1 Samuel Lesson 23
Background on David – 17:12-31
We have to be sure we do not lose the forest for the trees. The purpose of chapter 16 was to authenticate
David. Remember that David had been anointed by the Lord by Samuel, which made
him the “Christ” because the word “Christ” comes from Mashach, to anoint or Christos
in the Greek. And when David had been
anointed it meant that from that point forward he was officially designated as
the messiah-king. However, as with all
times in the Old Testament, God never anoints someone and then allows just the
imagination of men to fill in the details.
When God anoints someone to do a job he always gives evidences that the
person is actually qualified in has truly received the ability that God says he
has received.
And so in chapter 16 we found that David was called into the court of
Saul; just to back and look at verse 18, we find that some time had passed
between the time of the anointing and the time that he appeared as the musician
in Saul’s court. We don’t know the exact time but there was some time that had
elapsed between the time of his anointing and the time that he proved his music
skills. And that is the point of chapter
16, that David had to authenticate himself in two areas: in the area of musical
skill of the warrior king and the area of military skill of the warrior
king. Now this is because in that day a
warrior was looked upon as a man who fought with both soul and body, and so he
had not only to have some dexterity physically, he had to not only be able to
handle a weapon but he had to be able to handle his mental attitude and music
was brought in as one of the areas of ministry to the mental attitude. Thus 1 Samuel 16, a prelude to chapter 17,
refers to David’s proving his mental attitude.
Now great military men down through history have always recognized the
role of mental attitude. In a letter
written on
Now there are the words of a man who understood the relation between the
body and the soul and why in the ancient world the musical ability, something
that you would never guess was close, was because of the thing we developed in
the last part of chapter 16, that David was able to minister to Saul’s soul by
music. And he has been ministering to
our souls in one sense, through his art because when we read the book of Psalms
we are recipients of David’s ministry.
Now that was one area that David had to prove himself in, in the area of
music.
The second area that he had to prove himself was in the area of his
military skill in the physical sense.
Last time we studied the Philistines and we studied some of their
history so that you would understand that when the Philistines showed up with
Goliath, there was a vast amount of history behind it. All of these facts that we gave last time,
how the Philistines came from either Crete or Cyprus, and from there they came
from Ham, and were not Greeks, Greeks came from Japheth, but the Philistines had
picked up Greek culture and they had been prepared over centuries to be the
perfect enemies of Israel. God had put
the Philistines through the school of history to cultivate them so they would
play out doing exactly what God wanted them to do at exactly the right time at
exactly the right place.
Now the Philistines were experts at psychological war. We noted that several times. We’ve noted that in many instances, we noted
for example when Jehovah defeated them in the early chapters of 1 Samuel he did
it precisely in the area where the Philistines were experts, psychological
war. And we’re going to study some of
their psychological techniques tonight.
We also find that the Philistines had this big shot called Goliath, who
was a remnant of the Anakim, a mysterious race of giants that existed in the
earth between the time of the flood and the time of the Exodus and
conquest. Who these giants were we do
not know, except their existence seems to be remembered in the midst of the
world. When you study mythology, whether
it’s classical mythology or the mythology of the ancient near east, you find
stories about these giants, about the great heroes and it appears that these
are survival, a memory, of these terrible people who lived on the face of the
earth. Men hated to remember them
because they were terrified when they did.
And so they suppressed the memory historically and turned it into a
mythology. But we do have evidence that
these people existed, and the semi-giants had been killed off, largely by the
family of Abraham, because remember out of Abraham came not only Jacob who
descendants eliminated them from Transjordania, and whose descendents
eliminated most of the Anakim, but also out of the family of Abraham you had
Moab and Ammon, and both of those families, according to Deuteronomy 2 defeated
these giant races in Transjordania. So
the family of Abraham acted as a blessing to all the world as they will in the
future. Always God blesses the globe
physically and spiritually through
Now that is where we left it last week to tie together how Goliath is
actually a half-breed between the Anakim and the Philistines. Goliath is a small giant, he’s 9’9”. And the rest of them, like King Og, you remember, was 13
feet. So by comparison Goliath is kind of
Tiny Tim. But as he goes on and he takes
his position, we notice in 17:4 where the King James translation calls it a
champion, or literally it comes from the Hebrew word, to stand between. Now to give you a picture from an area that
you’re not used to so that you can visualize better the Goliath/David incident,
I’m going to read a section out of Homer’s
Iliad, Book Three, when you have a similar confrontation and I want you to
pay attention to this short section I’m going to read, just to visualize.
It’s very easy to visualize the scene as Homer paints it, it’s outside
the walls of Troy, the Greeks have come across to chase after the man who stole
Helen from them, and this man’s name is Paris, except in this particular
translation it’s Alexandrus, this is another name that he had, Alexandrus. And Paris and Alexandrus is the man who stole
Helen from the Greeks. This man is the
Trojan, he is the son of King Priam of Troy and because he is the son and
because he’s got an alliance going, when the Greek ships start showing up
across the Aegean and they begin to land near Troy, then all the Trojans and
their allies get together under Priam and Hector and others and begin to do
battle. On the Greek side there’s a man
by the name of Menelaus. Menelaus is the
Greek champion, one of them. Achilles,
right at this point in the story he’s sulking and pouting in his tent. But these two men are going to stage a
confrontation which is centuries, we believe, after the Goliath David
incident. I’ll just read a section here,
about 15 lines so that you can visualize how the Greeks saw this kind of thing
and then you can read this back and notice how the elements appear in the
Hebrew.
“When the companies were thus arrayed, each under it’s own captain, the
Trojans advanced as a flight of wild fowl or cranes that scream overhead when
rain and winter drive them over the flowing waters of Oceanus to bring death
and destruction on the Pygmies. And they
wrangle in the air as they fly; but the Archeans marched silently, in high
hear, and minded to stay by one another.
As the south wind spreads a current of mist upon the mountain tops, bad
for shepherds but better than night for thieves, and a man can see no further
than he can throw a stone, even so rose the dust from under their feet as they
made all speed over the plain. When they
were close up with one another,” very similar situation that we’ve got here,
“when they were close up with one another, Alexandrus” or Paris, “came forward
as champion on the Trojan side. On his
shoulders he bore the skin of a panther, his bow, and his sword,
and he brandished two spears shod with bronze as a challenge to
the bravest of the Achaeans to meet him in single fight.
Menelaus saw him thus stride out before the ranks, and was glad as
a hungry lion that lights on the carcass of some goat or horned stag, and devours it there and then, though dogs and youths set upon him.
Even thus was Menelaus glad when his eyes caught sight of
Alexandrus, for he deemed that now he should be revenged. He
sprang, therefore, from his chariot, clad in his suit of
armor.” The story goes on to describe
the battle between Paris and Menelaus.
That is the kind of [can’t understand word] champions that is mentioned
here in the Bible between David and Goliath.
This is not something, I want you to get away from this picture that you
probably have heard from Sunday School literature where Goliath is walking out
in front and some little kid with a slingshot comes up. David is not a little kid to start with; he’s
not a little boy, we know this because there’s some time between his anointing
the battle. We know this because he was
acceptable as a mature adult in Saul’s court. We know this because he already
had a reputation established so that he was recommended to Saul’s court. So David is a young man, probably college age
or over, at this point and he’s no teenager.
There’s a reason why he selected the weapon, which we’ll get into later. But he is not a teenager, he is a champion of
the Israelites and you couldn’t have engineered a better situation.
Now let’s look how God works and apply this principle in your life that
“all things work together to good, to them that love God, to them that are the
called according to his purpose.” We can
go all the way back to the time of the settling of the Philistines on Crete
which we’ll just say 2500 BC, they’re in the land by 2000 because Abraham saved
them; at 1400 they already are so powerful that the Mediterranean’s called the
sea the Philistines. And now we’re down
to the year 1000 BC. So for 1500 years
God has been working with two lines, the Philistine and the Anakim. For fifteen centuries the sovereign Lord of
history has been engineering this day.
He has been getting together the perfect combination of people, in the
perfect place at the perfect time. And
it’s taken Him fifteen centuries to pull this off. Why?
Because God in omniscience knows that in fifteen centuries, from 2500
there’s going to come a time when his champion must be empirically proven to
men and will have to face a tribe that will be public, a tribe that will prove
beyond the shadow of a doubt that he is mashach-malek,
the anointed king.
In order to do this the sovereign God has engineered history to
precipitate a controversy just in this chapter that will show David’s ability
as a king. This is the hour for which
all of history has moved, this grand confrontation between Goliath and David;
it’s been set up and it’s been in the mill for centuries. This is a picture of how God operates in your
life and mine. He can take trials and
pressures and he brings them into our life at just the right time. 1 Corinthians 10:13 says “no testing has
taken you but such” that God hasn’t screened, God has personally screened… if
you have pressure or trials today I can tell you dogmatically and emphatically
one thing about it. I may know nothing
about your background, I may know nothing about the trial, but even though I
don’t know any of the specifics I know one principle, that today, no matter how
big that pressure is it is not bigger than you’re capable of handling as unto
the Lord. With the assets of grace that
God has provided you will never face a problem bigger than the supply. God will not permit that. You are His child, if you have trusted Christ
as your Savior, you are His child and God is not a stupid father; God is a
careful Father and He will not permit His sons and daughters to face trials for
which they are not equipped, and we are all His sons or daughters.
Therefore, that being the case, it means that our trials have been
screened, have been set up. Now set up
for what purpose? Why has this
particular pressure, this crisis, been set up for the nation Israel. Now if you look at is David’s brothers, we’ll
take David’s brothers over here on one side of the ledger and David on the
other side. Now David’s brothers come
out of the same family as David, both have the same father, both have the same
childhood, both have the same education, both had the same opportunity. Seven of them are clods and one is a winner.
Why? David is a boy that has been on
positive volition for years. Next week
we’ll go into the training that David had.
He’s a boy who ever since he can remember has been on strong positive
volition. He had his ups and downs, as we’ll see, but generally speaking he was
a man who operated on positive volition and so therefore in David’s soul, David
started with positive volition, he got the enlightenment of the Holy Spirit at
an early age, and he began to develop the divine viewpoint framework in terms
of the revelation available in his day, and it was going on to a fantastic love
of God. Now David had a particular
soul; David’s house had a very sensuousness about it, David physically was a
very sensuous man. David’s whole family
was this way, this is why the book of Proverbs is so filled with this, because
he’s telling Solomon how to take care of it.
It’s a family problem they have and they particularly were a very
sensuous group of men. And Solomon, you
can see what happens to him, he had a thousand women. So Solomon obviously was a very sensuous
individual and he picked it up from his father David. David had the same sensuality but he was a
lot more mature in how he handled it.
David knew his own soul and the weaknesses thereof. And David knew he had this sensuousness about
him but he turned it into something positive.
David had a fantastic response to God.
David responded to God like few men have ever responded to God in
history. David does things in his life that embarrassed his wife, that
embarrassed his family because of the tremendous response he had to God’s
grace. He’s a very interesting person,
and he apparently as a young man realized this capability that he had in his
soul and he knew if he didn’t get with it spiritually and he was dreaming about
motorcycles instead that he would have to do something to edify himself when
the pressures and trials came. And he
did; at an early age he probably got up almost to the fulfillment stage; he was
a man who was ready for this trial at this time.
Now had God brought Goliath to him five years before David would not
have been ready. Had God brought Goliath
to him ten years later it would have been too late. God brings Goliath into David’s life at the
right hour of the day, we’ll see that in this passage. This passage is a passage that emphasizes
God’s timing. The only other passage I
know in Scripture that is this acute as far as time is that passage that
describes Joseph and how his brothers throw him into the pit, and you can tell
that the author of Genesis 37-38 there, he’s telling how Joseph got lost and he
wandered around looking for his brothers, all that was in the providence of God
so that the kid would get lost, and not find his brothers until just the time
when they’d throw him in the pit and the Midianite caravan would be coming
by. All of it is worked out in God’s
sovereignty and in His providence. So
the timing is critical. Now the timing
is another thing, not only is this the right era, an era when military
confrontation would be decided by champions, not only is it that kind of an era
of history, this is the right day and the right hour of the right day.
And you’re going to see that David recognizes this and he recognizes
that he has walked into something tremendous.
He sees this trial and he says this is great, God has pictured this
trial just for me at this hour and David’s response in this chapter is the
response that every believer should have to trials in our life. We should see these trials as totally custom
fit for us; custom fit for what? Custom
fit so that we can respond to them and we can glorify the Lord. We can glorify the Lord because we claim His
promises in the middle of it. We make
Jesus Christ the issue, and making Jesus Christ the issue means that we can
glorify Him and turn that trial into something very wonderful.
Another thing you want to notice about this trial, the means of the
trial is by a Gentile, in particular a Gentile on tremendous negative volition,
and therefore a type of Satan. So
therefore God uses demon powers and Satan himself to set up trials for us. Now Satan loves this, he’s in this business of
attacking believers, but he’s dumb in one respect, in that he always gets used. God always uses Satan to accomplish just what
God wants to accomplish. God used Satan
to get Christ crucified, and the very act of crucifying Christ is what undid
legally Satan’s hold on the whole human race.
So you talk about somebody that gets humiliated, a genius that is
forever frustrated, that is Satan. He
always thinks he has the opportunity but every time he gets it, it turns right
around against him and here’s one of those illustrations. Goliath relishes to kill somebody here. This is a bloodthirsty, in one sense, coward,
who has a big mouth, and he can’t wait until he can clobber somebody littler
than he is. So he is anxious to do this,
and of course, what’s going to happen, he’s going to get clobbered and through
it, he doesn’t know this, but this is going to be a tremendous sign to the
nation Israel.
Let’s pick up where we left off in the text in verse 12. Goliath has just defied the armies of God;
the army has put out an order for Alka Seltzer in verse 11, and now in verse 12
David arrives on the scene. And when
David arrives, this is the key point of this chapter. It’s not Goliath, Goliath is not the issue of
this chapter. The issue of this chapter
is does David authenticate himself as the champion. Verse 12 gives us some background and reminds
of certain things in David’s life. “Now
David was the son of that Ephrathite of Bethlehem-judah, whose name was Jesse,
who had eight sons; and the man went among men as an old man in the days of
Saul.” This is a review of the
background given earlier on David but there are some notes here that you ought
to know.
First, Ephrathite, turn to Micah 5:2, notice how beautifully, how
skillfully David’s life mirrors Jesus Christ.
Remember I told you to watch something in Samuel but this book has as
its objective the development of the office of the king. And as you see this office developed, first
God puts the chair and then he fits the candidates to the chair. Saul didn’t
sit in the chair, David does sit in the chair.
God uses the chair, the office, to measure His candidate. So out of this we’re going to see the work
and the person of Messiah; out of this you get an ideal picture. Now look at David for a moment; David comes
out of a family in a certain little town in Bethlehem but there were several
Bethlehem’s and one of them was Bethlehem Ephrathah. In Micah 5:2 is a prophecy about that same
town from which David originally came.
“But thou, O Bethlehem Ephrathah, though thou be little among the
thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth unto Me that is to be
ruler in Israel, whose going forth has been from old, from eternity past,”
proof of the deity of the coming Messiah.
Notice, “whose going forth has been from eternity.” So we have the town from which David comes is
the same town from which somebody else is going to come, also of the seed of
David; same town, same genes. And this
is the forward look in the ideal David to come.
Back to Samuel. David comes from
a family of eight sons, and the question we have to ask is why is it that these
other sons who are older, whom you remember Samuel almost anointed, why weren’t
these seven men able to do the job David did?
Something different, same family, same education, same mother, same father. What was the difference? Volition; there was a difference, under the
sovereignty of God yes, volition. This
was a group of seven clucks in the family and David was a disadvantaged younger
brother. We’re going to see how the family had a certain attitude toward David
that comes out in this text. David in his early life was always picked on by
his older brothers. Probably Goliath was
nothing, he’d faced seven bullies all the time he was growing up, so one more
wasn’t going to cause any big problem.
And David was the little brat of the family and he was always being
picked on by his brothers, which we can infer some of that picture from a
remark that is later in this chapter. So
he comes out of a family of eight sons, notice the daughters aren’t mentioned,
they say we have sons and children and the word “daughters” usually was not
mentioned because they were considered not the issue.
“…and the man went among men as an old man in the days of Saul.” This is an idiom that apparently he had a
reputation, he was an elderly businessman in the community, and there is a
remarkable similarity between Jesse and Kish.
Kish was the father of Saul; Jesse was the father of David. Remember Kish, fine outstanding, moral, ethical
businessman of the community. Same with Jesse, fine, outstanding, moral ethical
businessman of the community. Nobody
would accuse Jesse of any wrong doing, except Jesse communicated something to
his sons that just didn’t click because none of his sons really got with it
except one, that was David.
Now in verse 13, “And the three eldest sons of Jesse had gone forth,”
it’s past tense, “and followed Saul to the battle; and the names of his three
sons,” and this is given for a reason, “the names of the three sons who went to
the battle were Eliab,[the first-born, and next unto him, Abinadab, and the
third, Shammah.]” Now what are those
details. 1 Samuel 16:6, it’s not an
accident that those details are there because when Samuel went out to look for the
Lord’s anointed to replace Saul he went to the house of Jesse, the first one he
saw was Eliab. “And it came to pass,
when they were come, that he looked on Eliab, and said, Surely the LORD’s
messiah [anointed] is before us.” So he
said look, from my point of view as a man this guy’s got everything, he’s got
education, he’s got culture, he speaks well, he looks like a leader, he’s
strong, from the outside the guy fits it to a T.
Verse 7, “But the LORD said unto Samuel, Look not on his countenance, or
on the height of his stature,” he was a large person, and this is important in
verse 7 because it tells you David’s oldest brother was also tall, but now you
look what the irony that God has set up.
He’s got one boy, Eliab and he’s got one problem, Goliath. And Goliath
is very much larger than Eliab. So what God has done, very cleverly, very
clever of God to do this, Eliab is tall and probably above average in
height. So he actually would be taller
than most Philistines. So who comes out
from the Philistine ranks but a giant, God’s been keeping him in the closet and
waiting until Saul and the boys emphasize human good, emphasize all the
gimmicks, emphasize all these things and God says oh, you think you’re so great
because you’re so tall, you think you’re so great because you’ve got
personality, you think you’re so great because you’ve got a few degrees after
your name. Well let me tell you
something, no matter how many degrees you have after your name, no matter how
much education you have, no matter how many personality courses you’ve taken,
no matter how much wealth you’ve accumulated, I’ll set you up with a problem
that’s bigger than it all. And all your
wealth, education degrees and everything else won’t hack it because I’m going
to put you in a situation that is deliberately designed to drain you of any
reliance upon your human works and all your human gimmicks.
So here we have Goliath deliberately designed against Eliab and we get
that from verse 7; verse 7 shows that Eliab was a tremendously tall man and
Samuel was impressed. But God is
omniscient and God knows, by 1 Samuel 16:7 God knows what’s going to happen in
chapter 17, He knows Goliath is going to come, He sees the trial ahead and so
he says look, Samuel, I’m not going to tell you why, I’m not going to tell you
the reason why… now this is often a very great frustration in the Christian
life, when God says you pray, pray, pray, pray, and God says no, no, no, and
there’s no answers, there’s no reason, there’s nothing. If you have divine viewpoint framework you
can put some of the answers together but you have no detail answers as to why
does God do this. You just trust Him: I
said no! And that’s all God ever says
and it’s one of the most frustrating things of the Christian. God has always allowed us adequate
preparation time, and here God is allowing adequate time for Israel to prepare
with a national leader. And so Eliab, in verse 7, is rejected. God knows ahead of time what the trial is and
He says don’t rely on that, you rely on what I tell you to rely on.
So then in verse 8, “Then Jesse called Abinadab,” there’s the second
one, “and made him pass before Samuel.
And he said, Neither has the LORD chosen this one.” And then [9] “Jesse made Shammah to pass by.
And he said, no, the LORD has not chosen this one.” So the three brothers that are mentioned here
are precisely the same three brothers mentioned in 17:13, the eldest three
sons. Now suppose Samuel was like most
of us and said well Lord, I don’t like Your “no” and I don’t care what you say
about this Lord, I say “yes” and Eliab is going to be our future king. He’s going to be our champion. But he’s a real nice persuasive situation now
in verse 13; see, he’d put all the eggs in the wrong basket had Samuel trusted
in himself and now what the Lord told him to do.
Verse 14, “And David was the youngest;” this is going to give you some
background on the family. Verses 14-16 actually is a parenthesis in the
original, it’s not chronological, it’s just a reflection back to describe
things. “And David was the youngest; and
the three eldest followed Saul. [15] But David went and returned from Saul to
feed his father’s sheep at Bethlehem.”
Now the word “went” and the word “return” in the Hebrew are
participles. A Hebrew participle means
action that keeps on going, it’s the motion picture tense. And it means that the motion in continuing to
go before your eyes, and the point here is that David is going constantly from
Saul to feed his father’s sheep. What
does this tell us? That David had been
appointed to Saul’s court at the end of chapter 16 but he had family
obligations in chapter 17, so here we have the king, Saul is stationed at this
point and Bethlehem is over here, and David is in Saul’s court. He’s on call when Saul gets depressed; every
day they have reports of the day, Saul are you depressed, and Saul says yeah
I’m depressed, go get that kid in here and bring that musical instrument, I’ve
got to have a concert today. So they’d
bring David in and David would keep on playing until Saul stopped being
depressed, and the moment Saul stopped being depressed he said look, my dad has
a business at home, sheep to raise and I’ve got to go back there. So this speaks of the fact that David was a
commuter, he commuted back and forth between Bethlehem and wherever Saul was, back
and forth, back and forth, back and forth, that’s the Hebrew participle.
This does not mean that he left Saul’s court, and this is not an
explanation of what’s going to happen later on when it appears that Saul
doesn’t know who he is. Saul knows who
he is, we’ll explain why he asks for David’s father. But this commuting, that David goes back and
forth, shows you a very interesting principle about David. David assumed responsibility. It would have been very easy for a young boy,
just think of a family pressure, put yourself in David’s shoes, you have seven
older brothers that are always bullying you, you have a very unfortunate home
situation and what better excuse would you have to get out of your home
situation than to say hey, I’ve got appointed to the king’s court, bologna with
Bethlehem, I like it better here. And he
could have used that as Christians use these excuses all the time to avoid bad
home situations. People leave the home
to get married at an early age; they don’t want to get married, they just want
to get out the house and they find themselves stuck in a worse house. So don’t avoid your problems, you think you
have a bad home situation, you go on negative volition to get out of it you’ll
be in a worse situation than you ever thought of at home.
So David as a young man resists the natural temptation he must have
felt, with seven older brothers constantly harassing him, constantly picking on
him. When he gets the promotion to the
court he takes it with grace, he takes it with meekness, and he fulfills his
responsibility. Now we’re going to see
something interesting here. Just suppose
David said well, I don’t want to bother with this commuting thing, I’m not
going to run back and forth between Saul and my father, I’m going to stick with
Saul, every young boy likes a hero and I’ve got the king of Israel and he likes
me and one, only one of the teenagers this nation that can have a private
audience with the king, every day I get in there, fantastic, I can talk to the
priests, I can talk to the prophets, I can talk with a whole bunch of people,
I’m Mr. Big. Just suppose that David had
done this; where would David have been when this incident occurred? Back at the courts, not at the command post where
Saul was. And he wouldn’t have the
entrée to Saul, oddly enough, that he’s going to have here. He has commuted home, he is back home, and
now his father is going to set up the situation that will introduce him to Saul
in another vein. You see, Saul doesn’t
realize his military capabilities, he recognizes him as a musician only. So David is going to come at Saul 180 degrees
different and it all starts because… well one thing, he exercises personal
responsibility.
Verse 16 is further background, notice, that Goliath, the loudmouth, had
been going on for forty days. “And the Philistine
drew near morning and evening, and presented himself forty days.” Now the word
“morning is very interesting because it’s not the usual word for morning. It
means the time when you get up, and it’s put in there as a clever little notice
to us to pay attention to something.
This is a side war of the Philistines.
Remember I said everything these people have done so far in the book of
Samuel shows that they are exploiting the…
[tape turns] … before you fight him, destroy his mental attitude
first. And so what happens? At dawn, when every army has revelry, what do
they hear? Loudmouth! Every night instead of taps, what do they
hear? Loudmouth! So this is beautiful, forty days this goes
on, every morning they get up to the tune of loudmouth; every day they go to
bed to the tune of loudmouth, day after day after day, for forty days. Perfectly timed, they can dream about him all
night. They can think about him all
day. Don’t you see, there’s a design in
this thing, perfect attack to psyche the Israelites out and they are. It’s successful, beautifully successful. But again, the sovereignty of God, “all
things work together for good to them that love God, to them that are called to
His purpose,” the very tactic the Philistines are using, God is going to turn
right around on them. Watch. Remember
the word for “mourning” in verse 16 is not the word for mourning, it means get
up early, get started early. So, the
Philistine drew near at the time when people get up early, he was their alarm
clock.
Verse 17, “And Jesse said unto David, his son, Take now for thy brethren
an ephah of this parched corn, and these ten loaves, and run to the camp to thy
brethren. [18] And carry these ten cheeses unto the captain of their thousand,
and look how thy brethren fare, and take their pledge.” Now the ephah and the parched corn shows that
the families of the soldiers had to provide the provisions for this thing. Obviously they either had very lousy rations
and they needed some candy from home once in a while to spruce up the diet or
the army actually did depend on constant provision from home.
But then in verse 18, notice this; remember earlier we saw how when
David went to Saul’s court he brought along some cheese and some things,
obviously Jesse ran a little dairy farm on the side, and he would show his
produce. Now we can’t tell if this is a
bribe or whether it’s just that human good, there’s nothing wrong with it, it’s
just this etiquette thing that we saw earlier with Kish and Saul, and now we’re
seeing with Jesse. “The captain of their
thousand” this means the superior officer over the three boys. Now all of Jesse’s sons appear to be officers
and this is their commanding officer, the man that’s immediately over them,
kind of put in a good for the boys with their boss. So Jesse tells David to do this. “…and take their pledge” this means to bring
back some evidence that they’re alive and well, bring back some letters of
bring back something to the old man.
Verse 19, “Now Saul, and they, and all the men of Israel, were in the
valley of Elah, fighting with the Philistines, ” that again positions us,
brings us up to date where the location is.
Verse 20, “And David rose up early in the morning,” same word as we saw
in verse 16, and it’s there for a reason because of timing. You’ve got to see the timing of this
thing. “David rose up early in the
morning” while it was still dark, and he rose up, “and left the sheep with a
keeper,” again notice his responsibility to his business, he is running a
business here, sheep farming business, and this is something that’s he’s been
evidently given by his father and he’s running it as a responsible young man,
“and went, as Jesse had commanded him; and he came to the trench,” now the word
“trench is the word which apparently was their command post. This is the place where all the head officers
were and obviously this shows that his brothers were officers, they were
located in the center area. “…as the
host was going forth to the fight, and shouted for the battle.” Now notice the timing, see the word “as,” it
was early, the sun is just beginning to come up; he arrives in the camp and
what is he going to hear.
See, if he’d arrived at 9:00 o’clock or 10:00 o’clock in the morning, if
he’d arrived at 2:00 o’clock, he’d never have seen Goliath, he’d never have
heard Goliath, and David doesn’t know anything about Goliath because you can
bet your bottom dollar that the brothers aren’t writing home, hey dad, you know
we got Goliath out here. The men in the
army know about Goliath but nobody else does.
So David probably could have strolled right into the camp, dropped his
cheese, dropped the provisions, and took off and never heard a word. But smart boy is going to come up when the
sun rises and God is going to have His smart boy right there when the sun
rises, at exactly the right time.
So he comes forth just “as the hose was going forth to the fight,” now
the word “fight” means their position, their battle position, it’s a Hebrew
word and it doesn’t mean the act of fighting, it means the rank and the file or
the military location. Apparently they
had some sort of a camp that they went back to at night and during the day
they’d come out and hold these positions.
And it’s those positions that the force is going out to in the morning
to hold; they didn’t fight at night. So
they come out in the morning to hold these positions, and that action is just
happening. Now again look at the
timing. Suppose David had come too late
and the army was already out there. Not
only would he have not heard Goliath, but he wouldn’t have had the contacts
he’s going to have in just a few verses.
So everything has worked beautifully here; this is God’s sovereignty
working all the details out.
Verse 21, “For Israel and the Philistines had put the battle in array,
army against army.” It doesn’t mean
“army against army,” it means position against position. Remember they are on both sides of the valley
of Elah; there’s a valley between them, the Wadi-Elah, it’s a dry riverbed, and
there’s a valley here in between these two positions. So that’s the picture now. Remember there’s a valley between them
because there’s going to be another little word here that’s important.
Verse 22, “And David left his carriage [baggage] in the hand of the
keeper of the carriage [baggage],” he dropped it off with the quartermaster,
“and ran into the army, and came and saluted [greeted] his brothers.” He greeted them. Now this is interesting because David gets
there just at the time the forces are moving out to these fight positions and
he just drops the baggage and says hey, I want to get out there with them. And so he moves out with them.
Verse 23, “And as he talked with them,” notice the word “as,” see the
emphasis on this passage is all adverbial time, it’s all on time, just “as he
talked with them, behold, there came up,” now in the original language the verb
“talk” and the verb “come up” are both participles which again emphasizes
motion is in progress. The picture is
that David is sitting there talking to his brothers; in the process of talking
to them, loudmouth is coming up. And
this is interesting because apparently for forty days loudmouth came out to the
front of his ranks, like I read you this thing from Homer, where Menelaus and
Paris came out of their ranks and they stood in front of their ranks and they
challenged the other side. Well, Goliath
apparently did that, he came out, but today he’s doing something different. The forty-first day he doesn’t stop by coming
out of his ranks; he goes down into the dry river bed and begins to come up the
other bank. So there’s been a new
feature added on the forty-first day of this incident because it says “he is
coming up.”
As David is talking to his brothers, loudmouth is coming up. Now this would be beautiful if you could
picture this, here they are yakking away and they’ve seen this thing happen for
forty days, oh yeah, there’s loudmouth, he’s going to sit out there and talk,
and all of a sudden, hey, look where loudmouth is going, he’s going down in the
valley; hey, look what he’s doing, he’s coming up here. And so Goliath pulls
off something different here, and you’ll notice the reaction. “And as he talked with them, behold, there
came up the champion, the Philistine of Gath, Goliath by name, out of the
armies of the Philistines, and spoke the same words as before; and David heard
them.”
Verse 24, “And all the men of Israel, when they saw the man, fled from
[before] him, and were sore [very much] afraid.” See, they had just marched out very proudly
at the crack of dawn to hold the positions, and their alarm clock comes walking
up to them and they suddenly decide, hey, you know it’s about time we did a “to
the rear, march” and so they start filing back, except it wasn’t very orderly. And David is right in the middle of all of
this, right on the scene. Look at this,
a beautiful picture. So Goliath steps
out of line here and he’s going to be sorry very shortly.
Verse 25, “And the men of Israel said, Have you seen this man who is
come up? Surely to defy Israel is he
come up; and it shall be, that the man who kills him, the king will enrich him
with great riches, and will give him his daughter, and make his father’s house
free in Israel.” Now verse 25, 26 and 27
have to be taken together. This is a
little subtle in the text but if you read it carefully it will teach you
something again about David’s attitude.
Let’s look at verse 25-27, there’s a reason why the narrators set these
verses up this way.
Notice what he gives us in verse 25, he tells us what the rumor is, that
the king will give his daughter to the champion, that’s the rumor. But verse 26 David is cast as saying he
doesn’t know that, because what does David say? “And David spoke to the men who
stood by him, saying, What shall be done for the man who kills this Philistine,
and takes away the reproach from Israel?
For who is this uncircumcised Philistine, that he should defy the armies
of the living God?” So David does not
hear the content of verse 25 until verse 27.
Why is David skipped? Because in
verse 26 David says something that tells us he has already decided to kill
Goliath, without bribes. See, it isn’t
the fact that David comes up there and says hey, did you see that cute daughter
Saul has, wouldn’t you love to have her, wouldn’t she make a neat right woman,
so therefore let’s go out and kill Goliath and pick up this chick. Well, he’s not going to be bribed. By putting that rumor in verse 25 the
narrator tells us a very interesting principle; David decided to fight Goliath
on a spiritual basis first, and after that came the bribe in verse 27, “And the
people answered him after this manner, saying, So shall it be done for the man
who kills him.” “…So shall it be” refers
to verse 25. So the point is that the
rumor is going around the army but David doesn’t hear it; he already chooses to
kill Goliath.
So now we go back to verse 26, study it carefully to see where it is
that David has decided to kill. Please
notice, any pacifist, that David is the type of Christ and he is prepared to
kill somebody here. How did that ever
get in the Bible? “And David spoke to
the men who stood by him, saying, What shall be done for the man who kills this
Philistine,” he already has it on his mind he’s going to be the man; why would
he be asking? In other words, he has
already decided, I’m going to kill that big mouth, he comes up here, I’m going
to wipe him out. Now he goes on to tell
why, and the word and vocabulary that David used gives us insight to what’s on
his mind, why David is thinking this way, I’m going to kill this guy. Because first of all it says, who shall “take
away the reproach from Israel?” The word
“reproach” is the word shame, and what David is saying here is I am ashamed of
my country. I am ashamed that we have an
army that sits here and lets this loudmouth get away with it. I feel embarrassed and our nation has been
embarrassed, so here we find a tremendous sense of shame on the part of David. He is totally humiliated and embarrassed by
this whole incident. It’s really worked
its way into his soul. The word
“reproach” is a strong word and it means David at this point is very upset by
what he sees; he’s tremendously upset by what he sees. “…take away the shame from our country.”
And now it’s not just, if you stopped with a question mark after the
word “Israel,” up to this point you’d say well David worried about the
patriotism, he’s a super patriot. He
was, but it does deeper than that. If it
stopped with a question mark you’d say here’s the gung-ho man, who wants to
guard the flag, he’s a flag waver, society has been desecrated and he’s ashamed
of it and he’s going to straighten out any stupid idiot that’s going to burn
the flag or something like this. That’s
one approach, but the Bible doesn’t stop there, it goes on further. “For,” and here is the reason why David was a
patriot, here is why David could say what he did, “For who is this
uncircumcised Philistine, that he should defy the armies of the living
God?” Don’t you see that David makes
Christ the issue?
The word “living God,” let’s start with that and then we’ll go through
David’s words. We first want to deal
with this phrase, “living God.” Why is
this? The “living God” means God
operating in history. “Living” means
life, something you can observe, he’s not standing out in the clouds some
place, behind His cosmic glory, without doing something in history. That’s what “living” means, that God is
active and doing something, “the living God.”
So this immediately tells us, though David may not have a developed
concept of the Trinity, that he’s making the Second Person, who is the One that
always does the things, the issue. From
the New Testament perspective, looking backwards, though David may not have had
this awareness, from the New Testament we can say he’s making Christ the
issue. Who is this loudmouth that’s
defying Jesus Christ? You see, always
the issue, the honor of Christ is at stake.
Do you see his passion?
This is the passion, by the way, the early scholars of the
fundamentalists had in the 20s. J.
Gresham Machen, Cornelius VanTil, Robert Dick Wilson, the people that were the
real fundies, the real fundies, I
mean the people that followed after them, but those the real men. Robert Dick Wilson who could work with 45
languages, one of those “ignorant fundamentalists.” So we have these men and these men, do you
know why they fought, they lost home, they lost family, they lost church and
they lost reputation. J. Gresham Machen
was defrocked by one of the largest denominations in the United States. We have Christians that think they can reform
it—forget it! J. Gresham Machen was
defrocked and he had his congregation taken away from him and he was bounced
right out of the church. Why? Because he was a scholar that made Christ the
issue and he attacked liberalism in the 1910s and 1920s and 1930s and said who
are these scholars, these liberal blasphemers to the person of Jesus Christ,
who do they think they are. And he wrote
a book called The Virgin Birth of Jesus
Christ which has never been answered. It is still today the classic
reference in all of history to the virgin birth of Christ. But these are the men that started
fundamentalism. It’s the same thing all
over again, they make Jesus Christ the issue and His honor, not ours, David
isn’t concerned with his honor, he isn’t concerned with Israel’s honor, he is
concerned with the honor of the person of Jesus Christ.
Now let’s work back in the sentence.
“that he should defy the armies of the living God,” “defy” means putting
to shame. And David catches the link,
look, he’s humiliating God’s ambassadors and representatives, why do you let
this go on. We can ask the same question
in our day. Why is it we have so many
fundamentalists that allowed their chief to be intimidated by loudmouths like
Goliath. This culture is loaded with
loudmouths like Goliath and we have a group of freaky pastors who are too
afraid to stand up and train and do the digging necessary hour by hour by hour
by hour by hour, and it takes hour by hour to gut it out, and to stick with the
Hebrew and the Greek and to translate and feed their flock to train them to
fight the Goliaths. David was one of
those men; he realized that you can smear the living God by smearing his
representatives and making them look to be like the world’s biggest jerks and
fundamentalists have allowed their sheep to be made out to be the world’s
biggest jerks. And one of the ways they
do it is by getting them to go out and witness five minutes after they become
Christians. And they make literal jerks
out of themselves and they are cast in a very bad light. This is one of the ways, there are many ways. But this Philistine is defying the armies of
the living God.
And now back up in the sentence ever further, what did he call the
Philistine? “Uncircumcised
Philistine.” Why? Why is this?
It goes back to the Abrahamic Covenant.
What is the sign of the Abrahamic Covenant? Circumcision.
Why was circumcision the sign of the Abrahamic Covenant. Because circumcision sets apart every Jewish
male so that he can’t intermarry without it becoming obvious that he is a
Jew. Furthermore, circumcision,
according to Paul, is a picture and type of the circumcision of the sin nature,
the flesh and so on. So circumcision is
the sign of the Abrahamic Covenant. By
calling Goliath the “uncircumcised Philistine” do you know what David is really
saying? This is a long way of saying
what he says very quickly, he’s saying look, the Philistines aren’t part of the
Abrahamic Covenant, what are they doing on this property, what are they doing
here. David is saying get him off the
property, he doesn’t belong, he’s not circumcised, he’s not part of the
Abrahamic Covenant, he doesn’t inherit this property, who does he think he
is. This is not just sheer braggadocio,
this is not just arrogance because it’s related to a theological point. Who is it that’s going to back up the claim
to get the Philistine off the land? The
One who made the covenant—God. God is
going to back up His own covenant, so this is actually a fantastic appeal, and
you can read through the end of verse 26 and never catch the point unless you
have the background.
“Who is this uncircumcised Philistine” he’s on our property. And what is he doing, not only is he on our
property, but he’s defying the armies, and not only is he defying our army but
because he is defying our army he’s smearing the character and the reputation
of Jesus Christ. Now that’s David’s
mentality. Do you have it clear? Do you see why David is different from his
brothers? We’ll see his brothers, we’ll
watch those geniuses perform.
Verse 28, “And Eliab, his eldest brother, heard when he spoke unto the
men,” now this is the older brother that has been picking on his younger
brother all this time, the little family brat, he doesn’t know anything, and
gee, who does he think he is, yelling out to this Goliath character. “…and Eliab’s anger was kindled David,” the
idea here is that his brother began to develop jealousy; he had negative
volition, this is what Eliab’s soul looks like, this is the guy that Samuel
wanted to anoint. He had darkness of the
soul, human viewpoint and hatred, hatred toward God and hatred toward men
resulting in jealousy. That’s a real
good type of Christ, isn’t it, and this is the guy that Samuel wanted to
anoint. But Eliab here, begins to
manifest his soul towards David his own brother, and he begins to get jealous
and he says why did you come here. “…and
he said, Why came you down here? And
with whom did you leave those few sheep in the wilderness?”
Now everything else that we have in God’s Word argues that David was a
very responsible young man. And this is
just an attack and a snippy type thing that only brothers can do to brothers
and sisters can to do sisters and you know how it works. It’s funny, in some circles you know how
Christians call themselves brother this and sister that. It must be because they treat each other like
brother do usually or something. I’ve
never gotten used to that terminology, Brother Clough, I just can’t stand it,
if you want to make me vomit fast just try it some time. Well here are the brethren operating, “why
did you come here? And with whom have
you left those few sheep,” the word “few” is a dig, he says why don’t you take
care of your trivial little business.
That’s the emphasis of this verb, that’s what the “few” means. Look little kid, go home and mind your toys
and leave this to us. That’s the whole
thrust of the attitude behind his brothers.
And now it shows you something else, “I know your pride, and the
naughtiness of your heart; for you have come down that you might see the
battle.” Of course this is opposite,
again, all the data in God’s Word says that David was obedient, he was
responsible, and the word here, “naughtiness of heart” is the word for
disobedience, probably what it means is that he disobeyed them, but as far as
disobeying his father he evidently didn’t.
And the hint that we get that this had gone on for some time in the
family is verse 29, because David says, “what have I done now?” See, “now what did I do?” And so the idea is that this has been going
on and on and on; every time David opens his mouth he gets chewed out. Now this may show some of you why David was
such a great believer. He grew up in a
bad family situation and made fantastic sanctification progress inside it. In other words, he had to overcome a very bad
home situation. He was disadvantaged, if
you want to use HEW’s new terminology.
He came out of a very disadvantaged situation. And it made him great. “And David said, What have I now done? Is
there not a cause?” In other words, what
have I done, have you got a reason for this.”
Verse 30-31, “And he turned from him,” that’s Eliab, “toward another,
and spoke after the same manner; and the people answered him again after the
former manner.” This is gossip, and you
see, here’s the beautiful timing of this thing, by this time apparently the
ranks have broken and they’ve come back to the command post and they’re all
circulating around and David is having this interchange with his brothers as
they go back there. And they sit back
there, and these are key officers in the army, they’re all key officers, chief
of staff and so on, and they’re walking around and David’s brother is there,
and he kind of turns away from David and starts yakking, do you know what this
little kid brother of mine has done, listen to this one, I’ve got a joke,
everybody is panicking and looking around for tranquilizers, well here’s a joke,
maybe it’ll relax some people, verse 31, “And when the words were heard,” see
the timing of verse 31, the exact circumstances, “when the words were heard
which David spoke, they rehearsed [reported] them to Saul; and he sent for
him.”
Do you see how God works in little things. All of this, all the furor, the battle,
chaos, the confusion, and God has David at the right place saying the right
thing, just so the right ears hear it, and those ears pass it up all along the
line till Saul hears it. And next week
we’re going to see what happens when Saul hears it.