Episode 18 – David and Goliath –History and Prophecy

Welcome to Anchored by Truth brought to you by Crystal Sea Books. In John 14:6, Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” The goal of Anchored by Truth is to encourage everyone to grow in the Christian faith by anchoring themselves to the secure truth found in the inspired, inerrant, and infallible word of God.

Script Notes:

David replied to the Philistine, “You come to me with sword, spear, and javelin, but I come to you in the name of the LORD of Heaven’s Armies—the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied. Today the LORD will conquer you, and I will kill you and cut off your head. And then I will give the dead bodies of your men to the birds and wild animals, and the whole world will know that there is a God in Israel! And everyone assembled here will know that the LORD rescues his people, but not with sword and spear. This is the LORD’s battle, and he will give you to us!”

As Goliath moved closer to attack, David quickly ran out to meet him. Reaching into his shepherd’s bag and taking out a stone, he hurled it with his sling and hit the Philistine in the forehead. The stone sank in, and Goliath stumbled and fell face down on the ground.

1 Samuel, Chapter 17, verses 45 through 49, New Living Translation

Gaza and Ashkelon will be abandoned, Ashdod and Ekron torn down.

And what sorrow awaits you Philistines, who live along the coast and in the land of Canaan, for this judgment is against you, too!

The LORD will destroy you until not one of you is left.

The Philistine coast will become a wilderness pasture,

a place of shepherd camps and enclosures for sheep and goats.

The remnant of the tribe of Judah will pasture there.

They will rest at night in the abandoned houses in Ashkelon.

For the LORD their God will visit his people in kindness and restore their prosperity again.

Zephaniah, Chapter 2, verses 4 through 7, New Living Translation

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VK: Hello! I’m Victoria K and I’d like to welcome you to another episode of Anchored by Truth. Today we are continuing our conversation about the confrontation between David and Goliath with the Founder of Crystal Sea Books and author, RD Fierro. In some past episodes we’ve been focusing on how the historical details of the story are amply supported by historical records and archeological finds. Do you want to do more of that today, RD?

RD: Well, today I’d like to finish up our review of the historical attributes of the David and Goliath story and move on to a brief consideration to thinking about how the story fits in with Bible prophecy. As listeners may remember one of the strongest lines of evidence that the Bible is authentically the word of God comes from the abundance of fulfilled prophecy that the Bible contains. It’s pretty obvious that in our day we don’t know what the stock market averages will be in a week, much less next month, or next year. We don’t know what sports teams will be in championship games or who will be elected in the next election, despite the fact that all these areas are the subject of intense analysis and debate. So if a book contains evidence that prophets – authentic prophets – were able to describe people, events, and even empires that would exist sometimes hundreds of years in the future, that knowledge would have to come from a supernatural source. Fulfilled prophecy helps us be confident that the Bible is unique among books and that it is the authentic revelation of a transcendent God.

VK: Sounds like we have a lot to cover. But let’s get started by looking at David’s encounter with Goliath from a more humorous perspective. Today we’re going to find out that faith isn’t just a feeling. Real faith requires action

RD: True dat. The book of James in the New Testament tells us that faith without works is dead. Today we’re going to see that one of the great examples in scripture of someone who modeled faith in action was David.

VK: I wonder how you do with Jerry’s name today. There’s usually a lot of action in that arena…

---- David and Goliath, Lesson 4

VK: Hmmm. Some pretty sobering stuff in there RD. Especially the part about love for God starts in our hearts but needs to ready to move to our hands and feet when we’re called to “boot up, suit up, and step up.” That’s something all of us need to understand. Ok, that’s a good start for today, so where do you want our heads to go as we review of the historical attributes of the story?

RD: Well, so far we’ve talked a lot about some of ordinary details of the story – the nations, the locations, Goliath’s armor and weapons and so forth. But of course those aren’t the most sensational part of the story – that obviously is that a relatively short Hebrew teenager took down someone who was one of the preeminent warriors of his day with a single rock from a sling. It goes without saying that a lot of observers think that that part of the story is at best a gross embellishment or just plain fiction. Fortunately, for us the possibility of a much smaller combatant taking down a towering, well-armed infantry champion using a sling has actually been tested scientifically by the History Channel.

VK: Well, this does sound interesting. So, the History Channel actually set up a test to see if you could kill a large man with a single stone hurled from a sling?

RD: Yes they did and in podcast notes that always accompany the podcast version of this show we have included a link to an article that contains the video of the test. Listeners who want to search for it on their own should look for an article on the factual evidence for David and Goliath available from scientistsforjesus on wordpress.com. Let’s cover a few basics to get an accurate picture. First, the sling that David used was most likely a hand held piece of leather with a larger patch in the middle for holding the stone that would be used as the missile.

VK: Most scholars think that David used a hand held sling but there were some slings in that day that were attached to the ends of rods or poles. And while we can’t be entirely sure that David didn’t use one of those, in general the hand held slings were considered to be more accurate, right?

RD: Exactly. Well, when I was doing my research I found out that are still people today that are skilled at using what’s called a Balearic Sling. One of these is a gentleman named Luis Pons Livermore. So the History Channel engaged him to test the possibility of David killing Goliath with that kind of sling. They erected a 9 foot Goliath that had at the area of the forehead a load cell, which is a device that would measure the amount of impact. It was only 4.9 square inches, representing the area of Goliath’s forehead that was not covered by his armor. According to trauma surgeon Dr. Mike Edwards, the force necessary to kill a human being from blunt force trauma is anything over 3,000 Newtons or 3 kilo Newtons. This force, spread over the area of 30 square millimeters would cause a shockwave. It would cause the brain to shake causing irreversibly tissue damage.

 

Mr. Livermore was asked to perform the shot to see if this story was possible at all. When he releases the stone from the sling, a snap is heard. This snap from the sling is actually a sonic boom from the sheer power released…its so powerful, its breaking the sound barrier. When he took the shot, not only did he hit the load cell with impressive accuracy, but the load cell measured the force to be 3.62 kilo Newtons. This was more than enough force to kill Goliath!

VK: Wow. That’s amazing. A man can hurl a rock out of a leather sling with enough force to kill someone. So even though – on first blush – the story sounds incredible, it’s actually entirely possible.

RD: Yes, and it’s important to remember that slings as weapons weren’t by any means confined to Israel in the 11th century. They were present in the Americas and still in use in the middle ages. It’s also important to remember that David had probably practiced with his sling hundreds or thousands of times when he was out in the fields tending to his father’s sheep. He had probably practiced on his own and, in all probability, he had hurled more than one stone at potential predators who were threatening his sheep.

VK: Well, he was a teen-age boy. For him, throwing stones at various objects was probably his version of an 11th century BC video game. Well, what about prophecy? Where do you want to start?

RD: When I think about the prophetic dimension of Bible stories I like to think about the story from the perspective of what prophecies are there in the Bible that pertain to either the main character, the people or tribes involved, or even larger future events like the rise or fall of entire empires. So for today, I’d just like to take a brief look at what the Bible had to say elsewhere about the future of the Philistine people since they played such a prominent part in the history of Israel in the Old Testament.

VK: Ok. Just as a brief review of geography so we can keep our nations and directions straight. When the Bible talks about something to the east, west, north, or south, it always uses Israel’s territory as the reference point. So when the Bible talks about an invader coming from the north it’s talking about a nation to the north of Israel, etc.

RD: Right.

VK: And in the 11th century BC Israel was literally surrounded by enemies. The Philistines were to their west along the Mediterranean coast but they weren’t the dominant external power of the region. At the time that was the Egyptians to the south.

RD: Exactly. Let’s take another look at the prophecy about the Philistines from our opening scripture this morning. It said that Gaza and Ashkelon will be abandoned, that Ashdod and Ekron torn down. It says that sorrow awaits the Philistines, who live along the coast and in the land of Canaan. And it goes on to say the LORD would destroy them until not one of them was left and that the day would come when their land would become a wilderness pasture, a place of shepherd camps and enclosures for sheep and goats. Well, this prophecy has been fulfilled in its entirety. How did that happen?

VK: First things first. For it to be prophetic the prophecy would have to have been uttered by Zephaniah before the event actually occurred. So the first question is when did Zephaniah give it?

RD: Scholars are generally agreed that Zephaniah preached and prophesied about the same time as Jeremiah during the reign of Josiah in the southern kingdom of Judah. Between the time David fought Goliath and Zephaniah prophesied a lot had happened. Israel had had its golden age under David and Solomon and then it split into the northern kingdom of Israel and the southern kingdom of Judah. The Assyrians had risen to become a major player in the region and competed with Egypt for regional hegemony. In 722 BC the Assyrians conquered the northern kingdom, deported all the people, and for all intents and purposes it ceased to exist. The southern kingdom would exist for about another 150 years. Josiah was one of the last of the kings of Judah and he reigned from 640 to 609 BC. Scholars are uncertain about whether Zephaniah prophesied early or late in his reign but many think his prophesies were instrumental in Josiah’s religious reforms that took place in 621 BC. At any rate Zephaniah’s prophecies would have been given before 609 BC and possibly before 621 BC.

VK: And when were the Philistines finally destroyed? Since they lived in the general region of the northern kingdom they had probably also been affected when the Assyrians started invading from the north.

RD: They certainly had been affected by increasing Assyrian encroachments but archeologists still see evidence of a distinct Philistine presence in their historical cities – Gaza, Ashkelon, Ekron, etc even into the very late part of the 7th century. Ashkelon seems to have been the most prominent of their city states at the time so it could roughly be thought of as their capital. Well, like its neighboring minor power to the east, Judah, the Philistines were for a long time caught between the major players in the region, Egypt to the south and Assyria to the north. Sometimes the minor players would side with one, sometimes the other.

VK: Sounds like a dangerous two-step. Pick the wrong partner and you get thrown out of the dance.

RD: And it got more dangerous during Josiah’s reign. In addition to Egypt and Assyria, Babylon became a major force in the region and in 612 BC a combined force of the Medes and the Babylonians destroyed the Assyrian capital of Nineveh and it disappeared from the pages of secular history, though the Bible kept its name alive. But that’s another story. In 605 BC Nebuchadnezzar became king of Babylon and his status as a legendary conqueror is … well, legendary. At any rate, the king – more mayor or governor really – of Ashkelon seems to have finally decided to side with the Egyptians. That decision was disastrous for the Philistines. Nebuchadnezzar decisively defeated the Egyptians at the battle of Carchemish in 605 BC and proceeded to move on to Egypt’s allies such as the Philistines. Ashkelon was finally destroyed in 604 BC and after that the Philistines were really never again seen as a distinctive nation or people. Today there’s not even agreement on what language they may have spoken.

VK: Just as Zephaniah predicted. Gaza and Ashkelon were abandoned, and the sorrow that Zephaniah predicted sometime prior to 609 BC came true in 604 BC. And that was really important to the Hebrew people because later they too were conquered by the Babylonians and went into exile. But in his prophecies Zephaniah didn’t just predict the destruction of the Philistines but also the restoration of the Jews back into their homeland. So when many of the Jews saw - during their lifetime - that Zephaniah’s prophecies about the Philistines came true they could be encouraged that the same thing would be true about his prophecy of their restoration.

RD: Exactly. And here’s a part about all this that’s really interesting – at least to me. The same thing is still true today. We don’t have living prophets today…

VK: Ok. That one is going to get you into trouble.

RD: Quite possibly, but we certainly don’t have prophets of the type that Zephaniah was. God always confirmed for his people that a prophet was trustworthy by giving them some near term prophecies that came true to the prophet was authenticated so the longer term prophecies could be trusted. Well, even though we don’t have Zephaniahs today we do have the Bible that contains enough fulfilled prophecy that we can trust its witness for the prophecies whose fulfillment is still in the future – like Jesus’ return.

VK: Sounds like a good time for a prayer. In honor of our upcoming celebration of Labor Day, today let’s pray for those of our friends and neighbors who right now might need a job or are looking for work.

---- Prayer for Looking for Work

VK: Next time on Anchored by Truth we’re going to continue with our study of the of David and Goliath. We’ll think a little more about the prophetic importance of David’s life and see how that pertains directly to the life of the Boss. We hope you’ll be with us then and we hope you’ll take some time to encourage some friends to tune in too, or listen to the podcast version of this show.

If you’d like to hear more, try out crystalseabooks.com where “We’re not famous but our Boss is!”

(Bible Quotes from the New Living Translation)

1 Samuel, Chapter 17, verses 45 through 49, New Living Translation

Zephaniah, Chapter 2, verses 4 through 7, New Living Translation

https://scientistsforjesus.wordpress.com/2013/11/02/david-and-goliath-factual-evidence/

https://patternsofevidence.com/2018/10/26/david-battles-goliath/

https://www.patheos.com/blogs/christiancrier/2015/05/18/who-were-the-philistines-in-the-bible/

https://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/biblical-artifacts/artifacts-and-the-bible/where-did-the-philistines-come-from/

https://www.baslibrary.org/biblical-archaeology-review/8/4/1