Bible Study #43: David and Goliath

Bible Study #43: David and Goliath
St. Mary’s Ukrainian Orthodox Church, Allentown PA
Fr. Anthony Perkins, 01 November 2018

Opening Prayer: Make the pure light of Your divine knowledge shine in our hearts, Loving Master, and open the eyes of our minds that we may understand the message of Your Gospel. Instill also in us reverence for Your blessed commandments, so that overcoming all worldly desires, we may pursue a spiritual life, both thinking and doing all things pleasing to You. For You, Christ our God, are the Light of our souls and bodies, and to You we give the glory, together with Your Father, without beginning, and Your All Holy, Good, and Life- Creating Spirit, now and ever and to the ages of ages. Amen. (From the Prayer before the Gospel in the Divine Liturgy; see 2 Corinthians 6:6; Ephesians 1:18; 2 Peter 2:11)

A Giant Warmup to Get Ready for Goliath.

Genesis 6:4. There were giants on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of men and they bore children to them. Those were the mighty men who were of old, men of renown.

Numbers 13:33. There we saw the giants (the descendants of Anak [i.e. the Anakim] came from the giants); and we were like grasshoppers in our own sight, and so we were in their sight.”

Deuteronomy 2:10-11a. The Emim had dwelt there in times past, a people as great and numerous and tall as the Anakim. They were also regarded as giants, like the Anakim...

Deuteronomy 3:13. The rest of Gilead, and all Bashan, the kingdom of Og, I gave to half the tribe of Manasseh. All the region of Argob, with all Bashan, was called the land of the giants. [See also Amos 2:9: “Yet it was I [God] who destroyed the Amorite before them, whose height was like the height of the cedars,and he was as strong as the oaks; yet I destroyed his fruit above and his roots beneath.

Joshua 11:21-22. And at that time Joshua came and cut off the Anakim from the mountains: from Hebron, from Debir, from Anab, from all the mountains of Judah, and from all the mountains of Israel; Joshua utterly destroyed them with their cities. None of the Anakim were left in the land of the children of Israel; they remained only in Gaza, in Gath, and in Ashdod.

And how big were the giants?

Og the King of Bashan (of the Rephaim) has a bed that was nine cubits in length and four cubits in width (Deuteronomy 3:11). This is about thirteen feet six inches by six feet.

How about Goliath? The Hebrew version of 1 Samuel 17:4 says his height was “six cubits and a span”. This is about 9 feet, 9 inches. The Septuagint version has “four cubits and a span”, or six feet six inches. This is confirmed by the Dead Sea Scroll version. Even at six foot six inches, Goliath would have been a giant compared to everyone else (average five feet tall).

1 Kingdoms/Samuel Chapter 17. David and Goliath

St. Bede: Jesse as God the Father, David as Jesus. He sends Him to save His people and defeat evil. The ten cheeses are the Ten Commandments. The “ephah” is the Holy Trinity (three measures).

St. John Cassius: On choosing the right weapons. We sometimes see a bad example drawn from good things. For if someone presumes to do the same things but not with the same disposition and orientation or with unlike virtue, he easily falls into the snares of deception and death on account of those very things from which others acquire the fruits of eternal life. That brave boy who was set against the most warlike giant in a contest of arms would certainly have experienced this if he had put on Saul’s manly and heavy armor, with which a person of more robust age would have laid low whole troops of the enemy. This would undoubtedly have imperiled the boy, except that with wise discretion he chose the kind of weaponry that was appropriate for his youth and armed himself against the dreadful foe not with the breastplate and shield that he saw others outfitted with but with the projectiles that he himself was able to fight with.

St. Maximos of Turin: Heavenly weapons are better. Therefore, brothers, let us arm ourselves with heavenly weapons for the coming judgment of the world: let us gird on the breastplate of faith, protect ourselves with the helmet of salvation, and defend ourselves with the word of God as with a spiritual sword. For the one who is arrayed with these weapons does not fear present disturbance and is not afraid of future judgment, since holy David, protected with this devotion, killed the very strong and armed Goliath without weapons and struck down the warlike man, girt about with defenses on all sides, by the strength of his faith alone. For although holy David did not put on a helmet, strap on a shield, or use a lance, he killed Goliath. He killed him, however, not with an iron spear but with a spiritual sword, for although he appeared weaponless in the eyes of human beings, yet he was adequately armed with divine grace. But the spiritual sword itself was not a sword, since it was not by the sword but by a stone that Goliath died when he was struck down. We read in the Scriptures that Christ is figuratively designated by the word stone, as the prophet says: “The stone that the builders rejected has become the head of the corner.” Therefore, when Goliath is struck by a stone, he is struck down by the power of Christ. ...

But there is no one who does not realize that this took place figuratively. For David had also put on armor beforehand but, since he was so heavy and awkward in it that he could hardly walk, he removed it at once, signifying that the weapons of this world are vain and superfluous things and that the person who chooses to involve himself in them will have no unimpeded road to heaven, since he will be too heavy and encumbered to walk. At the same time this teaches us that victory is not to be hoped for from arms alone but is to be prayed for in the name of the Savior.

Note that Goliath invoked his gods and David invoked The God. Goliath was the champion of the pagan gods that remained in the Holy Land. He was more than just the greatest warrior of the Philistines; he represented them and their pantheon. Similarly, David was more than just a hero of the Israelites; he represented God's nation and represents God as His anointed one and imager.

Verse 16b; Verse 43b; Verse 45 – 47.

Bibliography

Heiser, M. S. (2015). The Unseen Realm. Lexham Press.

Franke, J. R. (Ed.). (2005). Old Testament IV: Joshua, Judges, Ruth, 1–2 Samuel. IVP.