David & Goliath

When our story starts the Philistines occupied one hill and the Israelites another, with the valley between them.

The Philistines had a champion named Goliath. Goliath was over nine feet tall. He had a bronze helmet on his head and wore a coat of scale armor of bronze weighing 125 pounds and a bronze javelin was slung on his back.

Goliath stood and shouted, “Why do you come out and line up for battle? Am I not a Philistine, and are you not the servants of Saul? Choose a man and have him come down to me. If he is able to beat me, we will become your servants; but if I beat him, you will become our servants and serve us.”

When they heard this the soldiers were terrified. They look at each other and quaked in their boots. The soldiers had no one in their ranks who was as big as Goliath and no one wanted to go and fight him. So he Goliath kept coming out and yelling and the soldiers kept shaking in fear.

Now David was a young boy, a shepherd. He spent some time with King Saul at the palace, but most of the time he spent out in the field keeping his fathers sheep.

David’s older brothers were all in the army and they were on the hill looking at the Philistines and quaking with fear.

So one day David’s father told him to take some food to his brothers. He went to them, and when he got there he saw the Philistine army lined up on the hill, and the soldiers quaking in their boots, and he couldn’t understand why.

Then Goliath came out and begins to speak. "Who will fight me? Are you not the soldiers of Saul? Will no one stand and fight me?"

This enraged David. He turned to his brothers and said, "We are not only the servants of Saul, we are the servants of God. If God is standing with us, then who can be against us?" The he said, "If all of you soldiers are too scared to fight him, then I will fight him because I know that God will protect me."

So David went to the king and asked to go and fight against Goliath.

But King Saul said, “You are not able to go out against this Philistine and fight him; you are only a boy”

But David said to Saul, “Your servant has been keeping his father’s sheep. When a lion or a bear came and carried off a sheep from the flock, I went after it, struck it and rescued the sheep from its mouth. The God who delivered me from the paw of the lion and the paw of the bear will deliver me from the hand of this Philistine.”

Saul said to David, “Go, and God be with you.”

So David went to the river and chose 5 smooth stones. Then he walked to the front lines and waited for Goliath. When Goliath came out and asked if anyone would fight him David stepped forward.

When he saw how young and small David was Goliath laughed and made fun of him, and all of the Philistines laughed and made fun of him. But David said “You come against me with sword and spear and javelin, but I come against you in the name of the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied. This day the Lord will hand you over to me, and the whole world will know that there is a God in Israel.

As Goliath moved closer to attack, David ran quickly toward the battle line to meet him. Reaching into his bag and taking out a stone, he slung it and struck the Philistine on the forehead. The stone sank into his forehead, and he fell facedown on the ground.

So David triumphed over Goliath with a sling and a stone; without a sword in his hand he struck down him down.