A Champion Out of the Camp of the Philistines (1 Samuel 17:4)

2022-10-11

And there went out a champion out of the camp of the Philistines, named Goliath, of Gath, whose height was six cubits and a span. (1 Samuel 17:4)

Goliath was a giant armed with hundreds of pounds of armor and was over nine feet tall. Everyone in Saul’s camp was afraid of him. Any normal person would be. But David knew “that the LORD saveth not with sword and spear: for the battle is the LORD’S” (1 Samuel 17:47). Jonathan the son of Saul said, “...there is no restraint to the LORD to save by many or by few” (1 Samuel 14:6).

This should sound like so many stories where the Lord delivered the weaker from the mightier. Lahmi, the brother of Goliath, also perished at the hand of another Israelite, Elhanan.

The weaker you are, the more likely the Lord will show His power through you. He does this to demonstrate His own strength over all creation. It was with the Lord’s strength that David came to wield Goliath’s sword.

And the priest said, The sword of Goliath the Philistine, whom thou slewest in the valley of Elah, behold, it is here wrapped in a cloth behind the ephod: if thou wilt take that, take it: for there is no other save that here. And David said, There is none like that; give it me. (1 Samuel 21:9)