1 The Philistines mustered their forces for battle. They assembled at Sok, which is in Judah, and set up camp at Ephes-dammim, between Sok and Azekah.
2Saul and the Israelites also gathered together, set up camp in the Valley of Elah, and drew up in battle formation against the Philistines. 3The Philistines were stationed on one side of the mountain and the Israelites on the other. There was a valley between them. 4From the ranks of the Philistines came a champion wrestler named Goliath of Gath, who was six cubits and one span tall. 5He wore a bronze helmet on his head and was clad in scale armour. The armour weighed five thousand shekels of bronze. 6He wore bronze greaves on his legs and a bronze shoulder guard. 7The shaft of his spear was like a weaver’s beam, and the tip of his spear weighed six hundred shekels of iron. A shield-bearer went before him. 8He stood there and called out to the Israeli ranks. He said to them: ‘Why are you coming out and forming your battle lines? Am I not a Philistine, and are you not Saul’s servants? Send someone down to me.’ 9If he can fight me and kill me, we shall be your slaves. If I overcome him and kill him, you shall be our slaves and serve us. 10Then the Philistine said, ‘Today I will bring shame upon the ranks of Israel. Hand someone over to me, so that we may fight.’ 11When Saul and all Israel heard these words from the Philistines, they trembled and were filled with dread. 12David was the son of a man from Ephrathah, of Bethlehem in Judah, named Jesse, who had eight sons. In the days of Saul, this man was already of advanced age. 13Jishai’s three eldest sons went into battle with Saul. The names of the three sons who went into battle were: the first-born, Eliab; the second, Abinadab; and the third, Shama. 14David was the youngest. The three eldest went with Saul. 15David was leaving Saul and returning to Bethlehem to tend his father’s sheep. 16Meanwhile, the man from Pelište would come forward in the morning and in the evening, and continued to do so for forty days.
17 Ish-bosheth said to his son David: ‘Take this ephah of roasted grain and these ten loaves of bread for your brothers, and take them quickly to the camp.’
- David was repeatedly rejected – when Jesse presented his sons to Samuel, he did not even call David forward.
- Here, they do not consider him fit for military service and use him merely as a messenger, a lackey.
- In a moment, the king will despise him, and then Goliath.
- He must have been very resilient, as he didn’t let his identity be crushed.
18Take these ten pieces of cheese to the commander of the thousand. Find out how your brothers are getting on, and get a sign from them. 19Saul, they and all the Israelites are in the Valley of Elah, waging war against the Philistines. 20David got up early in the morning, left the sheep with the shepherd, loaded up his provisions and set off, as Jesse had instructed him. When he arrived at the camp, the army was lining up and raising a battle cry. 21The Israelites and the Philistines lined up in battle formation, row against row. 22David left his things with the armourer and ran over to the line. When he arrived, he asked his brothers how they were getting on. 23Whilst he was speaking to them, a champion fighter named Goliath, a Philistine from Gath, stepped out from among the Philistine ranks and repeated the same words as before. David heard this. 24When all the Israelites saw the man, they fled from him and were terrified. 25The Israelites said: ‘Have you seen that man who has come forward? He is coming forward to defame Israel. Therefore, whoever kills him will be rewarded by the king with great wealth; he will give him his daughter and grant his father’s household freedom in Israel.’ 26David asked the men standing beside him: ‘What will be given to the man who kills this Philistine and removes this disgrace from Israel? For who is this uncircumcised Philistine that he should defy the ranks of the living God?’ 27The people replied with the same words as before: ‘This is what the one who kills him will receive.’ 28When his eldest brother, Eliab, heard him speaking to the men, he flew into a rage against David and said, ‘Why have you come here? Who have you left those few sheep with in the wilderness? I know your arrogance and the wickedness of your heart. For you have come to watch the battle.’ 29David said: ‘What have I done now? I was just asking.’ 30He turned away from him to someone else and asked the same question as before. The man replied with the same words as the first time. 31When word got round of what David had said, they reported it to Saul, and he had him brought before him. 32David said to Saul, ‘Let no one lose heart because of him. Your servant will go and fight this Philistine.’ 33Saul said to David, ‘You cannot go up against that Philistine and fight him. After all, you are only a boy, and he has been a warrior from his youth.’ 34Then David said to Saul: ‘Your servant used to tend his father’s sheep. Whenever a lion or a bear came and carried off a sheep from the flock, 35I went after him, beat him, and rescued her from his jaws. When he turned on me, I grabbed him by the jaw and beat him until I killed him. 36Your servant has slain both a lion and a bear, and this uncircumcised Philistine will meet the same fate as them, for he has defied the living God. 37David went on to say, ‘The Lord, who has delivered me from the power of the lion and the power of the bear, will also deliver me from the hand of this Philistine.’ So Saul said to David, ‘Go, and may the Lord be with you.’ 38Then Saul dressed David in his own clothes, placed a bronze helmet on his head and put a coat of mail on him. 39David strapped his sword to his armour and tried to walk, as he was not used to it. David said to Saul, ‘I cannot walk in this, for I am not used to it.’ So David took it off. 40He took a staff in his hand, picked up five pebbles from the stream, put them into the shepherd’s bag he was carrying, and then into a pouch inside it; he held a sling in his hand. And so he approached the Philistine. 41Meanwhile, the Philistine advanced, drawing ever closer to David. His shield-bearer walked ahead of him. 42When the man from Pelishte looked up and saw David, he looked down on him, for he was only a boy, a fair-haired lad of handsome appearance. 43The Philistine said to David, ‘Am I a dog, that you should come at me with a stick?’ Then the Philistine cursed David by his gods. 44Then the Philistine said to David, ‘Come here, and I will give your body to the birds of the air and the beasts of the field.’ 45David the Philistine replied: ‘You come against me with a sword, a spear and a battle-axe, but I come against you in the name of the Lord of Hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied.’ 46Today the Lord will deliver you into my hands. I will kill you and cut off your head. Today I will give the corpses of the Philistine army to the birds of the air and the beasts of the earth. And so the whole world will know that God is with Israel. 47And this whole assembly will realise that the Lord does not save by the sword or the spear. For this battle belongs to the Lord, and he will deliver you into our hands. 48Then it came to pass that, as the Philistine continued to advance and drew nearer to David, David ran swiftly onto the battlefield to meet the Philistine. 49David reached into his bag, took a stone from it, slung it from his sling and struck the Philistine on the forehead. The stone pierced his forehead, and he fell face down on the ground. 50So David overpowered the Philistine with a sling and a stone; he struck down the Philistine and killed him. David had no sword in his hand. 51Then David ran up, stood over the Philistine, took his sword, drew it from its sheath, killed him and cut off his head with it. When the Philistines saw that their hero was dead, they fled. 52The Israelites and the Judeans rose up, shouted and pursued the Philistines as far as Gath, right up to the gates of Ekron. The slain Philistines lay strewn along the road from Shaaraim as far as Gath and Ekron. 53Then the Israelites returned from pursuing the Philistines and plundered their camp. 54David took the Philistine’s head and brought it to Jerusalem, but he kept his weapons in his tent. 55When Saul saw David going out to meet the Philistine, he said to Abner, the commander of the army, ‘Whose son is this lad, Abner?’ Abner replied, ‘As surely as you live, O King, I do not know.’ 56The king said: ‘Ask whose son that young man is.’ 57So when David returned from the battle against the Philistines, Abner took him and brought him before Saul. He was still holding the Philistine’s head in his hand. 58Saul asked him, ‘Whose son are you, lad?’ David replied, ‘I am the son of your servant Jesse of Bethlehem.’