Ep 376 | 1 Samuel 17-31, 2 Samuel 1-7, Come Follow Me 2026 (June 15-21)

**Bryce Dunford** (0:03)
Hey everybody, welcome to Talking Scripture, a podcast where we illustrate relevance and application of the Scriptures in Come Follow Me.

**Mike Day** (0:10)
We also dive into the history and cultures of the text.

**Bryce Dunford** (0:13)
Thanks for taking the time to share and subscribe to this podcast.

**Mike Day** (0:16)
For show notes, head over to our website, talkingscripture.org. Welcome to Talking Scripture, I'm Mike.

**Bryce Dunford** (0:26)
And I'm Bryce.

**Mike Day** (0:27)
And today we're going to be covering the end of 1 Samuel, chapters 17 through 31 And we're also going to be looking at the first seven chapters of 2 Samuel. These chapters really focus on David and his kingship. And probably, I mean, if you were to talk to somebody on the street who's never read the Bible and you were to say, hey, do you know the story of David and Goliath? I think most Americans know this story. One of my favorite things to do as a seminary teacher is I would find those commercials. There's one, it's a golf commercial where they have this golf ball and it shows David using a golf ball instead of a stone. He uses a golf ball and he takes out Goliath. The company's point is if you use our golf balls, you're going to hit the mark and it's really humorous.
The David and Goliath motif is used a lot in marketing. It has so many good spiritual lessons as well as lessons about who David was. In Chapter 17 of 1 Samuel, we're back to this competition or this strife between the Philistines and the Israelites.
The Philistines have this individual who's from Gath. That's verse 4

**Bryce Dunford** (1:29)
She's one of the five cities, right Mike? Yeah. That was one of the five.

**Mike Day** (1:31)
Yeah, that's one of the five cities. It says that he's six cubits and a span. Now, a cubit is for an adult male from his elbow to the tip of his middle finger. Two cubits is three feet. Six is going to be nine. A span is going to be four or five inches. The Masoretic text is putting him at over nine feet. Now, the Greek text is going to put him at four cubits.
If you do four cubits in a span, that's going to put Goliath at six foot four. Jerome, when he's putting this together and the other translators, when they're having to decide, okay, what are we going to do? A lot of these translators would read the Greek, they'd read the Hebrew, and then they have to make a decision. The decision that the translators use for the King James version is, we're going to give you a nine foot tall Goliath. The tallest guy in history that we know of is this fellow who was eight foot 11, and his name is Robert Wadlow.
And so we put some things in the show notes about that. We also put some things in the show notes about the height of Goliath. My take is he's probably six four, but either way, he's still a tall guy. And then he has a bunch of really interesting armor on.
It talks about a helmet of brass and a coat of mail that weighed 130 pounds. I'm just kind of translating the measurements used here. Greaves of brass, a target of brass between his shoulders, and a spear of iron, it says, and then I translate the measurements here, it's 15 pounds, is a 15 pound spear. Some scholars have argued that Goliath's gear demonstrates a later telling of the story with a 7th century author giving 7th century armor, essentially portraying him as a 7th century warrior wearing hoplite armor. In other words, this is a fabricated memory of the 7th century Deuteronomistic historian. Other scholars disagree, and they say, while the text may have been edited during the Deuteronomist time in the 7th century, that Goliath's armor actually does fit in an ancient Near Eastern context. If you're one of those people that is interested in this, we link some stuff in the show notes for you to read. I haven't settled the argument. I certainly don't know, but I think it really is interesting. The author of 1 Samuel 17 wants you to know these specifics, and I think the purpose of why he's telling you this stuff is because, first of all, the coat. It's called the coat of mail in verse 5, but it really wasn't chain mail like we think of, but they were these overlapping like fish scales, bronze armor, and it was 130 pounds. The author is showing you these images because that was more than any human could ever possibly wear. If you've ever done this shot put, good luck throwing a 15-pound spear. I mean, just go ahead and try that even with something that's even lighter than that. Goliath is a big deal. If you look to verse 16, it says that the Philistine drew near morning and evening and presented himself 40 days. He's also called a champion in the text. The word actually isn't champion. The word in the Hebrew is the man in between. In other words, we have the Philistine army and we have the Israelite army and Goliath is a man in between. He's a champion. The reason why I like that idea of the man in between is because the real man in between is David. David is the man in between. Another way to read this story, this beautiful fight between Goliath, this massive giant, and this small shepherd is Jesus is the man in between.