There are many well-known narratives connected with David in 1 and 2 Samuel. David gets a spear thrown at him, he flees from Saul, he eats bread from the Table of Bread, he becomes king over all Israel, he receives covenant promises from the Lord, etc.
But perhaps the most famous story with David is his defeat of Goliath the Philistine. David is a young man, Goliath is a mighty warrior, and no one in Israel is brave enough to respond to the warrior’s taunts. Except David. He’s not even a soldier in the battle when he steps forward. He defies Goliath’s defiance, picks up five stones for his sling, and begins to run toward the Philistine warrior.
“And David put his hand in his bag and took out a stone and slung it and struck the Philistine on his forehead. The stone sank into his forehead, and he fell on his face to the ground” (1 Sam. 17:49).
How might interpreters understand David’s victory over Goliath? More specifically: who is David in this story? Is David (a) David, (b) Christ, or (c) You? The answer is (d)—all of the above.
David Is David
The accounts about David in 1 and 2 Samuel are historical accounts about Israel’s first king from the tribe of Judah. David is the son of Jesse, and he has a lot of older brothers. He was born in Bethlehem, he was anointed by Samuel, and he was king over the land of Israel forty years (from approximately 1010–970 BC).
When we read about David killing Goliath in 1 Samuel 17, we’re reading about the victory of a historical figure. There really was a David who really slung that stone against that warrior who really dropped dead.
But there’s more to say.
Christ Is David
The life of David is part of a matrix of Old Testament types and patterns that point to the Lord Jesus. There is a christological significance to David’s defeat of Goliath. This significance doesn’t diminish the historicity of David. The historicity of the story grounds the christocentricity of the story.
David is a type of Christ. When Jesus was born, he was born in Bethlehem—like David. He’s from the tribe of Judah—like David—and is the promised king from David’s line. When David killed Goliath, the stone hit Goliath’s forehead. In fact, it sank in (1 Sam. 17:49). Since David represented the seed of the woman and Goliath represented the seed of the serpent, David’s victory over Goliath was an echo of the promise in Genesis 3:15, that the descendant of Eve would crush the serpent’s head. Goliath was even covered with scales of armor like a serpent (17:5–6). David’s head-crushing victory foreshadowed Christ’s head-crushing victory. Christians rejoice that Christ has defeated sin, the devil, and death.
What can we say thus far? David is David, and Christ is David. But we’re not done yet.
You Are David
Bear with me as I explain why you are David. This third assertion doesn’t deny the historicity of David or the christocentricity of David’s victory over Goliath. But my assertion does resonate with the larger Great Tradition of interpretation that connects the work of Christ to the life of God’s people.
We are “more than conquerors through him who loved us” (Rom. 8:37). We are conquerors because of Christ’s victory, a victory which grounds our perseverance and leads to our own obedience.
The Christian life is spiritual warfare. Put on the whole armor of God, Paul says, to stand against the devil’s schemes (Eph. 6:11). We fight against cosmic powers and this present darkness (6:12). Following Jesus means resisting principalities. By the Spirit, we “put to death the deeds of the body” (Rom. 8:13), which is the practice called mortification.
The story of David is not a mere moral lesson for disciples, but it is relevant for discipleship because of our union with Christ Jesus the Head-Crusher. In the interpretive tradition of church history, the moral sense of a text was called the tropological sense. While interpreters can err by simply moralizing Old Testament narratives, we must not overcorrect by ignoring the moral implications of such stories for the Christian life. We should imitate the faith of the cloud of witnesses who have gone before us (Heb. 11), and that cloud includes David (11:32).
When we study 1 Samuel 17 in the breadth of the biblical canon, we can see that David is David, Christ is David, and you are David.
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