"David with the head of Goliath" by Caravaggio, 1610 |
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. His height was more than 9 feet. He had a bronze helmet on his
head and wore a coat of scale armor of bronze weighing more than 125 pounds 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 15 pounds.
His shield bearer went ahead of him.
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 armies
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.
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 very
old. 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 40 days the Philistine came forward every morning and
evening and took his stand.
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.”
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. 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 asked his brothers how they were. 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. Whenever
the Israelites saw the man, they all fled 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 family from taxes in Israel.”
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 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 wilderness? 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. 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 young man, and he has been a warrior
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 Philistine will be like one of them, because he has defied the
armies of the living God.
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.”
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.
David and Goliath, lithograph by
Osmar Schindler (1869-1927).
Illustration circa 1888.
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 little more than a boy, glowing with health 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 and the wild animals!”
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 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. 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.”
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 sheath. 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. 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; he put the Philistine’s weapons in his own tent.
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, Your Majesty, 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."
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WHO WERE THE PHILISTINES?
The Philistines were an
aggressive, warmongering people who occupied territory southwest of Israel
between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River. The name “Philistine” comes
from the Hebrew word Philistia, and the Greek rendering of the name,
palaistinei, gives us the modern name “Palestine.” The Philistines are first
recorded in Scripture in the Table of Nations, a list of the patriarchal
founders of seventy nations descended from Noah (Genesis 10:14). It is thought
that the Philistines originated in Caphtor, the Hebrew name for the island of
Crete and the whole Aegean region (Amos 9:7; Jeremiah 47:4). For unknown
reasons, they migrated from that region to the Mediterranean coast near Gaza.
Because of their maritime history, the Philistines are often associated with
the “Sea Peoples.” The Bible records that the Philistines had contact with both
Abraham and Isaac as early as 2000 B.C. (Genesis 21:32, 34; 26:1, 8). –GotQuestions.org.
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