# 1 Samuel 17 đź“–: David and Goliath
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> [!info] Table of Contents
> [[#đź“ś Scripture Text (NET)]]
> [[#đź“– Verse-by-Verse Commentary]]
> [[#🤔 Interesting Facts / Historical and Cultural Insights]]
> [[#🧠Chapter Summary]]
> [[#✝️ Christ in This Chapter]]
> [[#🔎 Key Observations / 🛟 Life Application]]
> [[#đź’¬ Discussion Questions]]
> [[#✍️ Key Verses to Remember]]
> [[#đź”— Related Passages]]
> [[#🙏 Devotional Reflection]]
> [[#đź“‚ Internal Notes]]
## đź“ś Scripture Text (NET)
(The NET Bible: New English Translation. Biblical Studies Press, 2005)
[[#Verse 01.]] The Philistines gathered their troops for battle. They assembled at Socoh in Judah. They camped in Ephes Dammim, between Socoh and Azekah.
[[#Verse 02.]] Saul and the Israelite army assembled and camped in the valley of Elah, where they arranged their battle lines to fight against the Philistines.
[[#Verse 03.]] The Philistines were standing on one hill, and the Israelites on another hill, with the valley between them.
[[#Verse 04.]] Then a champion came out from the camp of the Philistines. His name was Goliath; he was from Gath. He was close to seven feet tall.
[[#Verse 05.]] He had a bronze helmet on his head and was wearing scale body armor. The weight of his bronze body armor was 5,000 shekels.
[[#Verse 06.]] He had bronze shin guards on his legs, and a bronze javelin was slung over his shoulders.
[[#Verse 07.]] The shaft of his spear was like a weaver’s beam, and the iron point of his spear weighed 600 shekels. His shield bearer was walking before him.
[[#Verse 08.]] Goliath stood and called to Israel’s troops, “Why do you come out to prepare for battle? Am I not the Philistine, and are you not the servants of Saul? Choose for yourselves a man so he may come down to me!
[[#Verse 09.]] If he is able to fight with me and strike me down, we will become your servants. But if I prevail against him and strike him down, you will become our servants and will serve us.”
[[#Verse 10.]] Then the Philistine said, “I defy Israel’s troops this day! Give me a man so we can fight each other!”
[[#Verse 11.]] When Saul and all the Israelites heard these words of the Philistine, they were upset and very afraid.
[[#Verse 12.]] Now David was the son of an Ephrathite named Jesse from Bethlehem in Judah. He had eight sons, and in Saul’s days he was old and well advanced in years.
[[#Verse 13.]] Jesse’s three oldest sons had followed Saul to war. The names of the three sons who went to war were Eliab, his firstborn; Abinadab, the second oldest; and Shammah, the third oldest.
[[#Verse 14.]] Now David was the youngest. While the three oldest sons followed Saul,
[[#Verse 15.]] David was going back and forth from Saul in order to care for his father’s sheep in Bethlehem.
[[#Verse 16.]] Meanwhile for 40 days the Philistine approached every morning and evening and took his position.
[[#Verse 17.]] Jesse said to his son David, “Take your brothers this ephah of roasted grain and these 10 loaves of bread; go quickly to the camp to your brothers.
[[#Verse 18.]] Also take these 10 portions of cheese to their commanding officer. Find out how your brothers are doing and bring back their pledge that they received the goods.
[[#Verse 19.]] They are with Saul and the whole Israelite army in the valley of Elah, fighting with the Philistines.”
[[#Verse 20.]] So David got up early in the morning and entrusted the flock to someone else who would watch over it. After loading up, he went just as Jesse had instructed him. He arrived at the camp as the army was going out to the battle lines shouting its battle cry.
[[#Verse 21.]] Israel and the Philistines drew up their battle lines opposite one another.
[[#Verse 22.]] After David had entrusted his cargo to the care of the supply officer, he ran to the battlefront. When he arrived, he asked his brothers how they were doing.
[[#Verse 23.]] As he was speaking with them, the champion named Goliath, the Philistine from Gath, was coming up from the battle lines of the Philistines. He spoke the way he usually did, and David heard it.
[[#Verse 24.]] When all the men of Israel saw this man, they retreated from his presence and were very afraid.
[[#Verse 25.]] The men of Israel said, “Have you seen this man who is coming up? He does so to defy Israel. But the king will make the man who can strike him down very wealthy! He will give him his daughter in marriage, and he will make his father’s house exempt from tax obligations in Israel.”
[[#Verse 26.]] David asked the men who were standing near him, “What will be done for the man who strikes down this Philistine and frees Israel from this humiliation? For who is this uncircumcised Philistine, that he defies the armies of the living God?”
[[#Verse 27.]] The soldiers told him what had been promised, saying, “This is what will be done for the man who can strike him down.”
[[#Verse 28.]] When David’s oldest brother Eliab heard him speaking to the men, he became angry with David and said, “Why have you come down here? To whom did you entrust those few sheep in the wilderness? I am familiar with your pride and deceit! You have come down here to watch the battle.”
[[#Verse 29.]] David replied, “What have I done now? Can’t I say anything?”
[[#Verse 30.]] Then he turned from those who were nearby to someone else and asked the same question, but they gave him the same answer as before.
[[#Verse 31.]] When David’s words were overheard and reported to Saul, he called for him.
[[#Verse 32.]] David said to Saul, “Don’t let anyone be discouraged. Your servant will go and fight this Philistine!”
[[#Verse 33.]] But Saul replied to David, “You aren’t able to go against this Philistine and fight him. You’re just a boy! He has been a warrior from his youth.”
[[#Verse 34.]] David replied to Saul, “Your servant has been a shepherd for his father’s flock. Whenever a lion or bear would come and carry off a sheep from the flock,
[[#Verse 35.]] I would go out after it, strike it down, and rescue the sheep from its mouth. If it rose up against me, I would grab it by its jaw, strike it, and kill it.
[[#Verse 36.]] Your servant has struck down both the lion and the bear. This uncircumcised Philistine will be just like one of them, for he has defied the armies of the living God.”
[[#Verse 37.]] David went on to say, “The Lord who delivered me from the lion and the bear will also deliver me from the hand of this Philistine.” Then Saul said to David, “Go! The Lord will be with you.”
[[M0002- Lions in 1 Samuel]] Saul said to David, “Go, and the Lord be with you.”
[[#Verse 38.]] Then Saul clothed David with his own fighting attire and put a bronze helmet on his head. He also put body armor on him.
[[#Verse 39.]] David strapped on his sword over his fighting attire and tried to walk around, but he was not used to them. David said to Saul, “I can’t walk in these things, for I’m not used to them.” So David removed them.
[[#Verse 40.]] He took his staff in his hand, picked out five smooth stones from the stream, placed them in the pouch of his shepherd’s bag, took his sling in hand, and approached the Philistine.
[[#Verse 41.]] The Philistine, with his shield bearer walking in front of him, kept coming closer to David.
[[#Verse 42.]] When the Philistine looked carefully at David, he despised him, for he was only a ruddy and handsome boy.
[[#Verse 43.]] The Philistine said to David, “Am I a dog, that you are coming after me with sticks?” Then the Philistine cursed David by his gods.
[[#Verse 44.]] The Philistine said to David, “Come here to me, so I can give your flesh to the birds of the sky and the wild animals of the field!”
[[#Verse 45.]] But David replied to the Philistine, “You are coming against me with sword and spear and javelin. But I am coming against you in the name of the Lord of Heaven’s Armies, the God of Israel’s armies, whom you have defied!
[[#Verse 46.]] This very day the Lord will deliver you into my hand. I will strike you down and cut off your head. This day I will give the corpses of the Philistine army to the birds of the sky and the wild animals of the land. Then all the land will realize that Israel has a God,
[[#Verse 47.]] and all this assembly will know that it is not by sword or spear that the Lord saves! For the battle is the Lord’s, and he will deliver you into our hand.”
[[#Verse 48.]] The Philistine drew steadily closer to David to attack him, while David quickly ran toward the battle line to attack the Philistine.
[[#Verse 49.]] David reached his hand into the bag and took out a stone. He slung it, striking the Philistine on the forehead. The stone sank deeply into his forehead, and he fell down with his face to the ground.
[[#Verse 50.]] David prevailed over the Philistine with just the sling and the stone. He struck down the Philistine and killed him. David did not even have a sword in his hand.
[[#Verse 51.]] David ran and stood over the Philistine. He grabbed Goliath’s sword, drew it from its sheath, and after killing him, he cut off his head with it. When the Philistines saw their champion was dead, they ran away.
[[#Verse 52.]] Then the men of Israel and Judah charged forward, shouting a battle cry. They chased the Philistines to the valley and to the very gates of Ekron. The Philistine corpses lay fallen along the Shaaraim road to Gath and Ekron.
[[#Verse 53.]] When the Israelites returned from their hot pursuit of the Philistines, they looted their camp.
[[#Verse 54.]] David took the head of the Philistine and brought it to Jerusalem, and he put Goliath’s weapons in his tent.
[[#Verse 55.]] Now as Saul watched David going out to fight the Philistine, he asked Abner, the general in command of the army, “Whose son is that young man, Abner?” Abner replied, “As surely as you live, O king, I don’t know.”
[[#Verse 56.]] The king said, “Find out whose son this boy is.”
[[#Verse 57.]] So when David returned from striking down the Philistine, Abner took him and brought him before Saul. He still had the head of the Philistine in his hand.
[[#Verse 58.]] Saul said to him, “Whose son are you, young man?” David replied, “I am the son of your servant Jesse in Bethlehem.”
## đź“– Verse-by-Verse Commentary
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## 🤔 Interesting Facts / Historical and Cultural Insights
1. The armies faced each other across the Valley of Elah, between Socoh and Azekah (17:1-2), about fifteen miles southwest of Bethlehem.
2. Goliath came from Gath (17:4), one of the five Philistine cities. Excavations at Gath (Tell es-Safi) have uncovered remains from this period.
3. Most Hebrew manuscripts give Goliath's height as six cubits and a span, about nine and a half feet. The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Greek Septuagint say four cubits and a span, about six and a half feet.
4. Goliath's bronze armor weighed about 5,000 shekels, roughly 125 pounds (17:5).
5. Goliath's spear tip weighed about 600 shekels, around 15 pounds (17:7).
6. Single combat between champions to decide a battle was known in the ancient world, and Homer's *Iliad* describes similar contests.
7. Goliath challenged Israel morning and evening for forty days (17:16).
8. Slingers were skilled soldiers in the ancient world. Judges 20:16 describes Benjamites who could sling a stone at a hair and not miss.
9. David took five smooth stones from the stream (17:40).
10. David took Goliath's head to Jerusalem (17:54), which was still a Jebusite city at the time.
## 🧠Chapter Summary
> [!note] 🌱 Still growing. This section is on its way.
## ✝️ Christ in This Chapter
Christ is our Champion who defeated the enemy we could never face. David stood alone for Israel and declared that the battle belongs to the Lord (17:45-47), and Jesus destroyed the one who had the power of death (Hebrews 2:14-15).
## 🔎 Key Observations / 🛟 Life Application
> [!note] 🌱 Still growing. This section is on its way.
## đź’¬ Discussion Questions
1. Saul and the army were afraid for forty days (17:11, 16). What giants cause fear in your life?
2. David remembered how God had delivered him from the lion and the bear (17:34-37). How does remembering God's past faithfulness build courage today?
3. David refused Saul's armor and used what God had prepared him with (17:38-40). Why is it important to serve God as the person He made you?
## ✍️ Key Verses to Remember
- đź“– verse 37: The Lord who rescued David from the lion and bear will rescue him from the Philistine.
- đź“– verse 45: David comes against Goliath in the name of the Lord.
- đź“– verse 47: The battle belongs to the Lord.
## đź”— Related Passages
- đź”— [[Psalm 18#Verse 32.|Psalm 18:32-36]] - God trains my hands for war.
- đź”— [[Psalm 20#Verse 07.|Psalm 20:7]] - Some trust in chariots, but we trust in the Lord.
- đź”— [[2 Chronicles 20#Verse 15.|2 Chronicles 20:15]] - The battle is not yours but God's.
- đź”— [[Ephesians 06#Verse 10.|Ephesians 6:10-13]] - Be strong in the Lord and His mighty power.
- đź”— [[Hebrews 02#Verse 14.|Hebrews 2:14-15]] - Jesus destroyed the one who has the power of death.
## 🙏 Devotional Reflection
đź“ť SOAP: [[1 Samuel 17 - SOAP|A Holy Swagger]]
## đź“‚ Internal Notes