As had often happened in the days of the Judges, the heathen Philistines came up and made war against the people of Israel, and the eldest three of David’s brothers were in the king’s army. Many weeks went by, but no word came from the camp. So the father sent David down with provisions for the brothers and a present for their captain.
The shepherd boy found the two armies in camps opposite each other, across a narrow valley. Every one was excited over Goliath, a giant who came down every day into the valley from the army of the Philistines and challenged the king of Israel and all his men. Goliath was nearly eleven feet tall. He wore a bronze helmet about as big as a bushel measure, and his spear was like a weaver’s beam. Even King Saul and David’s tall brother Eliab were much too small to fight with the Philistine giant.
David could not bear to hear Goliath calling the king and his soldiers cowards and repeating wicked words about the God of Israel. So he went and told Saul he would like the chance to go down and fight the insulting giant.
The soldiers laughed at this, and Eliab told his young brother to go home and mind his “few sheep in the wilderness.” But David would not be put off. He told how God had helped him kill a lion and a bear in one night. The lad was so earnest that the king consented to let him try.
The only weapons David took were his staff and his sling. On his way to meet the giant he stopped at the brook and picked up five smooth pebbles. Both armies looked on breathless at the strange combat. Great Goliath laughed at little David, as if the king of Israel were playing a joke on him. He cursed David by all the gods of the Philistines, and yelled:
“Am I a dog, that thou shouldst come to fight me with a stick? For this I will feed thy little carcass to the birds.”
Then David shouted back to Goliath, “I come in the name of the God of Israel whom thou hast defied.”
All the Israelites and Philistines saw the boy make a quick motion with his sling, and heard a thud. The giant dropped his heavy spear, threw up his huge hands and fell, with a groan and a great clatter of armor, face downward on the ground.
David’s first pebble had done the work. It had gone swift and straight through the eye-hole in Goliath’s brass helmet and sunk deep into his low, brutal forehead, killing him almost instantly.
“And when the Philistines saw their champion was dead they arose and fled. The children of Israel returned from chasing after the Philistines, and they spoiled (looted) their tents.”