no sword…

I’m reading 1 Samuel in my morning devotions.
Today was David and Goliath (chapter 17).
When I read the following words,
I was stopped in my tracks…

…no sword in the hand of David.

1 Samuel 17:50

Why did such a basic statement stop me in my tracks?
Because only a few days earlier I read another passage mentioning weapons in (or not in) hands…

²² So it came about, on the day of battle, that there was neither sword nor spear found in the hand of any of the people who were with Saul and Jonathan. But they were found with Saul and Jonathan his son.

1 Samuel 13:22

The Israelites had tools for agriculture, not weapons for war. Except for Saul (and Jonathan). Just before before 13:22 we read that the Philistines didn’t want the Israelites to have a blacksmith, or else they would “make swords or spears“… So they had to go to their enemies to get their plowshares, mattocks, axes, sickles, forks and goads sharpened.

I get the sense that God didn’t want them to have swords or spears either…

The comparison between sword-wielding Saul and sheep-herding David is deliberate.
The guy wielding a sword (Saul) was going to be rejected…
in favor of the guy who cared for sheep (David)…

This military contrast also plays out in the David and Goliath story.
Just in the gear they wear…

Goliath had lots of large and heavy armour.
Think of The Rock – Dwayne Johnson.

Meanwhile, David couldn’t even walk with all the armour on.
It was just so unnatural for him.
Picture Kip Dynamite.

Later on, in chapter 18, we hear about military weapons again. This time, it’s the strange moment where David is soothing Saul’s troubled mind with his musical therapy.

What is in Saul’s hand? A spear.
(This guy Saul… he loves carrying weapons.)
So he hurls it at this upstart usurper David…
Yikes.

The author of 1 Samuel seems to want us to see something about weapons and trusting God.

I reckon David’s declaration to Goliath is kind of a summary that underlines God’s nature:
God does not side with the strong and the well-armed…
Rather, God is for the underdog, the weak, the humble, the ones who will carry out his will and plan.
Or you could say God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.

This day the Lord will deliver you into my hand, and I will strike you and take your head from you. And this day I will give the carcasses of the camp of the Philistines to the birds of the air and the wild beasts of the earth, that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel. ⁴⁷ Then all this assembly shall know that the Lord does not save with sword and spear; for the battle is the Lord’s, and He will give you into our hands.”

1 Samuel 17:46-47

Whatever we make of the rest of this book (not least 1 Samuel 15!), there is a clear theme here. God is featured here as the One on the side of the smaller, the weaker, the one without military style weapons. God is not about siding with the powerful, but rather the weak.