Top 7 Bible Verses About David and Goliath

Here are seven Bible verses relating to David and Goliath.

First Samuel 17:45-46a “Then David said to the Philistine, “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.”

This is the greatest of all Bible verses about David and Goliath because David understands that it is the Lord who will deliver Goliath into his hands. He comes not in his own name but “in the name of the Lord of hosts” and “the God of the armies of Israel.” The Lord of hosts was understood to mean all dominions and powers, angelic or human. That’s why David had the courage to fight Goliath. What “Goliath” is there in your life today? Do you recognize the fact that “the Lord will deliver” you from this, but in His time?

First Samuel 17:4 “And there came out from the camp of the Philistines a champion named Goliath of Gath, whose height was six cubits and a span.”

This took place when “the Philistines stood on the mountain on the one side, and Israel stood on the mountain on the other side, with a valley between” the Israelites (1st Sam 17:3) but one man stood out above the others and it was Goliath who was six cubits tall and a span and since a cubit is about 18 inches, that would make Goliath almost 9 feet tall! Not much different than some of the tallest men in the world today who approach 9 feet. The point is, they were taunting Israel and begging for a fight. The hoped to draw them out into the plains so that they could overwhelm them and with a skilled, experienced, and physically dominating veteran such as Goliath, it was amazing that David even confronted him.

First Samuel 17:23 “As he talked with them, behold, the champion, the Philistine of Gath, Goliath by name, came up out of the ranks of the Philistines and spoke the same words as before. And David heard him.”

Here is where we are introduced to the Goliath most of us think about in the Bible. There are other Goliaths but none like this one. David had heard Goliath taunting Israel and blaspheming God and became angry and he wasn’t going to let him get away with that. So David courageously said “Let no man’s heart fail because of him. Your servant will go and fight with this Philistine” (1st Sam 17:32) and as you probably already know, David killed Goliath.

First Samuel 21:9 “And the priest said, “The sword of Goliath the Philistine, whom you struck down in the Valley of Elah, behold, it is here wrapped in a cloth behind the ephod. If you will take that, take it, for there is none but that here.” And David said, “There is none like that; give it to me.”

After the death of Goliath the Philistine, his sword was apparently saved because it ended up in a temple. This was when David was running from more than a Goliath; he was running from King Saul and most of his forces. Saul was obsessed with the idea of killing David, so for David, Goliath’s sword would serve very useful for him and his band of men.

First Samuel 22:9-10 “Then answered Doeg the Edomite, who stood by the servants of Saul, “I saw the son of Jesse coming to Nob, to Ahimelech the son of Ahitub, and he inquired of the Lord for him and gave him provisions and gave him the sword of Goliath the Philistine.”

King Saul, after the presence of the Lord had departed, became more and more wicked and when Saul heard that David had come to one of the priests to inquire of the Lord but they also fed him, Saul was so incensed that he had “Doeg the Edomite” murder “eighty-five persons who wore the linen ephod” (1st Sam 22:18) and even in “the city of the priests, he put to the sword; both man and woman, child and infant, ox, donkey and sheep, he put to the sword” (1st Sam 22:19).

Second Samuel 21:19 “And there was again war with the Philistines at Gob, and Elhanan the son of Jaare-oregim, the Bethlehemite, struck down Goliath the Gittite, the shaft of whose spear was like a weaver’s beam.”

This is another Goliath that we read about here but just like the first Goliath, he had the same sized spear so he must have had the same size stature and weight. The Philistines were still fighting with David and there was another Goliath, but this time it was “Goliath the Gittite.” He likely carried the same sized equipment as the Goliath who David had fought, so Goliath was still around in the sense that he and the Philistines remained a thorn in the side of the nation of Israel.

First Chronicles 20:5 “And there was again war with the Philistines at Gob, and Elhanan the son of Jaare-oregim, the Bethlehemite, struck down Goliath the Gittite, the shaft of whose spear was like a weaver’s beam.”

As we read, there was more than one Goliath in this verse, it was Goliath the Gittite but this time they were joined with a coalition of “the Philistines of God, and Elhanan the son of Jaare-oregim.” The fact that there are more than one Goliath’s in the Bible shouldn’t surprise us because there’s more than one Joshua in the Bible, there’s more than one John, and in the Philistine culture, there’s more than one Goliath. Perhaps Goliath was more a title or description than it was a name due to the size of the man.

Conclusion

What Goliath lays directly in your path today? Is it something that is beyond your control? Does it take courage to face it alone? Or, are you really alone at all? Didn’t David say to his Goliath, “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” (1st Sam 17:45-46a). God is still slaying giants in the lives of believers.

Article by Jack Wellman

Jack Wellman is Pastor of the Mulvane Brethren Church in Mulvane Kansas. Jack is also the Senior Writer at What Christians Want To Know whose mission is to equip, encourage, and energize Christians and to address questions about the believer’s daily walk with God and the Bible. You can follow Jack on Google Plus or check out his book Teaching Children the Gospel available on Amazon.