1 Samweli 17

The Philistine champion’s challenge

¹The Philistines brought their forces together for war. They assembled at Socoh in Judah and made camp at Ephes-dammim, between Socoh and Azekah. ²Saul and the men of Israel also came together. They pitched camp in the Valley of Elah and formed their battle line facing the Philistines. ³The Philistines held the hill on one side and Israel held the hill on the other, with the valley between them. ⁴Then a champion came out from the Philistine camp. His name was Goliath, and he was from Gath. He was about 9 feet 9 inches tall.^{a 5}He had a bronze helmet on his head and wore a coat of scale armor made of bronze that weighed about 125 pounds. ⁶He had bronze guards on his legs, and a bronze javelin was slung across his back.^{b 7}His spear had a shaft like a weaver’s beam, with an iron head that weighed about 15 pounds. A man carrying his shield walked in front of him.^{c 8}He stood and shouted to the ranks of Israel, “Why have you come out and lined up for battle? I am the Philistine, and you are Saul’s servants, are you not? Pick a man for yourselves and let him come down to me. ⁹If he can fight me and kill me, we will be your slaves. But if I defeat him and kill him, you will be our slaves and serve us.” ¹⁰And the Philistine said, “I defy the ranks of Israel today! Give me a man, and we will fight each other.” ¹¹When Saul and all Israel heard what the Philistine said, they were shaken and terrified.

¹²Now David was the son of that Ephrathite of Bethlehem in Judah whose name was Jesse. Jesse had eight sons, and in Saul’s time he was already old, advanced in years.^{d 13}Jesse’s three oldest sons had followed Saul to the war. The names of the three who went to war were Eliab the firstborn, Abinadab the second, and Shammah the third. ¹⁴David was the youngest, and the three oldest had followed Saul.

¹⁵David went back and forth from Saul’s service to tend his father’s sheep at Bethlehem. ¹⁶Meanwhile the Philistine came forward every morning and evening and took his stand, for forty days.

David is sent to his brothers

¹⁷Jesse said to his son David, “Please take about 20 quarts of roasted grain and these ten loaves for your brothers, and hurry to the camp with them for your brothers. ¹⁸Also take these ten cheeses to the commander of their unit. See how your brothers are doing, and bring back some token from them.”^{e 19}Saul was in the Valley of Elah with the brothers and all the men of Israel, at war with the Philistines. ²⁰David got up early in the morning, left the sheep with someone to watch them, loaded up the food, and set out as Jesse had told him. He reached the camp just as the army was going out to its battle positions, shouting the war cry. ²¹Israel and the Philistines were drawn up, battle line facing battle line. ²²David left his load with the keeper of the supplies, ran to the battle line, and went to ask his brothers how they were. ²³While he was talking with them, the champion, the Philistine from Gath named Goliath, came up out of the Philistine ranks and spoke the same words as before, and David heard them. ²⁴Whenever the men of Israel saw the man, they all ran from him in great fear. ²⁵The men of Israel were saying, “Have you seen this man coming up? He comes up to defy Israel! The king will give great wealth to the man who kills him. He will give him his daughter as well, and he will make his father’s family free in Israel.” ²⁶David asked the men standing near him, “What will be done for whoever kills this Philistine and removes the disgrace from Israel? This uncircumcised Philistine, who is he, that he dares to defy the ranks of the living God?” ²⁷The troops repeated to him what they had said: “This is what will be done for the man who kills him.” ²⁸When Eliab, his oldest brother, heard him talking to the men, he grew angry with David and said, “Why have you come down here? Who did you leave those few sheep with out in the wilderness? I know your arrogance and the wickedness in your heart. You have come down for nothing but to see the fighting!” ²⁹David said, “What have I done now? Can I not even ask a question?”^{f 30}He turned away from him to someone else and asked the same thing, and the troops gave him the same answer as before. ³¹What David said was overheard and reported to Saul, and Saul sent for him. ³²David said to Saul, “No one should lose heart because of this man! Your servant will go and fight this Philistine.”^{g 33}Saul answered David, “You cannot go out against this Philistine and fight him. You are a mere youth, and he has been trained for war since his own youth.”

³⁴But David said to Saul, “Your servant has been a shepherd for his father’s flock, and any time a lion or a bear would come and carry off a sheep from the flock, ³⁵I went after it, struck it, and rescued the sheep from its mouth. If it turned on me, I grabbed it by its jaw, struck it and killed it. ³⁶Lions and bears alike your servant has killed, and this uncircumcised Philistine will end up like one of them, since he has defied the ranks of the living God.”

David goes out to meet the Philistine

³⁷David went on, “The LORD rescued me from the power of the lion and of the bear, and he will rescue me from the power of this Philistine.” Then Saul said to David, “Go. May the LORD be with you.” ³⁸Saul dressed David in his own battle clothes. He put a bronze helmet on his head and fitted him with a coat of armor. ³⁹David buckled Saul’s sword over the clothes and tried to move about, since he had never worn such gear. Then he said to Saul, “I cannot walk in all this; I have not tried it before.” And David took it all off. ⁴⁰He took his staff in his hand, picked out five smooth stones from the streambed, and put them in his shepherd’s bag, in its pouch. Then, with his sling in his hand, he went toward the Philistine. ⁴¹The Philistine came on, drawing closer and closer to David, with his shield-bearer in front of him.^{h 42}When the Philistine looked David over, he scorned him, because he was only a youth, ruddy and handsome. ⁴³“Am I some dog, that you come after me with sticks?” the Philistine said to David, and he called down curses on David by his gods. ⁴⁴The Philistine said to David, “Come over here to me, and I will feed your body to the birds of the sky and the beasts of the field!”

⁴⁵David said to the Philistine, “You have come out against me with a sword, a spear and a javelin. I have come out against you in the name of the LORD of Armies, the God of Israel’s ranks, the one you have defied. ⁴⁶Today the LORD will hand you over to me. I will strike you down and cut off your head, and this very day I will give the dead bodies of the Philistine army to the birds of the sky and the wild animals of the earth. Then the whole world will know that Israel has a God, ⁴⁷and everyone gathered here will know that the LORD does not save by sword or spear. The battle belongs to the LORD, and he will hand you over to us.” ⁴⁸As the Philistine moved forward and came closer to meet David, David ran quickly toward the battle line to meet him.^{i 49}David reached into his bag, took out a stone, slung it, and hit the Philistine in the forehead. The stone buried itself in his forehead, and he crashed face down to the ground. ⁵⁰So David overcame the Philistine with a sling and a stone. He struck the Philistine down and killed him, though David had no sword in his hand.^{j 51}David ran and stood over the Philistine. He took hold of the Philistine’s sword, drew it from its sheath, and finished him off; and with it he cut off his head. Seeing that their champion was dead, the Philistines ran. ⁵²Then the men of Israel and Judah rose up with a shout and chased the Philistines as far as the valley and the gates of Ekron. Philistine dead lay along the Shaaraim road all the way to Gath and Ekron.^{k 53}When the Israelites came back from chasing the Philistines, they plundered their camp. ⁵⁴David took the Philistine’s head and brought it to Jerusalem, and he put the Philistine’s weapons in his own tent.^l

Saul asks whose son David is

⁵⁵When Saul had watched David going out to meet the Philistine, he had asked Abner, the commander of the army, “Whose son is this young man, Abner?” Abner replied, “As surely as you live, O king, I do not know.”^{m 56}The king said, “Find out whose son this young man is.”

⁵⁷As soon as David came back from killing the Philistine, Abner took him and brought him to Saul, with the Philistine’s head still in his hand. ⁵⁸Saul asked him, “Whose son are you, young man?” “The son of your servant Jesse of Bethlehem,” David answered.