1 Samuel 17:39-47

Goliath and David exchange their final words

(17:39) David fastened on his sword over the tunic and tried walking around, because he was not used to them.

“I cannot go in these,” he said to Saul, “because I am not used to them.” So he took them off.

David rejected this armor, because he had not “tested” them (NASB). By contrast, David had tested the faithfulness of the Lord in the wilderness, and he found God faithful. But as for the armor and weapons, David didn’t use these.

(17:40) Then he took his staff in his hand, chose five smooth stones from the stream, put them in the pouch of his shepherd’s bag and, with his sling in his hand, approached the Philistine.

This sling and stones were not wimpy weapons. These rocks were roughly the size of tennis balls,[] and soldiers used these weapons in ancient warfare. David used strategy as well as spirituality to win this battle.

(17:41-42) Meanwhile, the Philistine, with his shield bearer in front of him, kept coming closer to David. ⁴² He looked David over and saw that he was little more than a boy, glowing with health and handsome, and he despised him.

Goliath agreed with Saul that David was “little more than a boy” (cf. v.33). He could only see the externals—not the heart (1 Sam. 16:7). And pride came before his great fall (Prov. 16:18). Baldwin writes, “There could hardly have been a greater contrast than that between the heavily armed Goliath, with all his protective gear, and David, who looked entirely vulnerable and so easy to defeat that Goliath took the selection of the youth as an insult.”[]

(17:43-44) He said to David, “Am I a dog, that you come at me with sticks?” And the Philistine cursed David by his gods.

⁴⁴ “Come here,” he said, “and I’ll give your flesh to the birds and the wild animals!”

“Am I a dog?” Dogs were not household pets in these days. These were despised animals that would be chased away with a simple stick.

“The Philistine cursed David by his gods.” This means that Goliath called on the name of his god to kill David. This shows that this was both a physical and a spiritual battle. The content of the curse was that David would become food for the birds and the beasts of the field. David redirects this curse back at Goliath (v.46).

The use of a “curse” (qālal) against the Israelites harkens back to the Abrahamic Covenant (Gen. 12:1-3). There, God promised to “bless those who bless you” and “curse those who curse you.” Bergen comments, “readers knowledgeable of the Torah would know that by cursing this son of Abraham, Goliath was bringing down the Lord’s curse on himself (cf. Gen 12:3)—a favorable outcome to the battle (from an Israelite perspective!) was thus assured.”[]

(17:45) David said to the Philistine, “You come against me with sword and spear and javelin, but I come against you in the name of the LORD Almighty, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied.”

“Sword and spear and javelin.” These weapons weren’t common in Israel because of the Philistine banishment of metallurgy (1 Sam. 13:19, 22).

The “you” (Goliath) and “I” (David) are empathic in the Hebrew.[] David is taunting Goliath back by considering Goliath a mere flea compared to God Almighty.

(17:46-47) “This day the LORD will deliver you into my hands, and I’ll strike you down and cut off your head. This very day I will give the carcasses of the Philistine army to the birds and the wild animals, and the whole world will know that there is a God in Israel. ⁴⁷ 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.”

This would be a good time for David to cower in fear. But instead, he ups the ante. David includes the entire Philistine army—not just Goliath. The purpose of the battle is not self-glorification, but rather so that “the whole world will know that there is a God in Israel.”