
Request your free, three-month trial to Tabletalk magazine. You’ll receive the print issue monthly and gain immediate digital access to decades of archives. This trial is risk-free. No credit card required.
Try Tabletalk NowAlready receive Tabletalk magazine every month?
Verify your email address to gain unlimited access.
Arguably the most well-known and well-loved story in the Bible, the account of David and Goliath in 1 Samuel 17 has it all: action, suspense, intrigue, unexpected twists and turns, and ultimately the triumph of good over evil. The general outline of the story is no doubt familiar to most readers: Israel has drawn up for battle against its perennial enemies, the Philistines. The two armies encamp on opposing mountains. Into the valley between strides the Philistine champion, Goliath of Gath, who challenges Israel to send forth a man to fight him in a winner-takes-all combat ordeal. Somewhat unusually for Hebrew narrative, Goliath is described in great detail:
[His] height was six cubits and a span. He had a helmet of bronze on his head, and he was armed with a coat of mail, and the weight of the coat was five thousand shekels of bronze. And he had bronze armor on his legs, and a javelin of bronze slung between his shoulders. The shaft of his spear was like a weaver’s beam, and his spear’s head weighed six hundred shekels of iron. And his shield-bearer went before him. (vv. 4–7)
Goliath’s size and the magnificence of his armor, some of which was not even available to Israel’s kings at the time, is rehearsed in order to overwhelm us with the giant’s military superiority and strength. Who would challenge such a man? Israel’s king Saul, the obvious choice (see 1 Sam. 8:20), cowers behind his lines, but the shepherd boy David, overhearing this giant’s taunts, steps forward as Israel’s champion. With a sling and a stone, David strides forth and fells the giant Goliath. Israel triumphs, and its God is vindicated.
It’s a remarkable story, but what does it mean for us today? One common answer to this question is to see this story as a promise that God will defeat whatever Goliaths we face in our lives. Perhaps you’ve heard things such as this: “Whatever difficulties you’re facing—whether at work, at home, in a relationship, or with your health—God will give you victory over your Goliath just as He did for David.” This interpretation betrays several fundamental flaws, the most serious of which is that it casts us as the hero of the story. This is perhaps understandable. Who doesn’t want to be the hero of a story? Yet to uncritically identify ourselves with David neglects the grand narrative of the Bible. The Bible throughout casts us in the role not of the Savior but of the saved. We are not the hero of the Bible but the villain who needs to be rescued. We are not the strong and admirable but the weak and morally destitute. The fact of the matter is that it would be much more accurate to see ourselves in the Israelite army—fearful, hopeless, and helpless, cowering behind the lines, in great danger and in need of a great champion. The story of David and Goliath is first and foremost about God’s providing a Champion, a Savior, a Messiah to fight for His people and to conquer all that threatens to enslave and destroy them.
As David strides forth, not in his own strength but in the power of God, he foreshadows the Spirit-anointed Christ’s going forth to do battle for His people. Years later, Jesus would stride into the wilderness to do battle against evil forces far greater than Goliath and the Philistines (Matt. 4:1–11). David delivered Israel from political and physical slavery, a dim picture of what Christ did when He nailed our sins to the cross and disarmed the rulers and authorities, putting them to open shame by triumphing over them (Col. 2:15). David is a type of Christ, the anointed Messiah who fights for His people and defeats the forces of evil that enslave them and threaten to destroy them.

David and Goliath is principally about Christ, but it would be a mistake to say that the narrative is only about Christ. David does, in fact, offer us an example of faith that the biblical author wants us to emulate. When David surveyed the battlefield, when he heard the giant Goliath and his blasphemous taunts, he didn’t see what Saul saw or what the Israelite army saw. David, in fact, wouldn’t have recognized a story titled “David and Goliath” but would have preferred the title “God and Goliath.” In his response to Goliath, who towered above him and cursed him by his gods, David offered a taunt of his own that evidenced his deep trust in God:
“You come to me with a sword and with a spear and with a javelin, but I come to you in the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied. This day the Lord will deliver you into my hand, and I will strike you down and cut off your head. And I will give the dead bodies of the host of the Philistines this day to the birds of the air and to the wild beasts of the earth, that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel, and that all this assembly may know that the Lord saves not with sword and spear. For the battle is the Lord’s, and he will give you into our hand.” (1 Sam. 17:45–47)
David views reality through the eyes of faith. He trusts in what he could not see: the Lord’s promises that He would fight the Israelites’ battles for them as they go forth in faith and obedience to His covenant (Deut. 28:7). David believes God’s word and acts on it. In this, David shows us what it means to live by faith and not by sight, and the story of God and Goliath bears this message that challenges us to continue trusting the promises of God even in the face of great trials.
While David demonstrates great faith in this instance, at other times he would fail to do so, and the consequences were disastrous. In fact, the sight of his eyes became the cause of his undoing when he gazed onto the rooftop of Bathsheba and desired her for himself. Though David was a type of the Messiah, he was nevertheless like us, a sinner in need of saving. This is why it is critical that the typological, Christocentric message of this narrative be central to our understanding. The story of David and Goliath offers good news for those who are less like David in 1 Samuel 17 and more like David in 2 Samuel 11.
What hope is there for Christians who fail to live by the faith displayed by David on the battlefield? God provides a Champion who fights for weak, sinful, and faithless people. To divorce the moral imperatives from the gospel indicatives will only lead us down a cul-de-sac of despair and hopelessness. The power of God is found in the gospel, and the gospel is Christ, the Son of God given for sinners. The only hope any of us have of growing in our obedience, of being more like David when he lived by faith and not by sight, is not by trying to be like David in our own strength but rather, in reliance on the Holy Spirit, trusting in the Christ to whom David pointed and in whom David himself trusted (Ps. 110).