Ep. 84 - David & Goliath (Part 1)

Last we left our story, the young shepherd David had been anointed to be the next king of Israel. Samuel had come to David’s hometown – Bethlehem – and, after passing over his older (and much more manly) brothers, to everyone’s surprise God picked David to be the next king. Now, unlike how it happened with King Saul, being anointed didn’t mean that David would immediately be the king of Israel that very day. David was just a young kid…maybe 14/15/16 years old. And David’s only job had been as a shepherd in a small town. In David’s free time, he played the harp and composed poems. Young David had no clue anything about the royal court, leading an army, and least of all running a nation. Not to mention, King Saul was on the lookout for a challenger…for this “neighbour” that Samuel had said was better man [DK1] than him. So, how would young David go from the harp-playing poet-shepherd to a commanding king? How could David possibly get from his humble beginning to such a lofty height? Well, let’s find out.

Not long after David was anointed, the Bible says that, “the Spirit of the Lord departed from Saul, and a distressing spirit from the Lord troubled him.” (1 Sam. 16:14) So if you kidzos will remember back when Saul was anointed king, God gave Saul an extra special blessing of His Spirit. This was to help Saul to have the wisdom and understanding to rule as king of Israel. But when David was anointed, this Spirit left Saul and seems to have been given to David. And even though in the years since receiving the spirit Saul seems to have mostly ignored what the spirit was telling him anyways (because Saul certainly had not been ruling Israel with wisdom and understanding), when it left him, the spirit was replaced by, as the Bible says, a “distressing spirit from the Lord”. Basically, Saul kinda went…a bit crazy! Being distressed means to worry. The Saul that had confidently led the Israelites into battle after battle…disappeared. And another man, a man completely consumed by worry, replaced him.

And this was really not good for Israel. Saul was still the king - that didn’t change just because he was not feeling like himself. But as time went on, the king got worse and worse and worse. And it got to the point where Saul’s servants…that is all the people at the royal court who helped run Isreal…began to get worried too. I mean, this man had the power of life and death over all of them…and what if one day he started randomly…I dunno…killing people? No, the king could not go on like this…Saul’s servants had to do something. And so, one day Saul servants went to him and said, “Let our master now command your servants, who are before you, to seek out a man who is a skillful player on the harp. And it shall be that he will play it with his hand when the distressing spirit from God is upon you, and you shall be well.” (16:16) And this seemed like a good idea to Saul, and so he agreed. And off the servants went to find a harp player.

But finding a harp player was going to be quite a bit harder than it sounded. It couldn’t be just any harp player. It had to be someone that Saul wouldn’t see as a challenger. Saul was paranoid. And he was probably taking a good hard look at any new person who showed up in this life…especially anyone new at court…yah know…where the harp player would have to be. And anyone that Saul had even the slightest inkling that maybe they were the prophesied challenger, well, we already know what Saul was willing to do to Samuel…so you can just imagine what he would be willing to that poor guy. So basically this harp player had to look a certain way…he couldn’t be tall and handsome, he couldn’t be a famous warrior. These were all the things that people saw as good qualities for being a king. Ok well, how about a young boy? Yah that makes sense. And maybe a young boy who definitely didn’t look manly at all. Hmm…I wonder where we could find a young boy who plays the harp, and who doesn’t look manly at all? Where would we possibly find…wait a second…David! David was a young boy who played the harp and didn’t look manly at all! And it just so happened that one of Saul’s servants knew David, and this guy realized that David would be perfect for the new harp player position…and he wasted no time mentioning David to the king. Saul agreed, and sent a message to David’s father, saying, “Send me your son David, who is with the sheep.” (16:19) And so, out of nowhere, off David went to the king’s court.

But the scary part wasn’t quite over yet. Because before David could serve in Saul’s court, the king had to look David over for himself. And the Bible says that an undoubtedly nervous David, “came to Saul and stood before him.” (16:21) But as it turns out, David really didn’t have anything to worry about. Because as the Bible says, Saul “loved him greatly, and he became his armorbearer.” (16:21) The two really seemed to hit it off. While David was not a manly man, he was this well-spoken, fine-looking, and talented kid. And of course, a really great harp player. In fact, David was such a good harp player, that whenever he played, all of Saul’s worry and stress (the “distressing spirit”) would disappear…at least for a little while anyway. And as time went on, David and Saul kinda got into this rhythm where when the “distressing spirit” would come for Saul, Saul would call David from Bethlehem to the court, and then after Saul was feeling better David would get sent back home to looks after the sheep again. And for some number of months or maybe even years, this is how things went…with David going back and forth from home to court and from court to home. And wouldn’t ya know it, this is the totally unexpected way that a small shepherd/poet-boy from a little town in the middle of nowhere began to get familiar with the big royal court of Israel. The palace…the soldiers…the royal advisors…the politics of the kingdom… all the things that came with being close to a king…and all the things that David would need to know when he eventually became king. Boy kidzos, we sure do serve a God that is full of the unexpected.

Now of course, while Saul struggled with his distressing spirit, things in the wider world didn’t take a break. Israel’s enemies were still on the move. And soon Israel’s next challenger was already knocking on their door. And the Bible says, “The Philistines gathered their armies together for battle, and were gathered at Sochoh, which belongs to Judah.” (17:1) Even though it hadn’t been all that long since the Israelites had last defeated them, here the Philistines were back again ready to cause more trouble. (BTW kidzos, this is why people in ancient times would make such a big deal of chasing down an army after it was defeated. Because if you didn’t wipe out an army while it was running away, that army might just come back to fight you another day…like what we’re seeing here.) And so off King Saul went to fight the Philistines. And the two armies met each other in a valley called the Valley of Elah. The Israelite camp was on a mountain on one side of the valley, and the Philistine camp was on another mountain on the other side of the valley. And the two armies lined up for battle on their respective mountains…neither willing to go down and attack the other on their mountain (as attacking an army uphill was usually a bad idea).

Now some of you kidzos might be a little surprised that the Philistines were attacking Israel again. I mean, hadn’t they just marched a ginormous army against the Israelites…and then…lost? And it’s not just that the Philistines had lost, but they had kinda lost to just one guy – Jonathan (with God’s blessing of course). So, what were the Philistines doing invading Israel again so soon? Hadn’t they learned their lesson? Well, the way the Philistine’s looked at it, they had never really lost to the Israelites. When they had lost, it had been to the God of the Israelites. And as we found out way back in episodes 73 and 74 (the episodes about when the Philistines captured the ark), the Philistines actually knew their Bibles pretty well. And they knew a lot about the God the Israelites. And what the Philistines realized is that when the Israelites were obeying and trusting in God, the Israelites were unstoppable. They could raise a million-man army, and it wouldn’t matter…the Philistines would still lose. But when the Israelites weren’t obeying and trusting in their God, the Philistines could easily defeat them. The Philistines did after all have advanced weapons, advanced battle formations, and all that. So, the question for the Philistines was, how could they separate the God of the Israelites from the Israelites? Well, they knew that if they could just find a way of getting the Israelites to be really afraid, so afraid that they forgot to trust and obey their God, that then God wouldn’t be able to help them. They had actually tried this the last time around. Last time, when they’d marched their ginormous army into Israel, it hadn’t been so much about huge numbers. It had been about scaring the Israelites. And it had almost worked. Most of the Israelites did indeed run away from the huge Philistine army. Even King Saul had been holed up in a garrison. It had only been Jonathan that had remembered to trust in God…and who had attacked the Philistines despite their crazy numbers. So from the Philistines’ perspective, if it hadn’t been for Jonathan…if it hadn’t been for that one man who hadn’t been afraid…well then, the Philistines would have won. And if they could just find a way of scaring every single Israelite…even the brave ones like Jonathan…then the Philistines knew that the Israelites could be defeated.

So, this time around, how were the Philistines planning to make sure that every single Israelite was scared? Well, as the two armies were staring at each other across the valley, the Bible says that, “a champion went out from the camp of the Philistines, named Goliath, from Gath, whose height was six cubits and a span.” (17:4) Out of the Philistine camp suddenly strode a monster – Goliath. And Goliath was huge - 9 feet 9 inches tall…almost 10 feet tall! Almost twice as tall a regular guy! (Just so you kidzos can kinda picture it in your head…the ceilings in most houses are either 8 or 9 feet tall…so if you’re listening to this inside a house, just look up at the ceiling and imagine a man that is 1-2 feet taller than that. Now that’s tall!)

And it’s not just that this Goliath guy was tall, but he was also super strong. And the Bible says, “He was armed with a coat of mail, and the weight of the coat was five thousand shekles of bronze. And he had bronze armour on his legs and a bronze javelin between his shoulders. And the staff of his spear was like a weaver’s beam, and his iron spearhead weighed six hundred shekels; and a shield-bearer went before him.” (17:5-6) Goliath was so strong, that he carried around massively heavy armour and weapons. His armour alone weighed 125 pounds. That would be like strapping an average grade 8 or 9 kid on your back and walking around like that. The shaft of his spear was like a thick wooden pole—the size of most wooden fence posts you see today. And at the end of that thick wooden spear was a huge iron spearhead…that weighed about as much as a bowling ball. Just imagine taking a bowling ball, strapping it on the end of a long pole, and then trying to carry that around everywhere. Do you think you could even get that thing off the ground? Probably not! This guy’s stuff was so heavy, that even though an amour-bearer would usually carry all of a soldier's weapons, between Goliath’s spear, javelin, sword, and shield…the only thing that that Goliath’s armour-bearer could manage to carry…was Goliath’s shield. This guy was a monster. Everything about this guy was huge and scary.

And what did this Philistine giant do? Well, after he stepped out of the Philistine lines, with his booming voice, he began to shout across the valley to the Israelites, saying, “Why have you come out to line up for battle? Am I not a Philistine, and you the servants of Saul? Choose a man for yourselves, and let him come down to me. If he is able to fight with me and kill me, then we will be your servants. But if I prevail against him and kill him, then you shall be our servants and serve us. … I defy the armies of Israel this day; give me a man, that we may fight together.” (17:8-10) Goliath was challenging the Israelites to what was called Champion Warfare. This is something that the Greeks in particular were known for, but many other nations did it too. The idea was that instead of two whole armies fighting each other, why not have one man from each army come out, and the two of them fight it out. Whichever man won, let it be as if that man’s army had won and the other man’s army had lost. This was to try to save as many lives as possible…and was probably most often used when the two opposing armies were pretty evenly matched. Now with the abnormally large Goliath as their champion, the Philistines weren’t exactly playing fair. But that didn’t really matter, because it really wasn’t about champion warfare…it was about scaring the Israelites. Of course, the sight of Goliath alone would have been enough to scare most of the Israelites. But to make sure that every single Israelite was scared, every single Israelite had to picture themselves fighting the giant. And that’s exactly what Goliath’s challenge did. And after Goliath finished shouting his challenge at the Israeliites…silence. Not one of the Israelites answered Goliath. Every single Israelite was afraid. Even King Saul, the tallest man in all of Israel, was too scared to fight Goliath. And even brave Jonathan was too scared to fight Goliath.

For 40 days this went on. Once in the morning, and once in the evening, Goliath would come out of the Philistine camp and challenge the Israelites…with no Israelite willing to answer. And as each day went by, the Israelites got more and more discouraged. Neither army could attack each other while they were up on their mountains. But King Saul couldn’t keep his army on that mountain forever. Not that it really mattered, because the Israelites were too scared to trust in God…the Philistines’ plan was working. So, what were the Israelites going to do? Would someone eventually get up the courage to fight this giant? Or would the Israelites just give up and go back to being ruled by the Philistines? Well we will find out all about it…next time.