David Kills Goliath
David, only a young shepherd boy at the time, called on God and faced Goliath, the enemy's giant-sized champion, with only a slingshot. Then, when the giant is struck by the very first stone in the forehead, David rushed forward and used Goliath's own sword to behead him.
In real and actual history, I believe that there once was a military standoff between the armies of the Philistines and the armies of Israel, where a young stripling King David first shows his promise as a warrior, but more importantly, as a person of extremely unshakable faith. And at that standoff, each day, for 40 days, a giant Philistine champion came forward ready to have a duel with whoever Israel would send against him. The Israelite soldiers, however, saw the big fellow and were afraid. That's why it went on for 40 days. Israel was shamed by Goliath's taunts each day. But that account might hint at more...
In real life, the taunts of Goliath went on and on, each morning, day after day. Finally, a young shepherd boy named David, from the tribe of Ephraim showed up and, seeing what was going on, stepped forward and faced Goliath. Most of us know the account.
David was a young man, and only happened to be there because his dad, Jesse, sent him to take food to David's older brothers, who were in Saul's army. No one ever thought young David would be involved in the fighting. But when he showed up just in time to see Goliath's daily challenge go unanswered by the frightened Israelite soldiers, David was angry. Why didn't someone step up? Wasn't the God of Israel quite able to bring Israel a victory?
This all occurred back when Israel's first king, Saul, reigned. Some people believe that was the 1060 B.C. to 1020 B.C. time frame. Saul ended up having a 40-year reign at any rate.
Goliath was probably pretty intimidating! He was a legitimate giant...and apparently a celebrated and experienced fighter, and a brave warrior. (His height of 6 cubits and a span from some translations, found in 1 Samuel 17:4, means he was a large man indeed. It put Goliath in the 8 1/2-foot-tall range using a 16" cubit, or more than 9 foot if it was the Royal cubit of approx. 18" that they sometimes went by.)
But David faced Goliath, mortally wounding Goliath with a stone hurled using a sling. And then he cut off the dead giant's head using Goliath's own sword. The Bible syas it was so....
1 Samuel 17:40 - 51 "Then, staff in hand, Davide selected 5 smooth stones from the wadi and put them in the pocket of his shepherd's bag. With his sling also ready to hand, he approached the Phillistine."
"With his shield-bearer marching before him, the Philistine also advanced closer and closer to David. When he had sized up David, and seen that he was youthful, and ruddy, and handsome in appearance, he held him in contempt."
"The Philistine said to David, "Am I a dog that you come out against me with a staff?" Then the Philistine cursed David by his gods and said to him "Come here to me and I will leave your flesh to the birds of the air and the beasts of the field." "
"David answered him, "You come against me with sword and spear and scimitar, but I come against you in the name of the Lord of Hosts, the God of the Armies of Israel that you have insulted. Today the Lord will deliver you into my hand, I will strike you down and cut off your head. This very day I will leave your corpse and the corpses of the Philistine army for the birds of the air and the beasts of the field; thus the whole world will learn that Israel has a God. All this multitude, too, shall learn that it is not by sword or spear that the Lord saves. For the battle is the Lord's, and he shall deliver you into our hands." "
"The Philistine then moved to meet David at close quarters, while David ran quickly toward the battle line in the direction of the Philistine. David put his hand in the bag and took out a stone, hurled it with the sling, and struck the Philistine on the forehead. The stone embedded itself in his brow, and he fell prostrate on the ground. Thus David overcame the Philistine with sling and stone, he wounded the Philistine mortally, and did it without a sword. Then David ran and stood over him, with the Philistine's own sword [which he drew from its sheath] he dispatched him and cut off his head." End quote.
The ancients were sometimes very adept with slings. Unlike bows and arrows, the sling could use any locally available properly shaped rock, so it was both deadly and handy. Shepherds could use it to chase away predators from their herd, or even to hunt dinner for themselves. You can get such respectable velocity from a sling's projectile that the modern-day record for projectile distance with a sling is about 470 meters, which is around 500 yards.... way more than a quarter of a mile! The people of the Balearic Islands were once thought of as about the deadliest users of the sling. Its use was so pervasive in their culture that it is recorded that Balearic mothers would commonly use a loaf of bread as a target and require their children to strike the loaf before they could eat it for dinner. Having Balearic slingers in your army was something your foe had to take seriously.
When lead balls were used, the sling projectile was especially damaging, due to lead being so dense compared to stone.
But, back to David .... David had picked up 5 smooth stones from a stream or wadi, the scriptures make a point of telling us. Yet as it turned out, to kill Goliath he only needed to use the first stone. He flung it at the fearsome giant man, and it struck and entered the giant's forehead. And as mentioned, ancient slingshots really did sling stones with pretty startling velocity. But why does the scripture make sure that we know that David grabbed 5 smooth stones? How come we need to know that the rock stuck in Goliath's forehead?
Five smooth stones make me think of the Torah. Smooth stones suggest well worn. The Books of Moses had been around for probably about 400 years in young David's time, so they were pretty well worn. The Torah hints of the coming Jesus, and he is sometimes described as a stone not cut by human hands. That might play into things also. The forehead makes me think of knowledge or understanding.
The Hebrew Torah contains the scripture found in the first 5 books of the Christian Bible. It was basically the Old Testament's first 5 books. To the Christian, they are Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. (Memory Aid: Generation 'X' Loves North Dakota)
The first of those '5 smooth stones' in the Old Testament is the Book of Genesis, if that is what the stones are supposed to represent. Genesis is about creation, about the beginnings of things.
As for Goliath, he was an enlarged human, and in our time, that sort of calls to mind Humanism, Evolution, etc., wherein there is no God, and everything was created by accident, and so, in Humanism, humans don't owe God anything, and they can all do as they like so long as other humans don't mind too much or aren't too negatively impacted. Humans are the apex of all life and all things in Humanism's view.
And Humanism's 'large sword' is probably Science and Evolution. Science explains it all, with no God needed. Science assures all of the Humanists that they needn't worry, there really is no God, so pursue your various appetites with gusto, for tomorrow you die, and then there is no more.
So, the David and Goliath account is almost a 'type', from the far past of David's day usable for our time, today, in 2010 as I write. Scientists, polluting the minds of children that attended government schools through the textbooks that they have forced children to learn from, taught us that Evolution had essentially passed from theory to proven fact. And they were successful at bluffing many Christians off of their Bibles for many decades.
Every schoolboy and girl were assured that religion had been proven a myth, and Evolution was no longer really a hypothesis, but firm fact. They would sometimes refer to Evolution as a 'theory', but they taught the processes of life and biology and regeneration in such a way as to suggest that there wasn't even any question that Evolution was the process that had brought it all about.
In this manner, Science diverted credit for all that God had done away from our Holy Father and assigned the spectacular work of creation to 'random chance'. For a while, it seemed that Christians were in the unfortunate position of having a partly discredited Bible, or so many of us thought. Perhaps a little of the Bible was true, but not much of it, it seemed. But it was no more than a lie, this discrediting of the scripture. Only part of the very great lie.... the most effective lie Satan has ever told, quite probably.
But no longer. The other side - Humanism and our Scientists - haven't surrendered, but the new evidence is in, and it's very strong on all levels. Evolution is bogus science.
As Humanists gain an understanding of the first smooth stone (Genesis), as they begin to more thoroughly and deeply understand the complexity of life, of the simplest cells, of complex organisms, of ecosystems, etc., it becomes increasingly obvious that the theory of Evolution is a fraud, and that God is both necessary, and real, and such a great thinker that the greatest of all human intellectual achievement is the smallest, faintest, and barest imitations of God's immeasurable mind. And He not only thought of it, He had the power to call it into being. So, think how impudent we truly are to erase God from the story of Creation.
Can you imagine how indignant various humanist authors would be if someone republished one of their books under a different name, and kept the profits for themselves? Yet Humanists gleefully attribute God the Father's work of creation to 'random chance'/Evolution, then make themselves out to be experts on how it all went down. Now that is plagiarism.!!
I would prefer to say that the Theory of Evolution is mistaken in its premises. But once its adherents began recognizing it as unworkable, then kept teaching it, didn't it become more fitting to call it fraud? Many in the scientific community are privately acknowledging that there are seemingly unanswerable contradictions, essentially insurmountable obstacles to believing that the forces of 'chance' could build much of anything whatsoever, let alone that 'chance' might have produced breath-takingly complex organisms that can perpetuate themselves.
But when the Theory of Evolution finally falls officially (meaning that not even scientists want to be associated with it anymore,) it will invalidate the opinions, to some degree, of a great many text book writing professors, some of whom have weighty names within their field of expertise - it will make their writings sound kind of silly, where ever they wrote of how evolution accomplished this, that, or the other, or how through evolution, some other thing came about, etc. People of great ego don't like being invalidated. Many would rather cling to a misapprehension which flatters them than accept a truth which leaves them with egg on their face. Maybe a lot of us are like that. But let's face it.... we're wrong.
Science has provided the tools of its own god's demise.... the microscopes and telescopes, and many other instruments which show the improbable complexity of equipage and internal parts, and the stunning cleverness of design showing itself everywhere in creation. Through these, evolution is exposed as a ludicrous fallacy. Improvements in the tools of scientific investigation have become the large sword that cut off its owner's head. The deeper you look, using scientific technology, the more the complexity grows. Who made it all.... was it chance? Not a chance.
That first smooth stone killed a giant - Goliath the Philistine, an enemy of God's chosen people - long ago in the days of a young king David. But it may be killing yet another enemy of God's people today.
May God bless and remember the scientists that come forward and admit these things have become evident and obvious in our day, those scientists who give praise to the common Maker of us all for His wonderous works. May such scientists be loved and forgiven by the Lord if they once taught that the Lord was a myth. They taught what they thought they knew, but when they came to know better, they confessed their error. Hopefully Christians can do as much.