We can see ourselves in the Israelites, who are inspired by David’s victory to join in the fight and plunder (1 Sam. 17:52–53). Not only are we meant to be recipients of the great substitutionary work of the man “in between,” we are also meant to join in his fight.
With apologies to Malcolm Gladwell, the story of David and Goliath in 1 Samuel 17 is not intended to offer a lesson in how underdogs can defeat heavily favored opponents. Nor can we find corporate-leadership strategies or advice for tackling life’s giants ranging from debt to weight problems to addiction. Nor is the lesson “use the armor that’s authentic to you.”
So how then is the story of David and Goliath relevant?
A more useful approach is to ask what God is up to in Scripture as a whole, beginning in 1 Samuel. When we read this story in its canonical context, we can begin to see how it connects to Jesus Christ, and through Jesus Christ to us.
Seeing Jesus: David, Goliath, and the Bible’s Big Story
In 1 Samuel, God is transitioning his people from rule by chieftains to rule by kings, and raising up a monarch with whom he will make an eternal covenant (2 Sam. 7). Because that covenant line spills over outside of 1 Samuel, our interpretation should probably follow suit. And it turns out there are a number of clues in the text that invite a whole-Bible, Christ-centered interpretation.
By mercilessly waging war against the people of God, Goliath and the Philistines have aligned themselves against the Creator and his purposes. But in Genesis 3:15, God had promised that the great enemy of his people would be brought to heel. God puts enmity between the woman and the serpent, between her offspring and his offspring. He promises that her offspring will crush the tempter’s head even though his heel is bruised. Goliath becomes a part of the serpent’s warfare against God’s purposes and people, and thus it is fitting that he dies from a head wound (1 Sam. 17:49, 51; cf. Gen. 3:15). (The books of 1 and 2 Samuel are obsessed with head wounds. Even those who escape beheadings get their hair or beard caught on their way to their demise.)
Another Genesis 3 hint is Goliath’s armor. The NASB and NET Bible translations reflect the Hebrew well: Goliath has “scale armor” (i.e., chain mail). In the Philistine context this recalls Dagon, their “merman” god who is half fish, half man. But a biblical reader with a modest imagination can see a link to the serpent of Genesis 3.
Finally, Goliath is known as a “champion”—the common rendering of what is more literally “the man of the space between [two armies].” He is a substitute, the “man of the space between” who battles on behalf of his people. He does what they cannot or should not do. And that’s also what David does: he stands between his people and their enemies and strikes the decisive blow.
