cannot fight God's battles in another's borrowed strength or by the world's methods. God had equipped David through his own experience, the sling he had mastered in the fields, and David trusted the God who had proven Himself, not the impressive gear of the king. So the servant of God must fight not with "carnal" weapons but with what God has given and proven in us (2 Corinthians 10:4). And David's rehearsal of past deliverances is a pattern for our faith: remember the lion and the bear, the times God has already rescued you, and let them steel you for the giant. "The LORD that delivered me... he will deliver me." Faith is memory turned into courage. Do not borrow the world's armor; go in the strength God has proven in your own hidden battles.

Word Study

"the battle is the LORD'S," Hebrew la-YHWH ha-milchamah (לַיהוָה הַמִּלְחָמָה). David's battle cry is the theme of the whole chapter: "the LORD saveth not with sword and spear: for the battle is the LORD'S." Goliath trusted in his armor and weapons; David came "in the name of the LORD of hosts." The outcome would prove, "that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel," and "that the LORD saveth not with sword and spear." Victory belongs to the LORD, not to human might. This is the great confession of faith in every conflict: the battle is His, and He wins it His way, often through the weak and the few, so that the glory is unmistakably His. "Some trust in chariots, and some in horses: but we will remember the name of the LORD our God" (Psalm 20:7). When we go into our battles "in the name of the LORD of hosts," reckoning the fight as His, we go with the only strength that never fails, and the victory, when it comes, points every eye to God.

Explanation

Goliath sees only a ruddy youth and disdains him, cursing David by his gods and promising to feed his flesh to the birds. David answers not with bravado but with faith: "Thou comest to me with a sword, and with a spear... but I come to thee in the name of the LORD of hosts... whom thou hast defied." He declares the outcome before it happens, God will deliver Goliath into his hand, "that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel." Then David runs toward the giant, slings a single stone into his forehead, and Goliath falls. With no sword of his own, David takes Goliath's and cuts off his head. The Philistines flee, Israel pursues, and the victory of the one champion becomes the victory of the whole nation. The shepherd of Bethlehem has saved his people.

A reader who remembers the previous chapter stops at the end of this one: had not David already played the harp before Saul and become his armourbearer? Why then does Saul now ask, "whose son is this youth?" and Abner answer, "I cannot tell"? The knot loosens once we see what is actually asked. Saul does not ask the young man's name; he asks "whose son" he is -- he wants the father's house. And he has good reason to, for Saul had promised that the man who killed Goliath would be enriched, given the king's daughter, and have his father's house made "free in Israel" (v. 25). To pay that reward Saul must know which family to honour, so he sends Abner to "Enquire thou whose son the stripling is." A king need not have memorized the lineage of an occasional young harper; but now, having watched this boy topple a giant, he must learn the house of Jesse. When David answers, "I am the son of thy servant Jesse the Bethlehemite," it is the family, not the face, that Saul is learning.

Gospel Focus

David and Goliath is, at its heart, a picture of the gospel. God's people stood helpless and terrified before an enemy they could not defeat; then a champion, the shepherd of Bethlehem, the anointed but as-yet-unrecognized king, went into the valley alone and, in apparent weakness, won the decisive victory on their behalf, so that his triumph became theirs and they entered into the spoil. So the greater Son of David, the Shepherd of Bethlehem, went alone to face the giant enemies of His people, sin, death, and the devil, and in the apparent weakness of the cross struck the decisive blow, crushing the serpent's head, "that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil" (Hebrews 2:14). We could not beat our Goliath; our Champion did, and His victory is credited to all who are His. Like Israel, we simply enter into a triumph won for us. The battle was the LORD's, and He has won it in Christ.