1 Samuel 17:32 Commentary and Bible Study

‘And David said to Saul, Let no man's heart fail because of him [Goliath].’ We hear spiritual language again. ‘Why should the Israelites be dismayed and terrified on account of this Philistine? This is a matter of faith; we have the promise of God with us. We must act to defend the cause of God.’ ‘Thy servant will go and fight with this Philistines.’ These are precious words. Now, sadly, the majority of Israelites were faithless, probably idolaters, and their hearts had already failed. But what David is doing is he speaking to the remnant. There always was a minority in the Jewish nation, a remnant of people who trusted in God and prayed to him, and no doubt David has them in mind. He knows that if he is to succeed, it will be by divine power, and it will also be through the prayers of the true church, that remnant of believing souls in Israel. Saul is incredulous, cynical. ‘Thou art not able to go against this Philistine to fight with him: for thou art but a youth, and he a man of war from his youth’, and over nine feet tall. David was at least twenty by this time, and we know from previous descriptions of him that he was no mean lad even at twenty. He was obviously pretty stocky and powerful and well built, but nevertheless he was still young and fresh of complexion, inexperienced, and unmarked. Whereas, of course, this giant of a man, this Philistine, Goliath, had been a man of war from his youth. David was absolutely no match for him. We have seen from the description earlier in the chapter, not only the size of Goliath, but the weaponry that he carried. The picture is deliberately laboured to tell us, this man was invincible; it was impossible that he could be brought down by anyone who the Israelites would have at their disposal. This is an impossible mission. And yet David, anointed of God, a man after God's heart, a man of faith, grasps the promises and they give him courage: God has said he will be with us. This is his battle. It is not surprising that David was underestimated by his brothers, by the people who heard him volunteer, and by Saul, because, in spite of the fact that the descriptions suggest that he was a stocky and tough young man, nevertheless he was gentle in his manner and disposition. He was very fair of countenance, unmarked, and young looking. He could easily be underestimated. He had been at court as harpist to King Saul, as well as armour bearer, and so his whole manner was very gentle. He was like a nurse to Saul in the way he consoled him, and played to him. So that gave Saul and others the impression: this young man would be hopeless for this task, and altogether inadequate. David answers Saul very carefully. You are inexperienced, says Saul. ‘Yes’, David seems to say, ‘I may be inexperienced in warfare, but I am experienced in individual hand-to-hand combat and confrontation.’ ‘And David said unto Saul, Thy servant kept his father’s sheep, and there came a lion and a bear and took a lamb out of the flock.’ The Hebrew is open to being translated slightly differently, as though this happened more than once. Our translators – and they are probably right – are reporting it as a single incident, but that is enough. He reports this event, and it was probably famous in Bethlehem; they had perhaps seen the carcasses of the animals. He kept his father's sheep, and a lion appeared and a bear. There were many lions in that region in the woods and the forests at that time, and Syrian brown bears, so the experts tell us. In each case David pursued the predator, smote him, and delivered the lamb, and then the animal turned on him. Remarkably, astonishingly, armed we assume only with a staff and little else, he was able to overcome a lion and bear. You see the significance of this? David would have looked at the scene once this was all over, and he would have thanked God for such a deliverance. It must have all happened so quickly and it was only afterwards, he began to consider: ‘What has the Lord just brought me through?’ This was astonishing: that a relatively unarmed man, a youngster, should accomplish this. But David was a spiritual man, and he would have thought to himself: ‘What is my God's purpose in this?’ What is the purpose in this deliverance? And he couldn't figure it out, but he didn't forget it; there is something precious here for me. Now he sees the spiritual significance, and he sees that a champion is needed: something far beyond him physically, humanly, to defeat this great champion of the Philistines. ‘That is why I was given victory over the lion and the bear; I see it.’ He had the word of God with him, and God had graciously given him a previous deliverance of a remarkable nature, which was a help and an encouragement to his faith, and that is what enabled him to present himself to be the representative of Israel against Goliath. Israel in a sense is just like a lamb, a wandering sheep, and the enemy had got hold of her, and David became her deliver. ‘And this uncircumcised Philistine shall be as one of them.’ This is not an insult. It’s not derogatory language; it’s spiritual language. This man is outside the field of God's favour and his enemy, and bitterly against him, and insulting him. He is not one of those under promise. ‘And so he shall be as one of those, seeing he hath defied’, insulted, and purported to expose, ‘the armies of the living God’, the armies that are under the promise of God, if they believe and act. ‘The Lord’ – he gives all the credit to the Lord – ‘that delivered me out of the paw of the lion and out of the paw of the bear: he will deliver me out of the hand of this Philistine’, and Saul is quite carried away. Saul was a very emotional man sometimes, but it seems that by the work of the Spirit he realised that David was God's instrument. ‘And he said to David, Go, and the Lord be with thee.’