Now, the Philistines, probing eastward in the Shephelah, had suddenly seized Azekah, a town at the eastern passage of the valley of Elah. Their own city of Gath dominated the same valley at its western extreme; therefore they moved swiftly to strengthen this foothold in Judah. They marched a large army up the valley a mile past Azekah, took a hill on its south side, and dug in. They encamped on top of that hill, then established a battle line yet farther up the valley, a mile west of Socoh.
The people of Socoh woke to find a wall of shields across the floor of the valley of Elah, and Philistines behind that wall, and more Philistines farther back on the high hill behind them. Immediately they sent runners to the king of Israel, begging him to come and fight for them.
King Saul blew the trumpet for war.
Very few men came down from the northern tribes of Israel. Some came from Benjamin. Most came from Judah. With these men and his standing army, Saul marched south to Bethlehem, then west along the little brook of Elah into the valley as far as Socoh. He camped on a hill on its northern side, two miles from the Philistine hill.
In the morning he and Abner and all his warriors attacked the shields of Philistia. They charged across the flat valley floor, trampling the wheat fields and running directly at the thin line of uncircumcised soldiers. But then a hail of arrows hit them short of the battle line. Archers were in the hills on the right and the left: an ambush! Abner screamed a retreat. Israel lost twenty-seven men. And that night Saul woke in his tent, trembling again with his terrors.
The next days went no better.
And on the fourth day, Israel heard laughter in the camps of the Philistines.
It was the booming voice of a single colossal man. A giant, in fact, who could make himself heard from hill to hill across the valley, roaring scorn for Israel’s militia.
This mockery went on for five weeks unabated, the most humiliating engagement Saul ever had endured.
He maintained a princely dignity in daylight. But his nights were intolerable. Within an hour of falling asleep he started up in fear and in blinding pain. He could neither think nor plan nor pray nor sleep. He could scarcely breathe. He struggled mightily not to cry out—and at dawn he fought to seem a king again.
Saul began to ask his soldiers whether they knew anyone who could sing well. He said he needed someone to stay with him in his tent and to sing soft songs at midnight.
One day a man named Shammah came and said, “I know a lad who plays the lyre and sings well.”
“Who is he?” said the king.
“My youngest brother,” said Shammah. “He has a wooden lyre of six strings, but he can play on three strings or twelve.”
“And who are you?” said the king.
“Shammah, the third son of Jesse of Bethlehem in Judah. My brothers and I are following you into battle, O King. But David is the one who sings. He’s just a lad still living at home, feeding the sheep of our father.”
“Bring him, Shammah. Bring him to me as soon as you can.”
So Shammah went up to Bethlehem and brought his brother back to the camps in the valley of Elah and presented him to the king.
Saul stepped out of his tent and saw a light-boned youth no taller than the king’s own breastbone. But the lad moved with grace. He had delicate fingers and a tangle of red hair and eyes with long lashes, flecked with gold.
“David, son of Jesse?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Have you brought a bed-mat and a lyre?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And you have your father’s permission to be here?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Then we will try this arrangement for a night or two: sleep in my tent. If you see that I have awoken, don’t ask questions. Don’t talk to me. Don’t even try to understand what I am doing. Just take your lyre and sing until I sleep again.”
“Yes, sir.”
So the lad unrolled his bedding in the tent of the king.
EVERY EVENING AND MORNING the giant came out of the camp of the Philistines, took his stand across the valley, and roared derision against Israel. “Choose a champion!” he bellowed. “I defy the ranks of Israel to send one man to fight me!”
Because of this single figure, Saul’s armies had ceased to attack the battle line that transected the valley of Elah. If they were afraid of one Philistine, what could they do to one thousand?
But this one was terrible. He stood more than nine feet high at the brow. He wore a helmet of bronze and a coat of mail weighing more than two hundred pounds. He had greaves of bronze on his legs, a javelin of bronze slung down between his shoulders, and a spear in his hand whose shaft was the size of a weaver’s beam. He came from Gath. His name was Goliath.
Morning and evening, day after day, he mounted his southern prominence and thundered, “Am I not a Philistine? Are you not the soldiers of Saul? Choose one man to fight me. If he kills me, we will be your servants. If he dies, then you will serve us!”
IN THE FIFTH week of this mortifying war, Saul suddenly woke at midnight shouting aloud his anguish. It felt as if a vulture were piercing him through at the bosom. “David!” he choked. Spittle had soaked his beard. “David, David, son of Jesse!”
Then he realized that the lad was already singing.
Saul held his breath.
God is here, he heard. God is here: a full and tender voice, a tone as pure as burnished gold. Saul felt the eating beak soften and withdraw. His fierce staring relaxed. He lay back and drew a deep breath. His eyelids drooped and closed of their own accord.
David the son of Jesse was running his fingers over six soft strings and singing:
I am not lonely. God is here.
Hand at my shoulder. Word in my ear.
The Lord is the shepherd who leads me down
to quiet pools and a soft green ground.
He feeds, restores, beholds, relieves me,
shows the right road, then precedes me:
I am not lonely. God is here.
Strength for my going. Song in my ear.
Yea, though I cross the valley of dying,
I do not fear. I am not crying.
Thy rod for the beast, thy staff for my leaning,
thou art my comfort and thou my redeeming.
Thou art my present, beginning and ending,
the oil that I feel on my forehead descending,
the goodness that follows my every endeavor,
the temple I’ll dwell in forever and ever—
O Lord, I am not lonely now,
for thou art with me, my shepherd—thou!
ON THE FIFTH DAY of the sixth week of Goliath’s thunderous ridicule, Shammah came to the king’s tent and asked an audience. It was noon. The armies of Israel were lying about in positions of defeat and desolation. No one was eating.
The king stepped out and sat in the shade of the tent-flap. Standing beside Shammah was his youngest brother, David.
“Well?”
With every sign of discomfort, Shammah said, “David wants to fight the giant.”
Saul uttered a short bark of laughter. But David was gazing straight into the king’s eye, not at all intimidated.
“You’re no more than a youth,” Saul said. “A shepherd. And Goliath, besides every other advantage, has been a warrior from his youth.”
Shammah cuffed his brother’s shoulder. “I told you so,” he said. “Let’s go.”
But David stepped past him to the king. “No one else will fight Goliath,” he said, his eyes as steadfast as sunlight. “The heart of every warrior in Israel fails on account of this one man.”
“Yes. Exactly. And if mature men won’t fight him, why should I let a lad go?”
But in Saul’s heart there flickered a small black flame. A savvy lad. He began to make a narrow assessment of the shrewdness and the ability here before him.
“Yes,” said David, “and exactly as you have said, your servant keeps sheep. But that, O King, argues for my going.”
; “What?” Saul flashed a quick grin. “How?”
“When lions or bears snatch lambs from the flock, I go after them. I whack them with my rod and take the lambs out of their mouths. If they turn to attack me, I catch them by the beard and kill them. Sir, it is the Lord who delivers me from the tooth of the lion and the claw of the bear! The Lord will surely deliver me from the hand of an uncircumcised giant.”
By the time David finished his speech, his eyes blazed a golden fire, and Saul could not stop grinning.
He’s a dagger dipped in venom, thought the king, then aloud he said, “No one has ever spoken truer words, sir! It is the Lord who gives the victory. Wait here.”
Saul went into his tent and came out carrying his own armor.
“Yes, and I, too, commend you to the Lord. Here.” He hoisted the coat of mail over David’s back. He placed his helmet on David’s head, and the poor lad peered out like a turtle under so much metal. Saul wanted to laugh at the sight. But he also discovered tender fears for David. The armor was no good. The youth would have to go light on his foot, unprotected and vulnerable.
“But if you can’t swing a sword,” said Saul, lifting the armor from David’s small frame, “how do you kill wild beasts?”
“With this.” David raised his right hand. Tied to the middle finger was one end of a long leather sling. The hollow of the sling, the stone-pocket woven between two thin cords, was worn and well used.
“With that?”
“Yes, sir.”
The king of Israel laid his hand upon the lad’s wild red hair. “Go,” he said earnestly, “and the Lord be with you.”
So David departed, his sling wrapped like a sleeve around his forearm, his shepherd’s pouch at the small of his back.
King Saul never took his eyes from the young adventurer. As David descended the north slope of the valley, Saul mounted a lookout in order to keep watch.
It was early evening, the second time today when Goliath would emerge to challenge Israel.
There was no avoiding the battle now: Saul saw the giant striding toward his stone platform on the south side of the valley, followed by a servant who, though he was a full-grown man, struggled under the weight of his master’s armor.
Goliath climbed a dolmen, an enormous stone table, threw back his great head and boomed: “I defy the ranks of Israel to send me a man that we may fight together!”
Quickly Saul looked for David on the valley floor. There he was—and he wasn’t even paying attention to the Philistine! The lad was down on one knee by the brook of Elah, reaching into the water. He’s choosing stones! While Goliath of Gath made the hills quake with his bull’s voice, David was hefting wet stones and dropping them into his pouch. Four of them, Saul counted. Five. Then the lad stood up again and jumped the stream and continued walking toward Goliath. He walks on the balls of his feet, like dancing.
All at once the giant noticed the Israelite approaching. “Finally!” he cried. He positioned his armor-bearer with a shield in front while he raised his own helmet, preparing to put it on—but then he leaned forward, scowling. “What?” he roared. He threw the helmet to the ground, knocked the armor-bearer aside, and launched into a lumbering run. “What! Am I a dog?”
Saul ran forward, the better to see. Goliath had ceased laughing. He was not scornful: he was enraged, his brow as black as a thunderhead.
“Am I a dog,” he bellowed, “that you come at me with sticks?”
David didn’t hesitate. He maintained an easy pace, his face set directly toward the shambling foe, his shoulders back, his neck an ivory column.
Goliath stopped. “Come, then!” he raged. He drew his sword and lifted his spear the size of a weaver’s beam. “Come and I will give your flesh to the birds and the beasts!”
Neither faster nor slower, David kept trotting at his own easy pace. Saul saw him slip a stone from the pouch at his back and wrap it in the hollow of his sling. Then the gentle tenor voice rang out in the valley: “You come with iron weapons. I come in the name of the Lord, whom you have defied. This day the Lord will give you into my hand, and I will strike you down, and all the earth will know that there is a God in Israel.”
A boy! Goliath was dumbfounded. His lips retracted. Saul heard an inarticulate growl of a warrior humiliated. And new fury propelled the giant forward. He began to charge downhill toward David. He leveled his spear at the lad’s breast. He raised his sword in his right hand.
Saul stood transfixed, as speechless as the giant.
But David never varied his pace. He had begun to whirl the sling above his head, causing the leather to sing in the wind.
With a snap he released it. The stone streaked for Goliath’s skull.
Suddenly that champion of the Philistine armies slowed to a walk, perplexed. He turned to the side, as if to ask a question, then toppled backward upon the ground, like a great cedar felled.
Even now David did not pause. He trotted uphill toward Goliath supine, slipped the huge sword from his hand, took a stance with his right foot at the giant’s shoulder, his left foot at his ear, then heaved the iron weapon high and brought it down with all his might. The blade cut through flesh and bone to the earth below. Goliath’s head rolled free, and Saul began to laugh. King Saul opened his mouth and laughed as he had in the early days of his reign. For David was walking back across the valley, holding the head of Goliath by the hair, and in the perfect center of the giant’s forehead was a small round hole.
All Israel now raised a shout of triumphant joy—while Philistines wildly pulled their shields from the battle line and threw themselves into a messy retreat.
Immediately the men of Israel and Judah gave chase. They followed the enemy down the valley as far as Gath and even to the gates of Ekron, slaughtering cowards all along the way. Then they returned to plunder the empty camps, exchanging their dull bronze weaponry for bright new iron.
But Saul stood apart, contemplating another victory. And in the night he found David, the fire of his latter years and his delight in life again.
“Son of Jesse,” he said, “hereafter you must be my armor-bearer. More than that, enter the battle with me. Fight beside me, David. And if you continue tomorrow as gallant as you were today, I will set you over a thousand troops. Oh, David, what glories God has won for us today!”
Suddenly the king knelt down and seized the slender shepherd in a mighty embrace.
It may be that another son of Saul would have felt jealous at such an open display of affection. These were princely promises after all.
But Jonathan stood back in the darkness smiling. He, too, was overwhelmed with gladness. Saul was strong again! Saul was robust and happy and whole again. The soul of his father had been restored.
So Jonathan gazed at the ruddy young man who had accomplished such goodness, and he loved him.
VI
DAVID, COME HERE. My father has a new weapon. Look!” Saul had built stone stables behind his fortress in Gibeah. He and his captains rode horses into battle; therefore, he had appointed servants to feed and groom his mounts even in peacetime. And—though Israel thought of horses as the playthings of rich pagans—he had begun to use them for his swifter journeys. Yes, even for his pleasure.
Moreover, he had permitted Jonathan to teach David how to ride. Jesse disapproved. But the young man was of the king’s court now.
“Here. Come round this way.”
Jonathan led David to a low building at the back of the stables. He unlatched the wooden door and began to swing it open. On his cheeks Jonathan felt the chilly morning air; in his heart he felt a keen excitement. It always delighted him to show David some new thing.
This lad from the country was so genuine in his appreciations that Jonathan himself was elevated. With David he was wise and skilled. A teacher. No competition here! Until now all of Jonathan’s friends had turned everything into a contest; so had Jonathan; it was in his nature to run, if he ran, faster than others. But this friend seemed to feel no need to outr
un anyone; rather, he would out-compliment everyone. And his intelligent eyes fairly crackled with glad thanksgivings when some particular friend—like Jonathan—took time to grant him gifts of knowledge and insight.
“What do you think?” said Jonathan, standing back so David could see the treasure inside.
It was a chariot.
Jonathan couldn’t contain himself. He burst out laughing. David didn’t. He gave his friend an amber smile; then, with intense curiosity he approached the device and began to touch its tongue, the pole that ran back under the box to the axle, the wicker weave of the box itself, the interior dashboard, the exterior cover of hard leather front and sides.
David did all this in silence. It fascinated Jonathan, how restrained this young man was. He himself would have been boisterous in the examination, every thought jumping out of his mouth. When Jonathan fought, he shouted. When he spoke with his father, they both shouted. When he made love, he laughed and he shouted together. That someone might feel many things, and feel them as deeply as David did, yet present to the world an exterior so controlled and courtly and kind—that amazed Jonathan, and confronted by David’s silences he felt infinitely younger than his friend, immature, a noisy pupil with much to learn after all.
David stood back from the chariot and said, “There is no reason why Israel shouldn’t use this weapon in war.”
Jonathan said, “Let’s go hunting.”
“With this?”
“Yes!”
“Where? We’re in the mountains here.”
“Flatland in the valley of Aijalon!”
“Do you know how long it takes just to get to the city of Aijalon?”
“Come on! Come on! In the open country we’ll fly faster than the hart! The roebuck! David, the gazelle!”
“And you know how to hitch this thing.”
“Yes. I’ll teach you. Two horses. Let’s go!”
IN THOSE DAYS Saul was told that the king of Zobah had begun to harass the tribes of Manasseh and Naphtali in the north. Again he blew the ram’s horn of war. Again he raised a militia and placed himself at the head of it and by the force of his passions led it north and north to fight.
The Book of God: The Bible as a Novel Page 23
