Experience and Strength

David’s words to the Israelite soldiers eventually are reported to Saul, and David is summoned to appear before the king. There, in Saul’s presence, no one else having stepped forward, David volunteers to face Goliath in battle.

Saul, however, is hesitant. In his opinion, Goliath has two huge advantages over David: experience and strength. He points out that the giant is a “man of war” and has been so since his youth. David, by contrast, is but a youth who never has seen armed combat. Saul also implies that Goliath’s great size, which enables him to carry and wield heavy armor and weapons, gives him an advantage of strength that David cannot overcome with his slight build. As Saul sees it, the disparity in these factors means that David is just not able to go against Goliath in man-to-man combat. Saul, however, is looking once more on outward appearances, both Goliath’s and David’s, and David moves quickly to offer him another viewpoint. He points out that he has a greater kind of experience and strength than Goliath—experience of God’s goodness and strength of faith in Him. He tells of times when a lion and a bear threatened his father’s sheep, and he went after the predators and killed them. He attributes these successes to God’s deliverance. And having seen God graciously help him in situations no less desperate than one-on-one combat with Goliath, he is confident that God again will come to his aid, especially since Goliath has made himself odious to God by defying Israel. Matthew Henry writes: “He argues from experience; though he was but a youth, and never in the wars, yet perhaps he had done as much as the killing of Goliath came to, for he had had, by divine assistance, spirit enough to encounter and strength enough to subdue a lion once and another time a bear…. To these he compares this uncircumcised Philistine.”

In the face of this “resume,” Saul ceases his protests and grants his permission for David to fight the giant, adding his prayer that God will indeed be with him. He urges David to take his own armor and weaponry, and David humbly tries them on, but he finds them a hindrance and takes them off once more. Armed only with his shepherd’s staff, his sling, five smooth stones from the brook, and unshakeable faith in God, he sets out to face Goliath.