V. DAVID AND GOLIATH OF GATH

It is most satisfactory to find, as the history of the Israelites unfolds itself, the same indications of truth and accuracy still continuing to present themselves—the same signatures (as it were) of a subscribing witness of credit, impressed on every sheet as we turn it over in its order. The glory of Israel is now brought before us: David comes upon the scene, destined to fill the most conspicuous place in the annals of his country, and furnishing, in the details of his long and eventful life, a series of arguments such as we are in search of, decisive, I think, of the reality of his story, and of the fidelity with which it is told. With these I shall be now for some time engaged.

The circumstances under which he first appears before us are such as give token at once of his intrepid character and trust in God. “And there went out a champion” (so we read in the seventeenth chapter of the First Book of Samuel), “out of the camp of the Philistines, Goliath of Gath, whose height was six cubits and a span.” The point upon which the argument for the veracity of the history which ensues will turn is the incidental mention here made of Gath, as the city of Goliath, a patronymic which might have been thought of very little importance, either in its insertion or omission; here, however, it stands. Goliath of Gath was David’s gigantic antagonist. Now let us mark the value of this casual designation of the formidable Philistine. The report of the spies whom Moses sent into Canaan, as given in the thirteenth chapter of the Book of Numbers, was as follows:—“The land through which we have gone to search it, is a land that eateth up the inhabitants thereof; and all the people that we saw in it were men of a great stature. And there we saw the giants, the sons of Anak, which came of the giants. And we were in our own sight as grasshoppers, and so we were in their sight.” [Num. 13:32, 33.] Moses is here a testimony unto us, that these Anakims were a race of extra-ordinary stature. This fact let us bear in mind, and now turn to the Book of Joshua. There it is recorded amongst the feats of arms of that valiant leader of Israel, whereby he achieved the conquest of Canaan, that “He cut off the Anakims from the mountains, from Hebron, from Debir, from Anab, and from the mountains of Judah, and from all the mountains of Israel: Joshua destroyed them utterly with their cities. There was none of the Anakims left in the land of the children of Israel, only” (observe the exception) “in Gaza, in Gath, and in Ashdod, there remained.” [Josh. 11:21, 22.] Here, in his turn, comes in Joshua as a witness, that when he put the Anakims to the sword, he left some remaining in three cities, and in no others; and one of these three cities was Gath. Accordingly, when in the Book of Samuel we find Gath most incidentally named as the country of Goliath, the fact squares very singularly with those two other independent facts, brought together from two independent authorities—the Books of Moses and Joshua—the one, that the Anakims were persons of gigantic size; the other, that some of this nearly exterminated race, who survived the sword of Joshua, did actually continue to dwell at Gath. Thus in the mouth of three witnesses—Moses, Joshua, and Samuel, is the word established: concurring as they do, in a manner the most artless and satisfactory, to confirm one particular at least in this singular exploit of David. One particular, and that a hinge upon which the whole moves, is discovered to be matter of fact beyond all question; and therefore, in the absence of all evidence whatever to the contrary, I am disposed to believe the other particulars of the same history to be matter of fact too. Yet there are many, I will not say miraculous, but certainly most providential circumstances involved in it; circumstances arguing, and meant to argue, the invisible hand by which David fought and Goliath fell. The stripling from the sheepfold withstanding the man of war from his youth—the ruddy boy, his carriage and his cheeses left for the moment, hearing and rejoicing both to hear and accept the challenge, which struck terror into the veterans of Israel—the shepherd’s bag, with five smooth stones, and no more (such assurance did he feel of speedy success), opposed to the helmet of brass, and the coat of brazen mail, and the greaves of brass, and the gorget of brass, and the shield borne before him, and the spear with the staff like a weaver’s beam—the first sling of a pebble, the signal of panic and overthrow to the whole host of the Philistines—all this claims the character of more than an ordinary event, and asserts (as David declared it to do), that “The Lord saveth not with sword and spear; but that the battle is the Lord’s, and that he gave it into Israel’s hands.” [1 Sam. 17:47.]