DAVID VERSUS GOLIATH

            As it is the Feast Day of King David (every December 29), we will post some information of David and Goliath from Wikipedia and give our thoughts on how this can be used in War.

David and Goliath, a colour lithograph by Osmar Schindler (c. 1888)

Goliath (Hebrew: גָּלְיָת, Modern Golyat Tiberian Golyāṯ; Arabic: جالوت, Ǧālūt (Qur'anic term), جليات Ǧulyāt (Christian term)) or Goliath of Gath (one of five city states of the Philistines) is a giant Philistine warrior defeated by the young David, the future king of Israel, in the Bible's Books of Samuel (1 Samuel 17).

The original purpose of the story was to show David's identity as the true king of Israel. Post-Classical Jewish traditions stressed Goliath's status as the representative of paganism, in contrast to David, the champion of the God of Israel. Christian tradition gave him a distinctively Christian perspective, seeing in David's battle with Goliath the victory of God's King over the enemies of God's helpless people as a prefiguring of Jesus' victory over sin on the Cross and the Church's victory over Satan.

David hoists the severed head of Goliath as illustrated by Gustave Doré (1866). David Slays Goliath (1Sam. 17:49-51)

Biblical account

The account of the battle between David and Goliath is told in 1 Samuel, chapter 17. Saul and the Israelites are facing the Philistines near the Valley of Elah. Twice a day for 40 days, Goliath, the champion of the Philistines, comes out between the lines and challenges the Israelites to send out a champion of their own to decide the outcome in single combat, but Saul and all the Israelites are afraid. David, bringing food for his elder brothers, hears that Saul has promised to reward any man who defeats Goliath, and accepts the challenge. Saul reluctantly agrees and offers his armor, which David declines, taking only his sling and five stones from a brook.

David and Goliath confront each other, Goliath with his armor and shield, David with his staff and sling. "The Philistine cursed David by his gods." but David replies: "This day Jehovah will deliver you into my hand, and I will strike you down; and I will give the dead bodies of the host of the Philistines this day to the birds of the air and to the wild beasts of the earth; that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel, and that all this assembly may know that God saves not with sword and spear; for the battle is God’s, and he will give you into our hand."

David hurls a stone from his sling with all his might and hits Goliath in the center of his forehead, Goliath falls on his face to the ground, and David cuts off his head. The Philistines flee and are pursued by the Israelites "as far as Gath and the gates of Ekron". David puts the armor of Goliath in his own tent and takes the head to Jerusalem, and Saul sends Abner to bring the boy to him. The king asks whose son he is, and David answers, "I am the son of your servant Jesse the Bethlehemite."

MY THOUGHTS:

            We need soldiers who are courageous like David to defeat their enemies in Battle. David depended on the strength of the Lord to defeat evil.

            David’s slaying of the giant, Goliath, reminded me of one of the Seven Good Judges, Sir James Fitzjames Stephen words:

“There is as much moral cowardice in shrinking from the execution of a murderer as there is in hesitating to blow out the brains of a foreign invader.”

            But in this case for David, he was not shrinking but using his courage.