Was David’s fight against Goliath in 1 Samuel 17 really an uphill battle? I’m sure all of us have been taught this; young David, a shepherd boy, armed only with a sling – against a fierce Nephillic warrior from the Philistines? Let us lay aside the collective understanding of this idea for a few minutes, to consider another paradigm.
David was a trained slinger – one type of warfare in the Ancient Near East. This was considered artillery in that day. Goliath was infantry – hand to hand, sword to sword – face to face; and because he was so huge, there was no one who could match his stature or strength. His weapons were huge (18lb Ax head/ Spear weighing 65lbs. David was fiercely accurate. It is recorded in historical data that an expert slinger could hit a flying bird at 200 yards. They would use barium sulfate stones (hardest rock commonly available) and would wind their sling to 6-7 revolutions per second – launching the rock at about 35 meters/second (the same speed as a .45 caliber round from a handgun).
When David talks about how he killed the lion and the bear – verse 35 says, “I went out after him, and struck him, and rescued it out of his mouth. When he arose against me, I caught him by his beard, and struck him, and killed him.” He struck the animal first with a sling and when it rose after being hit – THEN he slayed it. – The Hebrew word there is Nakaw – to strike down – but in the second half of the verse it is Nakaw Muth – which implies a close-quarters slaying. He does the exact same thing with Goliath. He strikes him – probably from 30-40 yards away – then runs and chops Goliath’s head off before he could arise – David learned from his previous experience.
Since slingers were effective artillery in warfare and David was skilled – you could consider him the Chris Kyle of his day. A sniper is very effective when the target is 1) large and 2) slow, and 3) cannot see very well – what do you mean? People who were Giants typically had a disease known as Acromegaly. This is a condition where a benign tumor presses against the visual nerve, causing double vision or blurry vision. This condition was suffered by Andre the Giant and Robert Wadlow (Guinness Book of World Records tallest man) – Goliath says to David in verse 43, “Am I a dog, that you come to me with sticks?” David had one staff – not more than one – his sling would have been tucked along his side. Why did he see more than one? Goliath also needed a servant to lead him into the valley – why? – more than likely he was near-sighted and only liked fighting in close quarters – verse 44, “Come to me, and I will give your flesh to the birds of the sky, and to the animals of the field.” Goliath had many weaknesses – and David exploited every one of them – there was no other possible outcome – David was not going to lose this fight – but everyone else thought David would engage a different type of warfare – David knew he would snipe Goliath and then engage him one-on-one.
There are tremendous prophetic implications in this passage. The David and Goliath encounter is a preface to the Redemption at Golgotha (Goliath of Gath) – Where David took and buried the skull of Goliath…Also, Satan did not know the type of warfare the Father was implementing upon the earth when Yeshua died and rose again – Satan was blinded to Whom Jesus was – The Son of God knew from before the foundations of the world the way He would overcome the evil one – We know Isaiah talks about this in reference to what the satanic representation King of Babylon is when the people say “Is this the man who made the earth tremble, Who shook kingdoms…?”
David was confident when conventional thought was not what god used in the moment. Saul’s Generals should have been wise enough to know that a slinger could have done the job. The Father brought a different plan to a seemingly impossible situation. Maybe, just maybe – He is about to pour out from a different way of thought, a Return in the Body as to see an incredible shift in His Kingdom being expanded. Let’s open ourselves to the possibility of our structures and common thinking are traded for a different, Heavenly, and Kingdom process; to see the greatness of the demonstration of the Father in which many generations await.
Shalom!
