But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not look upon his appearance or in
the height of his stature because I have rejected him. For the Lord does
not see as mortals see for they look on the outward appearance. But the
Lord looks on the heart”. (1 Sam. 16:7)
Am I a dog that you should come to me with sticks?
In the heart of ancient Palestine, is the region know as the
Shephalah which is a series of ridges and valleys connecting the Judean
Mountains to the East graced with the wide expanse of the Mediterranean
plain. It’s an area of historic and breathtaking beauty. It’s home to
vineyards, wheat fields, and forests of sycamore and terebinth brush.
The Shephalah is also of great strategic importance. Over the centuries,
numerous battles have been fought for control of the region because the
valley’s rising from the Mediterranean plain offer those on the coast a
clear path to the cities of Hebron, Bethlehem, and Jerusalem in the
Judean Highlands. The most important valley is Aijolon in the north. But
the most storied is the Elah Valley. Elah’s dirt bore witness to the
arrival of the knights of the crusades in the 12th century. It played a
central role in the Maccabean Wars with Syria more than a thousand years
before. Most famously, during the days of the Old Testament, it was
where the fledgling kingdom of Israel squared off against the armies of
the Philistines.
The Philistines were most likely from Crete. They were a seafaring
people who had moved to Palestine and settled in along the coast. The
Israelites were clustered in the mountains under the leadership of King
Saul and in the second half of the 11th century B.C., the Philistines
began spreading out and moving east winding their way upstream along the
floor of the Elah Valley. The goal and enemy strategy was to capture
the mountain ridge near Bethlehem and split Saul’s kingdom in two halves
as a house divided will not stand! The Philistines were battle tested
and dangerous and already the sworn enemies of the Israelites. Alarmed,
Saul gathered his men and hastened down the mountains to confront them.
The Philistines set up camp along the southern ridge of the Elah and the
Israelites pitched their tents on the other side along the northern
ridge which left the two armies gazing across the ridge at each other.
As strong as the Philistines were, neither army dared to move as
attacking meant descending down the hill and then making a suicidal
climb up the enemies ridge on the other side.
Finally, the Philistines had enough waiting. They sent their greatest
warrior down into the valley to resolve the deadlock – one on one
(manos-a-manos). He was a giant at least 6’9″ wearing a bronze helmet
with full body armor. He carried a javelin, a spear, and a sword and his
battle attendant went before him carrying a large shield which was
customary for the day to support infantry. The giant faced the
Israelites and shouted out, “choose you a man and let him come down to
me. If he prevail in battle against me and strike me down – we shall be
slaves to you. But if I prevail and strike him down – you will be slaves
to us and serve us.” In the Israelite camp, no one moved. Who could
prevail and win against such a terrifying opponent? Then, a shepherd boy
who had come down from Bethlehem to bring food to his brothers stepped
forward and volunteered. Saul objected to his request and stated, “You
cannot go against this Philistine and do battle with him, for you are a
lad and he is man of war from his youth.” But this non-assuming shepherd
was adamant: “I have faced more ferocious opponents than this” he
argued. When the lion or bear would come and carry off his sheep from
the herd, he told Saul, “I would go after him and strike him down and
rescue it from its clutches.” After all, Saul really had no other
options.
Saul relented and the shepherd boy ran down the hill toward the giant
standing in the valley and stated: “Come to me that I may give your
flesh to the birds of the heavens and the beasts of the field.” The
giant cried out when he saw his opponent approach. Thus began one of
history’s most famous battles and misconceptions of the position of
“underdog.” The giant’s name was Goliath. The shepherd boy’s name was
David.
David and Goliath is a true story about what happens when ordinary
people confront giants in their life. By giants, I mean powerful
opponents of all kinds. From armies and mighty warriors to disability,
misfortune, financial issues, and various forms of oppression. Each
verse of this event tells the story of a different person whether famous
or unknown, ordinary or brilliant, and who have certainly faced an
outsized challenge and been forced to respond. Should I play by the
established rules or follow my own instincts? Should I persevere or give
up? Should I strike back or forgive? Through this story, I want to
explore two ideas. The first is that much of what we consider valuable
in our world arises out these kinds of lopsided conflicts because the
act of facing overwhelming odds produces greatness and the abundant
life. Secondly, that we consistently get these kinds of conflicts wrong
and more often than not, misread them. We misinterpret them due to our
past and natural frames of reference just as Mary thought that the
Lord’s body had been naturally stolen out of the tomb rather than
spiritually resurrected. In other words, we base much of our faith out
of past natural experiences rather than spiritual promises. Giants are
mostly not what we think they are. The same qualities that appear to
give them strength are often the sources of their great weakness. The
position and fact of being an “underdog” can change people in ways that
we often fail to appreciate. It can open doors and create opportunities,
educate, enlighten and make possible what otherwise may have seemed
unthinkable or impossible. We need a better guide to facing giants and
there is no better place to start that journey than with the epic
confrontation between David and Goliath 3000 years ago in the Valley of
Elah.
When Goliath shouted out to the Israelites, he was asking for what
was known as “single combat.” This was a common practice in the ancient
world as two sides in a conflict would seek to avoid the heavy bloodshed
of open battle by choosing one warrior to represent them in a dual. For
example, the 1st century B.C. Roman historian Quintus Claudius
Quadrigarius (author of 23 books of ancient history) tells of an epic
battle in which a Gaul warrior began mocking his Roman opponents. This
immediately aroused the great indignation of a man named Titus Manlius
Torquatus, a youth of noble birth. Quadragarius writes that Titus
challenged the Gaul to a dual. He stepped forward and would not suffer
Roman valor to be shamefully tarnished by a Gaul. Armed with a legionary
shield and a Spanish sword, he confronted the Gaul. Their fight took
place on the bridge over the Arno River in the presence of both armies
amid great apprehension just like in the Valley of Elah. Thus, they
confronted each other – the Gaul according to his method of fighting –
with shield advanced and waiting in attack. Manlius, relying on courage
rather than the established skill struck shield against shield and threw
the Gaul off balance. While the Gaul was trying to regain the same
position, Manlius again struck shield against shield and again forced
the man to change his ground. In this fashion, he slipped under the
Gaul’s sword and stabbed him in the chest with his Spanish blade. After
he had slain him, Manlius cut off the Gaul’s head and tore out his
tongue as it was with blood upon it and placed it around his own neck.
This is what Goliath was expecting. A warrior like himself to come
forward in hand to hand combat. It never occurred to him that the battle
would be fought in anything other than the terms he had prepared. To
protect himself against blows to the body, he wore an elaborate tunic
made up of hundreds of overlapping bronze fish-like scales. It covered
his arms and reached to his knees and probably weighed more than a
hundred pounds. He had bronze shin-guards protecting his legs with
attached bronze plates covering his feet and wore a heavy metal helmet.
He had three separate weapons all optimized for close combat. He held a
javelin made entirely of bronze which was capable of penetrating a
shield or even armor. He had a sword on his hip and as his primary
option, he carried a unique short range spear with a metal shaft as
thick as a “weavers beam.” It had a cord attached to it and a elaborate
set of weights that allowed it to be released with a powerful force and
accuracy. To the Israelite, this extraordinary spear with its heavy
shaft and long and heavy iron blade when thrown by Goliath’s strong arm,
seemed possible of piercing any bronze shield and bronze armor
together. Can you see why no Israelite would come forward to fight
Goliath from natural eyes and a natural perspective?
Then David appears. Saul tries to give him his own sword and armor so
at least he’ll have a fighting chance but David refuses. “I can walk in
these he says, For I am unused to it.” Instead, he reaches down and
picks up five smooth stones and puts them in his shoulder bag. Then
David descends into the valley carrying his shepherds staff. Goliath
looks at the boy coming toward him and is insulted as he was expecting
to do battle with a seasoned warrior. Instead, he sees a shepherd, a boy
from the lowliest of all professions who seems to want to use his
shepherd’s staff as a laughable weapon against Goliath’s sword. “Am I a
dog” Goliath says gesturing at the staff – “That you should come to me
with sticks?”
What happens next is a matter of legend. David puts one of his stones
into the leather pouch of a sling and he fires at Goliath’s exposed
forehead. Goliath falls and is stunned. David runs toward him; seizes
the giant’s sword and cuts off his head. The Philistines saw that their
warrior was dead and they fled as the Bible states. The battle is won
miraculously by an underdog who by all expectations should not have won
at all. This is how we have told or explained to one another this story
over the many centuries since. It is exactly how the well known phrase
“David and Goliath” has come to be embedded in our language, conscious,
and culture as a metaphor for improbable victory. But the problem with
that version of events is that almost everything about it is entirely
wrong!
Ancient armies reflected three kinds or types of warriors. The first
was cavalry – armed men on horseback or in chariots. The second was
infantry – foot-soldiers wearing armor and carrying swords and shields.
The third was projectile warriors or what we would understand today as
“artillery.” These skills would be expressed on ancient battlefields as
archers and slingers. “Slingers” had a leather pouch attached on two
sides by a long strand of rope. They would put a rock or a lead ball
into the pouch, swing it around at increasingly wider and faster circles
and then release one end of the rope hurling the rock forward. Slinging
took an extraordinary amount of skill and practice, but in experienced
hands, the sling was a devastating weapon. Paintings from medieval times
show slingers hitting birds in mid flight. Irish slingers were said to
able to hit a coin from as far away as they could see it. And in the Old
Testament book of Judges, slingers are described to be accurate within a
“hair’s breath.” An experienced slinger could kill or seriously injure a
target at a distance of up to 200 yards. The Romans even had a special
set of tongs just to remove stones that had been embedded in some
unfortunate soldier’s body by a sling. Imagine standing in front of a
major league baseball pitcher as he aims the baseball at your head.
That’s what facing a slinger was like. Only what was being thrown wasn’t
a ball of cork and leather, but a solid rock and understanding what and
who the “Rock” is will translate into defeat or victory!
History has also shown us that the sling was such an important weapon
in ancient warfare that the three kinds or types of ancient warriors
balanced each other. This would be similar to each dynamic in the game
of rock, paper, scissors. With their long prods and ground pikes and
armor, infantry could stand up to cavalry. Cavalry could in turn defeat
projectile warriors because the horses moved too quickly for artillery
to take proper aim. And projectile warriors were deadly against infantry
because lumbering soldier weighed down with armor were a sitting duck
for a slinger who would be slinging projectiles from over a hundred
yards away. This is exactly why the Athenian expedition failed in the
Peloponnese War. The Athenian heavy infantry was decimated in the
mountains by local light infantry – primarily using the sling. (Russia
was defeated by tribal Afghanistan using the same methodology). Goliath
is a type of heavy infantry. He thinks he is going to be engaged in a
dual with another heavy infantry-men. Our gravest error is fighting evil
on evil’s playing field and expectations. In the same manner as Titus
Manlius’ fight with the Gaul – Goliath states, “Come to me that I may
give your flesh to the birds of the heavens and the beasts of the
field.” The key phrase is: “Come to me.” In other words, Goliath means,
come right up to me so we can fight at close quarters. When Saul tries
to dress David in armor and give him a sword, he is operating under the
same assumption and carnal understanding. He sees or envisions David
fighting Goliath hand to hand.
David however, has no intention to honor the traditions of single
combat and the means of “established warfare.” When he tells Saul that
he has killed bears and lions as a shepherd, he does so not just as a
testimony to his courage, but to make another as well – That he will
fight Goliath the same way that he has learned to fight large and wild
animals as a projectile warrior. David, without hesitation, runs towards
Goliath because without armor, he has speed and maneuverability. He
puts a rock into his sling and whips it around and around, faster and
faster, a 6-7 revolutions per second while aiming the projectile at
Goliath’s forehead – the giants only point of vulnerability.
Modern tests and calculations reflect that a typically sized stone
hurled by an expert slinger at a distance of 115 feet would have hit
Goliath’s head with a velocity 112 feet per second. This is more than
enough to penetrate his skull and render him unconscious or dead. In
terms of stopping power, that would equate to a medium sized modern
handgun. We find that David fired and hit Goliath within just one
second. This range of time so brief that Goliath would not have been
able to protect himself and which he would have been stationary for
practical purposes. I mean, what could Goliath do? He was carrying over a
hundred pounds of armor. He was prepared for a battle at close range
where he could stand strong but immobile warding off blows with his
armors and delivering a mighty thrust of his spear. He watched David
approach first with scorn, then with surprise, and then with what could
only have been genuine fright as it dawned on him that the battle he was
expecting has suddenly changed shape. The prophetic application to this
statement is paramount to church’s and our personal future success.
“You come against me with sword and spear and javelin. But I come
against you in the name of the Lord and the Lord will deliver you into
my hands and I will strike you down and cut off your head (cutting off
the head is figurative of the root cause of our battles). 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.” Twice, David mentions Goliath’s sword and spear as if to
emphasize how profoundly different his intentions are. He then reaches
in his shepherd’s bag for a stone and at that point no one watching from
the ridges from either side of valley would have figured David’s
victory improbable. David was a slinger and slingers beat infantry hands
down.
Goliath had as much chance of victory over David as any bronze age
warrior with a sword would have had with an opponent armed with a 45
automatic pistol. As I earlier stated, there has been much
misunderstanding and what has been passed down from generation to
generation and the true essence of what happened that day in the Valley
of Elah. David is representative of you and me in that we have been
redeemed and empowered which should reflect a different perspective than
the world’s perspective in overcoming giants and obstacles. It also
reveals the church’s preconceived notions and folly in regard to genuine
power. The reason King Saul is skeptical of David’s chances is because
David is small and Goliath is large. Saul thinks of power in terms of
physical might, past frames of reference, and doesn’t understand that
power comes in many other forms and expressions. Adhered rules of the
mind generated by our past natural experiences are meant to be broke!
Spiritual speed (prayer) and maneuverability (prophetic utterance) will
always overcome natural and brute strength in overcoming giants as we
are more than conquerors. We can take this story and prophetic offering
and apply its lessons in many areas of life. Again, what we perceive as a
strong and undefeatable adversary – It’s pronounced strength is usually
its greatest weakness in being defeated.
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