DAVID AND GOLIATH - Anne East

Wednesday 21^st January 2026

1 Samuel 17 , Mark 3: 1-6

May I speak in the name of the living God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen

I see from my diary that I preached here on Wednesday 22^nd January 2025 — on the Gospel reading Mark 3: 1-6, today’s reading, the man with the withered arm.

On Sundays we are used to a three year cycle before the readings come back again – but this has come round rather quickly. I don’t flatter myself that you’ll remember what I said a year ago – but I’ve decided today to look at our Old Testament reading: David and Goliath.

Along with Noah’ s Ark, this story is one of the most popular and well remembered of my childhood Sunday School days, and featured in lots of Children’s illustrated Bibles, including the ‘pop-up’ one that I had. You opened the book and up jumped the giant, with the boy David (dressed in a sheep skin) beside him.

The ‘shepherd boy who defeated a giant’ really captures imaginations:

“Only a boy named David, / Only a rippling brook,/  Only a boy named David, / Five little stones he took!  / And one little stone went into the sling, / And the sling went round and round!” . . .  / “One little stone went up in the air and the giant came tumbling down”

Is it true? Well it depends what you mean by ‘true’. Is it historically accurate? There is confusion over the narrative because in the second book of Samuel there is an account of another Bethlamite ,called Elhanan, killing Goliath. (Perhaps it was a different Goliath? Or perhaps it was Goliath’s brother? There have been all sorts of suggestions by scholars to account for this discrepancy. But in popular tradition the story became attached to David – who was after all Israel’s greatest hero / king.  

And the giant? Some manuscripts have him at ‘6 cubits tall’ — 9ft 6 inches. Others have ‘4 cubits’ — 6 ft 6 inches. (don’t ask me for metres!).

Let’s look at the description earlier in chapter 17:

⁵ He had a helmet of bronze on his head, and he was armoured with a coat of mail; the weight of the coat was five thousand shekels of bronze. ⁶ He had greaves of bronze on his legs and a javelin of bronze slung between his shoulders. ⁷ The shaft of his spear was like a weaver’s beam, and his spear’s head weighed six hundred shekels of iron

This is a formidable opponent!

Verse 3: The Philistines stood on the mountain on one side, and Israel stood on the mountain on the other side, with a valley between them.

Filmic! You imagine the camera panning across the valley, focusing on Goliath and then dropping down to the shepherd boy.

But let’s step aside from the claims of history, and scholarly accounts of what did or didn’t happen. Let’s look at this story as an allegory, a ‘parable’ if you like.

This is a story where the ‘underdog’ wins. We all like that — think of Macclesfield beating Crystal Palace! But that archetype – that universal pattern, where a smaller, weaker opponent faces a seemingly invincible adversary. It is used to describe battles in business, politics and social justice:

§  the anti-ICE demonstrations in America,

§  the protests in Iran,

§  Greenland

§  the ‘little people’ against  big corporations,

§  environmental activism,

§  Erin Brockovich against the Pacific Gas and Electric Company, holding them accountable for water contamination,

§  current climate activists, Greta Thunberg   . . . so many examples.

And what of our individual stories? The struggles against our own personal ‘giants’ the things that loom large and challenging in our lives? What can David – the littlest, the youngest, the weakest of Jesse’s eight sons – what can he teach us?

I suggest two things: first, confidence; confidence built on Trust

³⁷ David said, ‘The Lord, who saved me from the paw of the lion and from the paw of the bear, will save me from the hand of this Philistine.’ So Saul said to David, ‘Go, and may the Lord be with you!’

And secondly; David uses the tools at hand, the ones he is familiar with: a sling and five stones. David’s perceived weakness – lack of military weapons – becomes his strength.

Goliath was covered with armour but the stone found its mark in that small exposed area of the forehead.

45. David said to the Philistine, ‘You come to me with sword and spear and javelin; but I come to you in the name of the Lord of hosts

The implications of believing in a completely trust-worthy God.

There is, in modern life, a tendency to mis-trust. Maybe there’s even a ‘crisis of trust’? Who or what do we believe in this era of AI and fake news? We approach people in public life with unusual levels of suspicion, and not only people – but also institutions (the BBC, Government, Police…)

We need to have a critical response, discernment, wisdom, especially where human beings are concerned — but when it comes to our faith, God is where we find our anchorage in life.

Medieval mystics like Meister Eckhart spoke of God as the “ground of our being”.

Another memorable phrase I came across recently in Rowan Williams’ writing is God is “steady as granite”. He also says: “God always has the capacity to do something fresh and different, to bring something new out of a situation.”

So let us continue to learn from this ancient and familiar story. Let’s have confidence to face up to the giants (both external and internal) that disturb us.

Remember the words of David: in Psalm 27

¹ The Lord is my light and my salvation;    whom shall I fear?The Lord is the stronghold^[a] of my life;    of whom shall I be afraid?

^[…]

³ Though an army encamp against me,    my heart shall not fear;though war rise up against me,    yet I will be confident.

⁴ One thing I asked of the Lord,    […]to live in the house of the Lord    all the days of my life,

[…]he will hide me in his shelter    in the day of trouble;he will conceal me under the cover of his tent;    he will set me high on a rock.

^[…]14 Wait for the Lord;    be strong, and let your heart take courage;    wait for the Lord!

Amen. May it be so.