Stories From Sunday School: David and Goliath

In this episode of Stories From Sunday School, we take a fresh look at the familiar story of David and Goliath. 🏹 Rather than simply an underdog story, we explore how the narrative is really about kingship, covenant identity, and the struggle between Israel and its enemies. 👑

We dig into the Philistines, Goliath’s mysterious size, the significance of the number 40, and even the surprising reality of David’s sling as an elite weapon of the ancient world. ⚔️ Along the way, we uncover connections to giants, Nephilim traditions, Dagon, and the larger biblical story of Israel’s struggle to possess the Promised Land.

Join us as we look at this familiar story through an ancient lens—and discover how changing our perspective can change the way we see the giants in our own lives. 🎙️

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Transcript

David and Goliath 
 

JR: [00:00:00] and 
 

David: Yeah 

JR: seeing it less as an underdog story and more of a Goliath what were you thinking story. What, you know? You know what I 

David: Yeah. No, yeah. 

JR: was the underdog 

David:  
 

we're in the middle of our stories from Sunday school, and our approach to this has been stories from the Bible that sometimes we relegate to kids' stories. Maybe that's not always fair, but that's just kinda how we're framing this, series. 

And we're trying to pull out a lot more meaning in it than you typically hear at church, and you may or may not agree with us, but that's what we're trying to do in this series, So we talked about Noah and the ark last episode, this time we're gonna talk about David and Goliath, which is another one where people, I think, immediately go, "Oh, yeah, I know that story," And we're gonna try and pull more out of it than that 

JR: Well, and I was gonna say that we don't call this series Sunday School Stories because these are stories for children. We call them because they're s- [00:01:00] stories that most of us were first introduced to as children. But the ironic thing, and I thought about this last episode, is that they're actually some of the most, like, really sophisticated, literary, some of the most theological stories in the entire Bible. And that's really the mark of a transcendent story, is children can enjoy them, but adults are supposed to eventually understand them. But, uh, a lot of our Sunday school stories, they're so transcendent that we introduce them as children, but we just never get around to the adult reading of them because we think that they're for children. 

And we discovered last week, they're, they're not at all  

David: Yeah, exactly. So the story of David and Goliath,  

 because people are familiar with this story, we're not gonna go through every detail of the story, right? And so if you're jumping into this, like on our fairy tale stories sometimes, we actually let people listen to the whole fairy tale. A- and so we're assuming that most people are familiar with these [00:02:00] stories. 

The way we're gonna walk through this, you're not gonna hear the entire story. But you, you understand the CliffsNotes, right? David was a shepherd boy. He faces Goliath, the giant who was mocking the armies of Israel, and David says, "I'm gonna take him on," He gets five smooth stones. I'm doing the real CliffsNotes version here. 

And with one... 

JR: the end. 

David: Yeah. Spoiler alert, right? 

and he takes one with his slingshot, and he sinks the stone into the giant's forehead, and the giant falls dead, and David's victorious, right? So everyone knows that version of the story.  

JR: yeah, it's the classic underdog story. David and Goliath, we use it in modern all the time. 

David: Yeah 

JR: it's just g- become a shorthand way of saying that someone pulled off an impossible win, 

David: Yeah, Malcolm Gladwell wrote a book, I think, about David and Goliath along these lines, which is actually a pretty good book. In college football, a lot of times when some D2 school pulls the big upset, they talk [00:03:00] about a David and Goliath moment, right? 

JR: Yeah, App State. To this day, App State over Michigan. 

David: Michigan, gosh. No, that's the first thing that came to my mind too. That's so funny 

Yeah, but that's what David and Goliath has become associated with, and it's not false, but at the same time, as we'll get into, I don't think it fully captures what that story was supposed to convey 

JR: I think something that's worth mentioning right out of the gate is that one thing that's overlooked is that it's not merely a story about you know, which is the way most people read it. story ties into the broader narrative about, really about kingship. It's like that's the bigger story that 1 Samuel is tackling is who is the rightful king of Israel, right? And when we start off with the story of David and Goliath, this story, has this image of being head and shoulders taller than anyone else, you remember when he's chosen king. 

David: Yeah 

JR: but he's basically hiding in this tent while David, who isn't even supposed to be on the [00:04:00] battlefield, is acting like the king. Like, and that contrast is brilliant because it sets up the tension between these two for the entire book. And so anyway, it's just, that's an important thing to keep in mind as we kind of zoom into this particular story, is the broader story of kind of kingship. 

I don't know if there's another kind of broad, narrative that you think is worth pointing out at the beginning to be looking for or not, but that's, that's what popped in my head  

David: Yeah, it's definitely kingship. The other one, broad stroke I will paint, and then we can jump into it 'cause I don't wanna start giving away everything. But it's really the completion of Joshua conquering the promised land. 

JR: Yeah 

David: and that's something that I've realized recently as well that I never put together. 

But it really is written in a way that when David kills Goliath, it's like, okay, Joshua's conquest is now complete. 

and so 

JR: right 

David: that's another important overarching theme that really frames this story. And so I'm not sure the ancient reader would go, "Oh, there's no way," you know? [00:05:00] "Dave pulls the big upset." 

I'm not sure they would see that. I th- I think they would say, "Okay, Joshua has finally conquered the promised land."  

JR: especially with a lot of the symbolism that we're gonna pull out of 

David: Yeah. 

JR: in this episode. It's gonna be really obvious that that's what's going on,  

David: Yeah 

JR: your point, that's, I don't think the ancient reader would've missed that 

David: Yeah, yeah. The other thing I was thinking before we jump in was last episode about Noah and the ark, you know, there were kids songs about Noah and the ark. You were even humming one of them at one point, and I was thinking, I don't know, is there a kids song about David and Goliath? Did Bullfrogs and Butterflies ever feature David and Goliath? 

JR: I don't think so. You're right. How did they miss the boat on this? 

David: Yeah 

JR: Well, what we need to do is hop into one of those AI music makers and get us a David and Goliath song that every kid in America is gonna be singing in 

David: Oh yeah, we'll make millions. 

JR: yeah, 

David: What? 

JR: we have to s- skip the part about where he chops his head off and things like that, but yeah, surely there's a good David and C- David and Goliath kid song 

David: I feel like there [00:06:00] is one that I'm just missing, but I can't think of it on the top of my head. But yeah, there's two or three songs about Noah that I could hum to you right now, I could sing.  

JR: Okay, I had to look this up, and there is one called Only a Boy Named David, and it's weird because I'm sitting here reading the lyrics, and it's all coming back to me. It's and round and round, and round and round, and round and round and round. one little prayer went up to God, and the giant came tumbling down.  

David: Oh, there you go. Okay. 

JR: all about that. 

Okay, so we missed the, missed the mark on that, but you're right, it's not as memorable. At least it didn't pop in my head when we were preparing for this 

David: No, never thought of it. But as soon as you started humming it, I, I thought, "Yeah, that sounds familiar now. It's all coming back to me." All right. 

JR: Yep. There you go. Okay. 

All right, so where are we gonna start with this? 

David: All right. Last episode, I think I said, uh, ask people to read 1 Samuel 17  

JR:  

David: if you wanted to, and we're gonna hit parts of this, but again, we're not gonna go through the entire story. But let's have people listen to 1 Samuel 17:4-9, and then [00:07:00] we'll kick it off, start starting to talk about framing this story  

A champion named Goliath, who was from Gath, came out of the Philistine camp. His height was six cubits and a span. He had a bronze helmet on his head and wore a coat of scale armor of bronze weighing five thousand shekels. On his legs he wore bronze greaves, and a bronze javelin was slung on his back. 

His spear shaft was like a weaver’s rod, and its iron point weighed six hundred shekels. His shield bearer went ahead of him. Goliath stood and shouted to the ranks of Israel, “Why do you come out and line up for battle? Am I not a Philistine, and are you not the servants of Saul? Choose a man and have him come down to me. 

If he is able to fight and kill me, we will become your subjects; but if I overcome him and kill him, you will become our subjects and serve us. 

JR: Okay, so there you heard the description of this giant Goliath, right? Talks about his armor, talks about he was a Philistine from [00:08:00] Gath, and he's mocking the troops, right? Saying, "Who wants to fight me?" basically. And no one does 'cause he's a, well, he's a giant,  

Right 

David: But there's a lot going on, I feel like, a- and probably I'll just warn the listeners right now, I feel like there's a lot of setup here to understand what we miss just reading the story. 

'Cause we read the story about the description of Goliath, and it's, we think it's saying, "Oh, this is a really huge guy,"  

JR: Right. 

David: And in some ways it is, but it's saying a lot more than that, okay? So let's back up, and let's talk about the Philistines. All right, so the Philistines, you could think of them as the primary nemesis of Israel, And actually, I'm coming to learn, you know, we talk so much about Judges. We've been working on this project with Judges, so I'm studying Judges a lot. And I'm really ... I never put it together before that 1 and 2 Samuel is basically a continuation of the story of Judges,  

JR: Right, 

David: And so Judges ends with [00:09:00] Samson bringing down the temple of Dagon, on all the Philistines. 

JR: That's right. 

David: Yeah, right? And so Judges, in a way, represents that, okay, Samson has now delivered Israel from the Philistines. But actually, he doesn't. He just dealt them a really crippling blow. Because once Saul becomes king, and then David to follow, right, but we're not there yet, the Philistines are still a thorn in the Israel's side,  

JR: Sure. Yeah, they took the Ark of the Covenant, right, in previous chapters. 

I think I got my timeline, right. 

David: Yeah, with Saul? 

JR: Covenant. That's right. 

David: Yeah 

JR: so anyway, yeah, there's a lot of history there, yeah, that maybe you can try to compact into 

a paragraph or two. 

I don't know. But there is a lot going on 

David: Probably not, probably not a paragraph. But, okay, so 

JR: the Philistines were made up of five cities, and each city had a king. And, they're Gaza, Ashkelon, Ashdod, Ekron, and [00:10:00] Gath. And it's weird, I don't know if we experienced this when you and I went to Israel. On a previous trip, I actually saw ... I mean, you still see signs today for Ashkelon, which is r- almost really jarring, right? 

David: It's, you know, you're driving down the Israel highway, and it's like, Ashkelon that way, and you're like, "Oh, crap, the Philistines." right? 

JR: I mean, Gaza is all in the news. 

David: Gaza, yeah, right. 

JR: is, the ancient city. 

David: Yeah 

JR: it's probably worth-- We'll put up a map because basically the Philistine territory is modern-day Gaza. It's a little bit bigger than 

David: Sure 

JR: that's pretty interesting considering the news headlines of today 

David: Yeah, there's something about Israel's inability to conquer that land it... And still an issue today, right? It's still 

JR: it's, kinda wild. 

David: a thorn in their side today 

JR: Yeah, did you see the prison exchange?  

 It's basically when Hamas was giving back, all the, captured Israelis from 

David:  
 

JR: the October 7th attack. they were arranging this, exchange, and there's this big [00:11:00] banner Hamas had behind them when they gave back the POWs from Israel, back to Israel, right? it is a, it is a a six-fingered fist. So it's a fist that's being held up, and it has six fingers on it, which we'll get into a little bit, but that's a sign of a giant. 

You know, the, giant,  

David: Yeah. 

JR: fingers. And, and the quote on it says, "We are the flood."  

David: Oh, wow 

JR: about this ... Yeah, I know. It's, it was really people comment and it's like, "Man, their AI put six fingers on the fist," and it's like, "No. 

No, no, no. That is absolutely intentional."  

David: Yeah 

JR: ""We are the giants." And so exactly what you were saying is this sounds like an ancient story, but it's been brought into the modern day. And even the, back and forth there is today with it, and that territory identifies themselves as Palestinians, but that's, that's just a paraphrase of Philistines. And they embrace that idea, the six-fingered fist, "We are the flood." It's just [00:12:00] I don't know. I saw that, I thought it was wild. We'll put a picture of it up to make sure, you 

David: Okay 

Well, as soon as you said the six-finger fist, I was like, "Oh, wow." I had not caught that. But yeah, that's absolutely correct and intentional.  

Okay. All right, so anyway, we're painting this picture of the Philistines because they are the nemesis. And so the other thing about the Philistines is they are identified with the Sea Peoples who actually come over from Greece when the Bronze Age collapses, and we're gonna get into that here in a little bit as well, 'cause that's gonna play into the story. 

So actually when Israel is fighting to take over the promised land, and they're taking on the Amalekites and the Midianites and, you know, all these, all the other ites, right? And they kind of dispatch with them, but the Philistines, the reason why you hear the Philistines come in late and then are this big problem for the Israelites is because of this migration, with the Sea Peoples and the collapse of the [00:13:00] Bronze Age. 

So this isn't just a little tribe they had to dispatch of. This was an entire migration. So, Philistine is growing and growing and growing even as Israel is trying to establish their boundaries in the promised land, 

JR: Yeah, and to go back to that map of the Philistine territory is that territory was kind of the gateway to coastal trade in the Mediterranean. And so as long as the  

David: Yeah  

JR: controlled it, they cut Israel off from valuable markets. It's hard to see on a map, but y- you know, 'cause you look at Israel and you're like, "Well, they got plenty of coastline." 

But that was a very key deep water, port at the time, and that was kind of the gateway into the Medi- Mediterranean trade 

David: Yeah. In some ways, Philistine, the Philistines stood for everything that was almost anti-Israel, right? Because you have 

JR: Right 

David: that are led by five kings, which are really just, they were kings of all the, the five cities of Philistia. I think it's called the Pentapolis, which just means five cities. 

So [00:14:00] you're right, they controlled a lot of the trade, so they were basically cutting off Israel's ability to trade, and they were already very advanced in trading. They were also technologically advanced, and that's something you're gonna hear through the story as well. And again, to our modern ears, we sometimes don't pick up when it's describing something. 

We don't hear that as technologically advanced, not like they were using AI or they had iPhones or, you know, we would pick up on that. But little things back in, the time the Bible was written readers would go, "Oh, wow, yeah, they have a huge advantage," because they have a huge technological advantage, 

JR: Right. 

 Once you get a picture of who the Philistines are, you know that this is not just another battle that Israel's having. 

David: they're battling the very thing that is keeping them from fully possessing the promised land, and they're battling basically the antithesis of everything that Israel represents. and I read scholarly articles that say, "Oh, the Philistines weren't that [00:15:00] bad," and okay, I get all that. But to the Israelites, they represented everything that Israel wasn't,  

JR: Right. But not just in the religious arena of multiple gods versus a singular god, that type of things. 

David: Yeah 

JR: just like you said, the moving forward of the nation because they're cut off to trade, because they have to... We'll get into this. they have to go to the Philistines to, for just basic everyday things, like sharpening their farm implements and yeah, they, they just stood in the way of, of their progress, and so you're right. It is a much deeper conflict than just the idea that the enemies are at the gates and there's all these border squabbles, things like that. 

It goes a lot deeper than that. 

David: Yeah 

JR: the Philistines really represent the progress and the moving forward of the Israelites on a broader scale 

David: Yeah, that's exactly right. So this battle is emblematic of a much bigger conflict, right? This isn't just one other battle that Israel has with the, their neighbors, all [00:16:00] right? 

JR: And so when we get into the description of Goliath, keep that in mind because in Goliath, on even a smaller scale, embodies that conflict 

David: Yeah, so let's start talking about Goliath, 'cause in that passage we just listened to, it describes this giant, right? It describes his armor, his sword, all, all that in kinda bigger than life terms, and there's a reason for that. So I don't know, what are the s- some of the things that first jumped out at you about Goliath?  

JR: Yeah, as we get into Goliath, the first thing that hit me is that when you start kind of Googling and digging around about his height, because I always heard he was 10 foot, 12 foot, something like that, you know, there's kind of a discrepancy between, the Hebrew, text, the original Hebrew text that makes him about nine foot, nine inch, 'cause it was like  

David: Yeah 

JR: and a span, and then the Septuagint lists him as four cubits and a span, which comes out to like 6'9". 

And I don't know, do you wanna explain that? [00:17:00] What's the discrepancy between those two sources? Because that's a pretty dramatic difference. Even, even in biblical times when six-footers were-- they wouldn't be considered giants, but they were certainly considered tall. 

David: Sure. Yeah. 

JR: weren't that, that height. 

I think I read that people were probably average maybe-- the average male was 5'2",  

David: Yeah 

JR: six-footer would be a significant height advantage. But a pretty big discrepancy. I wouldn't call a six-footer, even back then, a quote unquote giant 

David: Yeah. There's definitely that discrepancy there. I'm not gonna pretend that I know all the ins and outs, but what I do understand is that Hebrew numbers are notoriously difficult sometimes to translate. First of all, because they're not numbers, they're letters ,  

A- And so it, it's difficult sometimes to read. 

Like, I know there are passages in the Old Testament where you don't know whether they're talking about thousands or hundreds, just based on the way it's written. [00:18:00] And that's where we get some of these numbers where, were there battles featuring, like, 500,000 people, or is it trying to say that there were only 5,000 people? 

And we're, frankly, we're not sure, right? So in some of those cases, the Septuagint, which is the Greek translation of the Old Testament, the Septuagint actually gives us more insight into how people back then understood the stories, either through tradition or through their own translating. the bottom line is we don't know whether he was 9'9" or whether he was 6'6", but the Septuagint at least says that he was basically what, what you said in cubits, but w- about 6'6", Which, like you said, which would make him a giant back in that day in some sense, but it also wouldn't mean he was 10 foot tall. Almost something that's a little, like, unbelievable,  

 well, one theory that is probably worth mentioning is that some manuscripts have Goliath's [00:19:00] heights as closer to Saul's, right? Remember Saul was head taller than any man in I- is how they describe him. And so if Goliath was described as 6'6" or whatever, this makes Saul and Goliath more like equals, which to your point when you said the Greek translation, it was more about the mythic of the story. 

Yeah 

JR: you make Saul and Goliath equal, it's it highlights Saul's cowardice to what I said at the beginning. You know, Saul's hiding in his tent. And so I think that's kind of an interesting... I'm not saying that that's-- I'm certain that that's what it, what that means, yeah, if you kind of make them a little bit more equal, Now you've got, well, why isn't Saul going out there? Saul is and shoulders above his men. Why wouldn't... He's the obvious choice to go meet Goliath on the field of battle.  

David: Yeah. That makes sense. But there's something deeper here even I don't think this story's actually trying to establish his height and weight for the roster, right? Like we would read in,[00:20:00]  

in an NBA roster, you know, it's like this guy's 7'1" and he weighs 260 pounds. You're like, "Okay, that guy's a giant," right? 

So it's not trying to communicate that so much as it's trying to communicate that he is a giant in the biblical sense, okay? And we are going to return to this topic of the Nephilim. And I know people might roll their eyes and go, "Oh, here we go again." But, um, 

JR: more Nephilim. 

David: but I'm telling you it's there. Like, I think this story is meant to convey that he's a giant. 

he's a descendant of the Nephilim,  

JR: Okay. 

David: And so 

 described as 9'9", right? And you see how it describes his armor It's almost like he's more trying to say this is an otherworldly, like half human being, half spiritual being, right? than trying to tape measure and see exactly how tall he is.  

JR: No, that's definitely the first thing you need to realize as far as kind of the mythology [00:21:00] behind the story, is that's important. But I'll make another argument, for the 9-foot height estimate, is that in the verses we just read, you know, it says that the armor ... His armor weighed, was it 5,000 shekels? 

That comes out to about 150 to 175 pounds. And the spearhead, just the head of the spear, was 15 pounds. so imagine a 6'9" Le- LeBron James. LeBron James is 6'9". He weighs between, on when he started his career and when he ended his career, right? He's put on a few pounds. But he weighs between 250 and pounds. And so just this coat of armor, like I'm not counting the weight of the helmet, the shin guards, or the shield, right? If just the weight of the armor is half of Goliath's body wei- weight, assuming he's 6'9", then he, it, he'd almost be completely immobile. But if he's 9'6", now his body weight would be closer to 500 to 600 pounds, which is just [00:22:00] bananas. But that would be the, that would be the scale. And so now the armor is around 25% to 30% of his total weight, which is what modern soldiers carry in combat, And so it kind of helps I don't know. I think there's a, there's ... To get into the scientific of, pulling out the tape measure, you I just think that helps out. 

And, oh, the other thing is, like, the, the spearhead was 15 pounds, meaning the total spear would probably c- be closer to 20 or 25 pounds at the very least. if you asked, like, a Major League pitcher to throw a javelin this weight, would, it would immediately destroy his rotator cuff, and it would be ... A- and, and even if you could throw it, it's pro- you're not throwing it more than 15, 20 feet. I was in, uh, Target the other day killing time, Amy's shopping, and so I I was wandering around and I walked by the fitness section, and I had this in the back of my mind, and there it is, a 15-pound weight. So I did, I picked it up. I did kind of the football throw, you know, 

David: Yeah 

JR: and I thought, "Yeah, this, this Just [00:23:00] the weight of it," like I almost pulled a muscle just flexing it back and forth. And obviously, a 6-foot tall guy, so this doesn't completely hold water. But I'm saying that even a LeBron James would tear up his arm trying to throw this. 

David: Yeah 

JR: again, a 9-foot guy, yeah, that's, that's about the weight. 

That's about the scale that you're talking about it. So I just think it's I kind of lean toward the he is more like a 9-foot guy, just because they gave us the measurements of, the weight of his armor and his spear and things like that, and I think that holds more considering the size of a 9-foot guy as opposed to a, a 6'8", 6'9", even though that would be considered a very tall, maybe giant person in the ancient world 

David: Yeah. We're not gonna solve the debate. The counter to that, I would say, would be are they describing a larger than life person so they're describing a larger than life p- armor? so let me give you this example. So I, if I could say, You know, I'm a, I'm a Dodgers fan, [00:24:00] right? 

So man, have you seen Shohei Ohtani? And you're like, " He's not bad. He's not a bad baseball player. It's like, man, I just never seen anything like a guy who can hit a baseball 600 feet, and he can throw 120 miles an hour. And, two seasons ago, he stole 59 bases. 

You know, he can run an eight-second 100 meters. 

JR: Right. 

David: Like 

JR: Yeah 

David: Now, if you know, if you know anything about the game, you know all that is exaggeration, right? 

JR: Sure, 

David: But 

JR: Dramatized to make a point 

David: but you would also  

also get the point that this guy is not ... It's almost like he's freakishly not a real human being almost, right? He's just this unbelievably gifted athlete. 

So The counter to that might be, I wonder if they're... They're putting all this in mythic terms, But we don't know is the bottom line. We don't know. If you're digging around the Middle East trying to dig up a giant, you know, it might be a while. I [00:25:00] don't know. 

'Cause we don't really ... Right? Even when we talked about the Nephilim last episode, it's like we're not entirely sure what they were referring to. But we do know that there's a lot more to this idea of being a giant than simply their height and weight 

JR: Yes. Well, we talked about, and we'll talk about in this episode, we talked about the idea of 40. It doesn't necessarily-- don't get hung up on 

David: Yeah 

JR: days or 40 literal years. Understand what the, meaning behind that is. And so yeah, you're right. I mean, I tend to think that when they describe something specifically like, "This is what his breastplate weighed, and this is what his weighed," I tend to take that literally because they're making the broader point. 

You know, you're right that the, the idea of the giant, it could mean a giant, in terms of size, or it could mean a giant in terms of and power and all the other things that it could mean. 

David: Yeah 

JR: yeah, I, I do think it's [00:26:00] interesting that they kind of maybe show their hand a little bit with specific weights for those things. 

David: Yeah. 

JR: But again, that may be representative of something else too. 

David: Yeah.  

JR:  

David: yeah, exactly. 

JR: that leads to the, then the importance of why would they so specifically identify him as a giant? And you may be s- listening to last episode and go, "Well, wait, I thought you said all the Nephilim were destroyed in the flood," So why, why are there gi- 

isn't 

David: why are there giants around, okay? 

You wanna field that one? Or 

JR: Oh gosh. Uh, I mean, uh, uh, it's gonna ... You talk about a rabbit trail. 

 you have about three options and that is, is that either Nephilim DNA made it through the flood via the wives of Noah's sons because Noah's generation was pure in his, all 

David: And that, that is one theory, yeah 

JR: right, that it, that it came through one of them. 

You could make the argument that, the physical bodies, we talked about this last episode, that the physical bodies of the Nephilim were [00:27:00] destroyed, but their spirits were still allowed to roam the earth. 

David: Mm-hmm. 

JR: Maybe their spirits entered into somebody and there was some sort of way to bring back the giants that way. 

Maybe not the full-on Nephilim, but ways to bring back that giant DNA, introduce that back into the human bloodline. I said three. What, what would be the third? 

David: Yeah, the third would be that the same rituals that kind of united these fallen spirits with the pagan tribes are, are-- were picked up after the flood as well.  

JR: Yeah, happened after the flood. Yeah, that's-- so those are kind of your three options. I don't know which one it is, but there clearly is some sort of Nephilim, at least a Nephilim reference after the flood. it's figurative or literal,  

David: Well, and so what 

JR: I've got another, argument for the, for the literal, but go ahead. 

We'll get to that in a second 

David: So it's interesting that I realized in the story of Noah, when you read 6:1-4, one of the things that it [00:28:00] said, "In those days there were Nephilim on the earth," but then it says, "And also after the flood." So it actually says ... Yeah, remember that? It says right there that it kind of acknowledges that while the flood was meant to take care of the Nephilim problem, it was still an issue, albeit not as bad, for reasons you can go back and listen to last episode. 

But there s- there it's acknowledged that it was still a problem, right? And so when Israel is coming into the promised land, one of the things that is a clue that it's still an issue is that these w- they talk about the, the Rephaim, the Anakim, right? 

JR: Mm-hmm. The Zimzamon 

David: Ziph- yeah 

JR: yeah, there's, there's several n- names for them, yes 

David: Yeah, and we tend to just gloss over those and go, "Yeah, whatever, this list of tribes." 

But actually, that's actually communicating that these are giant clans, And so 

JR: they appeared as grasshoppers, or the, or the spies from Canaan 

David: Sure, when they come in... 

JR: as [00:29:00] grass..." And so obviously that's post-flood, and so the 

David: Yeah, yeah, yeah 

JR: Okay, so this is interesting. in the antiquities of the Jews, writes that the very bones of the giants who were defeated in Canaan on display in the town of Hebron. in book five, chapter two, section three, I For which reason they removed their camp to Hebron, and when they had taken it, they slew all the inhabitants. There were till then left a race of giants who had bodies so large and countenances so entirely different from other men that they were surprising to the sight and terrible to the hearing. The bones of these men are still shown to this very day, unlike to any credible relations to other men." And so, I mean, you read that, at the very least, Josephus, who was easily most respected and cited historian in all of antiquity, right, clearly believed that the biblical giants were literal giants to the point that he says, " Go to Hebron, check out the bones." You know? Now, you can make an argument that these were mistaken animal [00:30:00] bones,  

David: make an argument 

JR: that, right? Whatever. 

David: that they were T-Rex bones. 

JR: T-Rex may be, right? 

David: He found a T-Rex.  

JR: a... Yeah, maybe. at the very least, it's a pretty compelling argument for what people at the time believed about  

David: Yeah. Yeah 

JR: know what I mean? So Josephus, what was he? 80 AD, something like that? 

David: Well, yeah. fall of Jerusalem, so 70 AD, and then he, yeah, was taken to Rome 

JR: So it's a pretty good account of what ancient people, or at least first century people believed, they thought that they were physically large giants because they had their bones on display in Hebron 

David: Yeah. Okay. No, that's interesting. A- a- and look, w- we talked about this before, but even at the time of Jesus, it's ... This would have been seen as all kinds of signaling that these are offspring of the Nephilim, these are part of the giant clan, and that's part of the reason why Israel was having such a difficult time, getting rid of the Philistines. 

Now, I don't know that they consider all the [00:31:00] Philistines a giant clan, because they were, you know, the sea peoples. But, Gath specifically, it a- and it mentions later on, we'll get to this, it mentions that Goliath had brothers and there were other giants of Gath. So Gath is definitely identified as a giant clan, 

JR: Right. And like you said, it may not be all of them, every 

person, but yes, they definitely had them, had them in the arsenal, right? 

David: Yeah, yeah. All right, so regardless, I think it's pretty clear that this is, there's a lot of signals that David and the giant means such, something much different today than it does then 

JR: Oh, yeah. 

David: Right. 

JR: It's much deeper. 

David: Yeah, All right, you wanna talk about his bronze armor? Why that's significant 

JR: Yeah, just a few chapters earlier in 1 Samuel, 13, it says that no blacksmith could be found in all the land of Israel because the Philistines had said, "Otherwise, the Hebrews will make swords and spears." Right? So this is, leading up to this [00:32:00] interaction with David and Goliath. 

And so it goes on to say that Israelites had to travel down to the Philistines to get their farm tools sharpened. And it says, in verse 22 So on the day of the battle," talking about on the day of David and Goliath's battle. " So on the day of the battle, not a soldier with Saul and Jonathan had a sword or spear in his hand. 

Only Saul and his son Jonathan had them. So that's like a pretty clear discrepancy between the two armies. So it's not just to what you said about the bronze, it's not just about the size of Goliath. It's about a complete technological disconnect 

David: Yes 

JR: the two to the point that the Israelites didn't even have swords other than the king and his son 

David: yeah, that's right. And that's something I wanna ... I, I'll actually save this for later, but that's something I wanna talk about that's a carryover from Judges. Judges represents battles over and over and over again of the technologically advanced weaponry of the enemy versus the farm implements, right? 

How does Gideon ... [00:33:00] Gideon takes a, a pitcher and a torch, right? And he defeats this army, right? So they're always stressing that the enemy had this technological advantage, but God was o- able to overcome it. And you're gonna see that same pattern here in David and Goliath as well 

JR: Yeah, we read it as just a d- a description like, oh, they had chariots of iron, okay, or they had armor of bronze. But the ancients clearly see that as a technological advancement because it was. You know, you, if you didn't have the means to smelt, what is it, copper and tin together, you couldn't get bronze, and bronze is a whole lot stronger than both of those things by themselves. And so it really would've highlighted the technological difference between the two cultures and, or the two civilizations. They were just periods apart 

David: And my understanding too of bronze, uh, 'cause I think there's a lot going on here, is we talk about the collapse of the Bronze Age, which literally means that 1200 [00:34:00] BC, I think, or 1177 is what one author kind of tags as the collapse of the Bronze Age, people were able to produce bronze, And when a bunch of factors caused the collapse of the Bronze Age, the fall of Troy being one of them, And some other things, but trade routes were cut off, and so My understanding is that the ingredients you needed, the components to make bronze, were no longer available because the trade routes were cut off because they basically collapsed, right? 

So 

JR: goes back to the port,  

David: yeah, which go- yeah, 

JR: Yep 

David: back to the port. So when you're reading here that he had this armor of bronze, that's like... Uh, okay, so you know how sometimes they talk about, uh, what is it? Göbek- Göbekli Tepe or... You know what I'm talking about? this, this, this, 

JR: ancient... 

David: yeah, in Turkey, like this 

JR: Mm-hmm 

David: technology all of a sudden, and we're like, "How did they do that?" 

Like, I think that the idea of bronze hits that way to an ancient reader. It's like, "Bronze? What are they doing with bronze? No one has [00:35:00] bronze." 

JR: Right. 

David: Right? 

And so it's actually playing into this idea of, you know, this is a giant. This is an otherworldly person, and where the heck did they get this technology, because no one has bronze. 

And actually, the Bronze Age goes to the Iron Age. My understanding is that bronze is stronger than iron, So, 

JR: No, I didn't realize that 

David: so it's like an ancient technology that these people had. And again, I, this is not just a description of his armor. 

This is, like he's armed with laser beams and, you know. 

JR: Yeah. Well, we'll get into this when it comes to the slingshot, but yeah, on the s- on the surface, the Philistines completely outmatched the farm implements of the Israelites. And I just think it's funny that the narrator spends more verses describing Goliath's equipment than he does giving David's appearance for instance. 

You know what I mean?  

David: Mm-hmm. 

JR: everything about Goliath screams, technology, military power, wealth, [00:36:00] civilization, empire, right? And then David shows up bringing his brother's lunch, right? So 

David: Absolutely. 

JR: so the author, uh, you know, I 

David: Yeah 

JR: the author is, is intentionally making Goliath ridiculous by over describing him. Do you know what I mean? 

David: Mm-hmm. 

JR: uh, or- or at least the contention between the two is just absurd by this over, description of Goliath. And again, I think it has more weight than him trying to set the record straight. 

This is the type of, armor he had. This is the type of spear he had. This is how much it weighed. It wasn't a roster, entry like you were saying. It's more like he's just going out of his way to say, "Do you understand the gulf between these two armies 

David: Right. 

JR: the technology available?"  

David: Yeah, and again, one of the descriptors of the Nephilim were they were technologically advanced. We talked about that last episode. So again, I just wanna make that, clear that the reason they're describing him as so technologically advanced is linked to the fact that they're also describing him as a giant. 

The two go hand-in-hand, 

JR: [00:37:00] Oh, 
 

David: right? All right. 

JR: and, and we'll move on, but it, it just, we can't overstate that thread that goes all the way back to Genesis. Because again, we know the story so well that we think of it in isolation, and it's not that way at all. And so we're just trying to let the listener pick up on the thread that goes all the way back to the flood, that goes all the way back to all the skirmishes leading up, Canaan, everything leading up to this point. There's a lot of baggage that you kind of have to unpack to really appreciate the weight of this story 

David: All right, in, um, verse eight and nine, the last thing I wanna point out here and then we can move on to the next section, is it's really this champion's challenge. So when Goliath is coming out and saying, "You pick your best warrior and you fight me," right? This is actually the way that the ancient world settled a lot of battles. 

and one reason is because it wasn't just one-on-one, you versus me, it was my god versus your god. 

JR: Right. And, and so the stronger God becomes a Lord, the weaker man becomes, 

David: And, and so the stronger god was actually going [00:38:00] to prevail, And that's how they saw it. So if your guy can beat my guy, hey, your god's stronger. you know, game over, we can all go home,  

JR: Right. Yeah, every battle was assumed to reveal whose God was stronger. And David actually says that, right? He, doesn't he say,  

David: Oh, yeah  

JR: yeah, that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel? Like, that's, that's more than just a this is my belief. that is the fundamental rallying cry of the whole So he's not trying to become famous. Like, he's literally defending God's reputation when he does this, 

David: Yeah.  

JR: different than the whole, I don't know, the believe in yourself narrative that a lot of storybooks like to apply 

David: Yeah 

Or even in your little song about David, how, you know, his prayers went up. And this isn't just a nice flowery prayer that my God, you know, God's the God of the earth. He's actually saying, and, and we'll get into this too. He's actually saying like, "Look, why are we afraid? Our God can beat their god, and so therefore, our champion can beat their champion." 

to David, I don't think he saw this as the [00:39:00] underdog thing. I think he felt in any way he's like, "I'm gonna take Goliath down. I've got Yahweh on my side." 

JR: Well, it has echoes of the Canaan story where the 

David: Yeah 

JR: s- the spies come back and they say, "Man, we look like grasshoppers to these guys." And Joshua and Caleb say, "Yeah, they look like grasshoppers to our God. How come you're not seeing it in that reference?" And so this kind of becomes a story about how do we view the enemy the context of God? Do, do you know what I'm 

David: Yeah 

JR: man, there's all kinds of things that scare me when I compare it to myself, but if when I compare it to my God or if I believe that i- in my soul, which is what Israel claims to believe, then all these, uh, these giants, all these things that, uh, come into conflict with Israel is nothing compared to their God. And David is simply proving that that's actually what I believe as opposed to a war cry slogan that I'm gonna say running into 

David: Yeah. In that way, it's almost an encapsulation of [00:40:00] entering the promised land again. It's almost like, look, we s- spent 100 years trying to take the promised land and, and secure it, and we never did it. Now the Philistines are on the scene. It's almost like David and Goliath now, like this is the encapsulation of the last several hundred years, and we're gonna have a final showdown, right? 

Because same thing, I like that you said that. Like the two spies said, everyone else said they've got giants in the land. There's no way. And they said, "Nope, we got God on our side. We got this," right?  

JR: Yeah. Yeah, and I'm gonna bite my tongue because we'll get into this later, but yeah, the, the pattern of The water, the wilderness, and the  

David: Mm-hmm. 

JR: get into it later, but yeah, it, it really does echo, and you- and once you see it, golly, you just see it in every story, and this story's no exception 

David: Yeah. Let's have people listen to 12 through 16, and then we can kind of move the story forward. But I know that was a lot of background, but I think it's so important to understanding the actual conflict. So this is 1 Samuel 17, verses 12 through [00:41:00] 16 

Now David was the son of an Ephrathite named Jesse, who was from Bethlehem in Judah. Jesse had eight sons, and in Saul’s time he was very old. Jesse’s three oldest sons had followed Saul to the war. The firstborn was Eliab; the second, Abinadab; and the third, Shammah. David was the youngest. The three oldest followed Saul, but David went back and forth from Saul to tend his father’s sheep at Bethlehem. 

For forty days the Philistine came forward every morning and evening and took his stand. 

JR: Okay. So I think we've done a pretty good job establishing that this is more of an archetypal story but there's a few more points in those verses, that kind of tie into that a little bit deeper, that, that drive home that idea a little bit deeper, that, This is an archetypal story going on. So do you wanna hit some of those in these verses? 

David: I just think this section that we just listened to, w- if we just heard the description of Goliath in all of his might, we're now hearing the [00:42:00] description of David in all of his ordinariness, right? Small- 

JR: yeah, yeah. 

David: you might say. So 

JR: right 

David: So you m- so he's from Bethlehem, which is a little 

That should sound familiar to people, right? Someone else was from Bethlehem. 

but a, a little country town, He's from the backwater, right? He's the youngest. In fact, it goes out of its way to say his three brothers were soldiers with Saul, and he's out tending the sheep because he was the youngest. 

So there again, the smallness of David. And he's a shepherd and not a warrior. And I like that too. But there's something about, like, once you understand who David is, it's like the shepherd is the perfect imagery, and we're gonna see that here in a moment. But I think by introducing him as the kid who tended the sheep, again, it's contrasting the Goliath, right? 

He's the kid who's out back. He's from the backwater town. And he kind of wanders naively into this conflict, unawares of what's [00:43:00] actually going down. But the last thing I'll say, and then I want to get your take, is it said for 40 days this was happening. But sometimes I think we, and we'll see it here in the next section, sometimes I think we think of David as, like, a kid , like a 12-year-old boy. 

But he's ... No. He's probably not a 12-year-old boy, r- right? It actually talks about 

JR: how old?  

David: Well, I'm not ... I, I don't know how old, but he could've been a young man. The point is that he was the youngest of several brothers, and he was out, a- a- and he was a shepherd. But it doesn't necessarily mean that he was, you know, a, a 12-year-old kid. 

Which, again, when we tell the kids version, sometimes we like to, epitomize David as, I don't know, Dennis the Menace with a slingshot in his back pocket, right? And- 

JR: Yeah. Yeah. Well, I think that's to probably relate to the fourth graders that are 

David: Sure, yeah. 

JR: my, our sixth grade audience. Yeah.  

David: All right, so it says in verse 16, "For 40 days the [00:44:00] Philistines came forward and took his stand." All right, so now we're encountering the number 40 again 

JR: Yeah, we have another here, which our listeners should notice right away, you know. And, and when you hear this idea of 40, which go back, go back to the previous episode, we kind of break all that, the concept of 40 down. But the question we should be asking when we hear the number 40 this context is, what is the transition that this particular occurrence of 40 is implying, I mean, because we've, we've said that the 40 is a transition. It's the wilderness. It's the, it's the journey a- the difficult journey across. So what is the transition this story is trying to embody? You know, and I personally think, I could be wrong, I'll get your opinion on it, but I think it's the transition of David to becoming king. You know what I mean? Like, he obviously doesn't become king right away, but this is the 

David: Yeah. 

JR: to the throne, 

David: Yeah 

JR: Uh, 'cause remember, you know, the whole book of Samuel is about this [00:45:00] transition of kingship. And so to go back to the beginning, Israel wants a king to be like other nations, even though God warns against it, right? 

And to compress the story a little bit, man chooses Saul, but God chooses David, right? And so out- throughout this book, you see this contrast between men's choice of a leader and God's choice of leader. That's why we go back to the shepherd. We'll get into that here in a second. But, and, and I also think that's why it was important for Jesus to be from the line of David, not from the line of Saul. 

That was very, that was very important to link that back to David. And I kind of think that this is the deeper meaning to David being a man after God's own heart even. It's like some people try to kind of simplify that and say, "Well, he had mistakes, but he always asked for forgiveness, and for that reason, he was a man after God's own heart." 

It's like that, there is that, but I think another deeper understanding is that was God's chosen leader for Israel in [00:46:00] contrast to Saul, in contrast to what men looked at. the tall stature. He's head and shoulders above everybody else. He's the biggest personality in the room. That's who we want to lead us, right? 

And God is taking the shepherd boy, has of Jesus, you know, and that's what he uses as a leader. So in any case, I just think the number 40 here always represents a transition, and the question is what transition is this particular of 40 describing? know. Do you have another theory about what transition this might be? 

David: Well, I think it, I think there's always several layers to it. But I could also see, you know, 40 often is associated with the wilderness, right? So I could almost see it representing at a higher level, like the Israelites are wandering in the wilderness right now, right? For 40 days, Goliath comes out, and it's, a- and what has kept them stuck in the wilderness? 

Well, and not to over-psychologize it, but they're looking at the problem wrong. And David [00:47:00] comes in, and he's going to actually be the one to lead them out of the wilderness, which ties to your example of 40, right? This is Da- David's ascension, right? But he is going to lead them out of the wilderness because he looks at the problem differently 

JR: He sees it 

David: Yeah, he sees it correctly. 

Okay, so now 40, I think means all that, right? If g- if you see 40 as the wilderness, then this is, they've been wandering the wilderness for 40 years like they did at the beginning, right? For this time, 40 days, and something had to change the way they were viewing this because it's not getting solved 

JR: Yeah, and the, and the 40-year wandering in the wilderness ended with the culmination of defeating the giants in Canaan. 

David: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah, yeah  

JR: much of a archetypal pattern. what did we t- talk about in other episodes? Fractal pattern. 

It's a fractal pattern. It's not quite as big as getting into the Promised Land, but the pattern is still the same. You know, 

David: Yeah, it's a com- 

JR: [00:48:00] cross the brook, we're gonna g- yeah  

David: a compression of that whole thing, right? 

JR: Yeah. Yeah. So yes, you m- you may be right. That might be a better indication of the transition, meaning the whole story embodies the whole Promised Land Canaan conflict. 

And so yeah, maybe when, readers read 40 days, they immediately popped in their head, "Oh, this sounds like Canaan 

David: Yeah, yeah. They're stuck in the wilderness. Yeah.  

JR: but you gotta compare the enemy to 

David: Yeah. 

JR: to yourself. Right 

David: No, that's cool. That didn't occur to me actually as we were, as I was studying for it, but I, I'm thinking, yeah, this is a compression of wandering the wilderness and entering the promised land again 

JR: Well, as soon as you said it, I thought, "Yeah, that sounds exactly like Canaan. That's exactly what's 

David: Yeah 

JR: Yeah, I think you're right." 

David: Okay, so we can move the story along now. We've laid the groundwork, but let's have people listen to 23 through 26 because, uh, this really is David... I don't know, pay attention to David reframing the problem here, and in light [00:49:00] of everything we've just said, some of the background, see if some of these words that he uses make a little more sense now, and then we'll come back and talk about it 

As he was talking with them, Goliath, the Philistine champion from Gath, stepped out from his lines and shouted his usual defiance, and David heard it. Whenever the Israelites saw the man, they all fled from him in great fear. Now the Israelites had been saying, 'Do you see how this man keeps coming out? He comes out to defy Israel. 

The king will give great wealth to the man who kills him. He will also give him his daughter in marriage and will exempt his family from taxes in Israel.' David asked the men standing near him, 'What will be done for the man who kills this Philistine and removes this disgrace from Israel? Who is this uncircumcised Philistine that he should defy the armies of the living God?' 

JR: okay, so these verses that we just read here are exactly what we were talking about. It's that fractal nature of the broader pattern. And so right at the beginning, it says that in [00:50:00] verse 24, "Whenever the Israelites saw the man, they all fled from him in great fear." Remember, the response to the Canaanites was that they all, uh, they all came back and they're terrified. And then we have David again, who sees it correctly, like you just said, and now there's David's response that says, "Wait a second, you guys are framing this all wrong. Quit talking about the size of Goliath. Let's start, start talking about this in the context of the size of our gods. You know, Yahweh dwarfs Dagon. promise you we're gonna win 

David: Yeah, yeah. 

JR: so again, David kind of grounds them back to that idea, remember what we're fighting for. Remember what this represents 

David: Yeah, and that brings, uh, back into this idea of God is fighting for us, right? And when Joshua enters the promised land, and you see this all through Judges, God's promised the Israelites that, "I will go before you and fight your battles." Okay? in fact, Joshua ver- chapter 23 says, "The Lord has driven out before you the great and [00:51:00] powerful nations. 

To this day, no one has been able to withstand you. One of you routs a thousand because the Lord your God fights for you just as he promised." One of the themes in Joshua and then carries over to Judges is this idea that God will go before you and fight your battles, which goes back to this idea of the champion,  

JR: Mm-hmm 

David: in Judges at least, people keep forgetting this, right? And, and it takes a judge to remind them, right? "What are you afraid of? God has already said he's gonna fight our battles." And the people go, "Oh, but look at their chariots," right? "Look at their technology." And it's like, no, no, no. This is Yahweh versus Baal. 

This is Yahweh versus Dagon, right? And our God is stronger. And so I just want to point that out because that's what David picks up on when he says, "You guys are looking at this wrong. It's- 

JR: understand that, it's so clear, it's all through this, that David is seeing reality correctly, and the rest of the Israelites are seeing reality incorrectly, [00:52:00] or through the wrong  

David: Yeah 

JR: wrong comparison, however you wanna say it. 

And it is. It's like once you, once you pick up on that, it's over and over and over 

David: Yeah, yeah.  

JR: and then in verse 26 it says, "Who is this uncircumcised Philistine he should defy the armies of the living God?" And I read that, and Well, I'll let you answer it. Why would David point out that he's uncircumcised when circumcision was the mark that set Israel apart from other nations in the first place? Like, why state the obvious? 

David: I don't know. I think, well, pointing out that he's uncircumcised is just another way to say he's a pagan, he's a barbarian, whatever you you know. To a Israelite, to a Israelite, that's what that meant, I th- 

JR: w- no, what you're saying ... No, that's important. What you're saying is that statement is more for Israel's sake than it is for dig on, Goliath. 

David: Yeah 

JR: mean? He's almost saying it's like it's, it's a battle, a rap battle. You know, it's like, "Oh man, he owned him on that one." When [00:53:00] Goliath would be thinking, "Yeah, okay, I'm uncircumcised. 

Yeah, you are the morons that do that." Y- 

David: Yeah, yeah, 

JR: know what I'm 

David: yeah 

JR: like it's more for the, uh, benefit of Israel, the people behind him, rather than the person in front of him 

David: No, I think that's true. Yeah. It, it's more to remind the army behind him to say, "Look, we are the circumcised," right? "We have the covenant with God. We have all these promises that God has said, 'I will go before you. I will fight your battles. I will take on the enemy deities, and I will crush them.'" Right? So yeah, I think to call Goliath uncircumcised, he'd be like, "Okay. 

Whatever, dude." You know? 

JR: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, that's so good. So while other people are describing Goliath's size and his armor, David is describing a person outside of God's covenant with the nerve to defy God,  

David: almost like he's describing his, his character,  

JR: Yes, for the sake of his fellow Israelites, 

David: Yeah 

JR: is saying, [00:54:00] "You guys are looking at the wrong thing. evaluating the wrong variable," And 

David: Yeah  

JR: man,  

man, this verse could be kind of seen as maybe the interpretive key for the whole chapter. We've brought it up several times now. And so before he's ever put on armor or picked up a stone, he's seeing this battle correctly while everybody else is missing the point.  

David: Yeah, yeah. And again, I love how, I, I love how that's the 40 days, right? Because at day 40, David says, "Enough time in the wilderness. I'm gonna help us reframe this, and we're gonna put an end to this."  

JR: Yes. 

David: know, I love that. 

JR: Yeah. Yeah, no, it's, that's, that's great. I mean, the more me, you and I are talking, the more it's just like the light bulb is going off over and over. It's like, yes, here it is again. Here it is again. I mean, it's, it's just so obvious now. I'm kind of upset with myself that I didn't pick this up the first time I read it, you know? 

David: Okay, so the next section then is we'll let people listen to verses 32 [00:55:00] through 36. Now, this is David now approaching Saul, and again, there's some important comments in here about how Saul is viewing David, right? And how David is reframing the problem here. So we'll let listen to people, and then we'll come back and talk about it, yeah 

David said to Saul, "Let no one lose heart on account of this Philistine. Your servant will go and fight him." Saul replied, "You are not able to go out against this Philistine and fight him. You are only a young man, and he has been a warrior from his youth." But David said to Saul, "Your servant has been keeping his father's sheep. 

When a lion or a bear came and carried off a sheep from the flock, I went after it, struck it, and rescued the sheep from its mouth. When it turned on me, I seized it by its hair, struck it, and killed it. Your servant has killed both the lion and the bear. This uncircumcised Philistine will be like one of them, because he has defied the armies of the living [00:56:00] God." 

JR: okay, I love these verses because there's just so much here, and it's so much more than, you know, you get the image of Saul's helmet that's too big for David or Saul's armor that's too 

David: Yeah 

JR: this, get this image of the kid wearing his dad's clothes, right? 

But there's so I mean, this is rich with symbolism the way David and Saul kind of go back and forth here in this, in this moment. Do you wanna, do you wanna kick us off on this one? 

David: Well, the first comment is just Saul's reaction is, "You're only a boy," right? Which again, I think he actually says, "You're a young man." Which again, he could be, who knows, he could be 16, 18, right? But I, I think the point of that comment is Saul is still seeing things wrong, Because David's already said, like, "This is an uncircumcised Philistine. 

We have Yahweh on our side." What is the first thing out of Saul's mouth? "You're only a young man. What are you gonna do?" And it's like, okay, that's, this is the problem, Saul, right? He's like, "You're a head taller than everyone [00:57:00] else. Why aren't you out there? And this is why you're not gonna be king anymore." 

JR: Yes. No, you're, you're exa- th- he, he, it's like he cut his own throat on this one.  

David:  
 

JR: Because first of all, it sounds like, I don't know, I'm sure you ran into this. You know, you get the new guy at work, and he comes and he's like, "Here's how we ought to do this." 

And I'm like, "Dude, you've been doing this six months," you know. "Let's, let's, let's dial this back a little bit," right? And when I was younger, I would do the same thing. I would be like, "Well, here's the way this should be done." And, you know, you get the whole, "Man, I was, neck deep the middle of a war when your mama was still wiping your nose." 

You know, that whole line f- that you see from the 

David: Yeah, yeah 

JR: you know. So it's funny that youth still carries weight. And it's still an insult to this day. Like, "Man, you, you were in diapers when I was doing 

David: Yeah 

JR: let's, let the men handle this," right? But it's a hollow, insult because it's like you... He's not attacking, what David just said in the previous 

David: verses, talking about the uncircumcised, Philistine. He's not addressing what David is [00:58:00] trying to get everybody to see. Quit comparing to Goliath and start comparing our gods 

Yeah. 

JR: because that's what this battle's about. And so, I don't know. Yes, 

David: Yeah 

JR: that card, just like, "Okay, 

David:  
 

JR: kid, I appreciate your, idealistic fervor, but just gonna get you killed," right? "At least put on my armor," 

David: Well, and it's funny because, like, they're clearly stuck. Again, that's what the 40 days represent, at least in part, right? They're clearly stuck. And so to your example, you know, it's like the young sales manager comes in and says, "All right, we're gonna do k- things different here." And the old sales guys are like, "Uh, you know, I was landing accounts when, you know, your mom was wiping your nose." 

"Okay, let's take a look at our sales. You're failing miserably." So 

JR: Right. 

David: an element of that, right? There's an element of like, "Okay, your way's not working, You've been wandering in the wilderness for 40 days, so you're going to listen to me. I don't care if you think I'm a young man." And to follow that up then, then the [00:59:00] next phrase is he says, "Your servant has killed both the lion and the bear." 

Now, this goes back to, you know, when he was a shepherd protecting the flock. But again, man, I think that phrase right there encapsulates the way David sees the problem, 'cause it's like, well, look, this isn't a lion and a bear. But if you see the problem the way David sees it, David's like, "Goliath's just a little bit bigger version of a lion and a bear," right? 

JR: Right. I think I'd rather take on Goliath than a bear if we're talking about a grizzly. 

David: Yeah, yeah. 

JR: a black bear, but no, a grizzly bear? No, man, give me Goliath. I've got a better shot with him.  

 David is out that he's dealt with monsters before. 

That's the point, 

David: I like that. Monsters, yeah. I've taken MountMonsters before, and this is just another variety. 

JR: Sure, 

David: Yeah 

JR: And you mentioned earlier that David's not a warrior but a shepherd, but I think right here in that statement, David's saying that a shepherd is actually equipped to be a warrior if necessary, and I think he paints [01:00:00] this really cool 

David: Yeah  

JR: You know, we think to, be a warrior means that you're training to be a warrior, that you're having sword fights with other men and y- and you're going to battle and you know what I mean? But David here is saying, saying something like, "I've taken my role as a shepherd seriously enough that the warrior has also developed out of that." Do you know what I'm saying? And so he's completely d- redefining what it means to be equipped for a fight. 

David: Yeah 

JR: yeah, so Saul's focused on to find, let's find a professional warrior, and David's focus is to be a devoted shepherd, and he doesn't tell Saul that he's been, secretly practicing swordplay in my backyard, and therefore I'm equipped. 

Instead, he argues that everyday obligation to protect the vulnerable, right, to protect the sheep 

David: W- which is what Saul should have been. 

JR: Right?  

David: what... 

JR: Yeah, that inherently forged the attributes of a  

David: Yeah 

JR: I mean, wow. Man, that is so good, and it, and [01:01:00] it's a detail that really foreshadows the focus of Jesus, right? 

The Good Shepherd, 

David: Yeah 

JR: oh, man, there's just, yeah, there's so much there. I, I absolutely love that line because once you uncover it, you're like, "Oh, man, there's so much more than saying, 'Hey, I can... You know, I've taken a lion. I've taken a bear.'" he's saying the attributes that you're looking for, Saul, are not the attributes that you should be looking for in the warrior. 

You should be looking for the dedicated person actions actually the attributes of a warrior 

David: Yeah, something like that. I, I also think it's, you know, Saul saying, "Well, you haven't been trained as a warrior," and David's like, "Yeah, because I'm actually better equipped for the problem in front of us, not your trained warriors." A- and this idea, too, if you think about, "I've killed a lion and a bear," and it's like, well, how do you kill a bear? 

Well, you don't run up and wrestle it. That's not how David killed, He killed them with his, his, sling, right? So again, when you view the problem like that, [01:02:00] Goliath is just a bigger version, It's like, "I'm not gonna run up and wrestle that fricking monster," right? 

JR: Right. Which is why the bear and the lion are such good 

David: Yes, it's why they're 

JR: didn't conform to the bear and the 

David: Yeah. 

JR: own thing as a 

David: It's why it's a great 

JR: worked 

David: it's why, yeah, it's why it's a great example. 

JR:  

David: It's not just, "Oh, I killed a lion and a bear." It's like, "Look, while you're sitting here, you know, in your camp for 40 days, I've been out slaying monsters," right? So 

JR: Yeah 

David: you've killed some monsters, this is just another monster. 

JR: Okay, do you wanna talk about the slingshot? Yeah.  

David: yeah, the ancient slingshot, this is really interesting. it's a much more dangerous weapon than maybe what we hear when we think of a slingshot. It's really just a sling weapon, right? But you even looked, I think you even looked up a video,  

JR: Well, we'll put the video up for if you're on the video feed. But, yeah, for everybody else who's just listening, it's just that old style sling that you spin around, you know, and you throw the stone. I mean, they-- [01:03:00] it was extremely deadly, and it was-- says that it was capable of shattering bones, causing fatal head injuries, and the stopping power of that sling, it matches the modern handgun, right? 

Almost. 

David: Yeah, that was crazy 

JR: yeah. And so when you understand that, you understand the velocity and the stopping power, and the fact that it can break bones, then it frames this a little bit differently. It's almost like, dude, why are you bringing your sword to a gunfight? Best of luck. 

David: Yeah. 

JR: then-- and, and 

David: Yeah 

JR: seeing it less as an underdog story and more of a Goliath what were you thinking story. you know? You know what I 

David: Yeah. No, yeah. 

JR: was the underdog 

David: I like that when you reframe the problem and you look at how you've equipped yourself to take on the monster, yeah, I don't know that, and I think that's the whole point of the story is I don't think David saw this as I'm an underdog here. David's thinking, "Why didn't this occur to you? This is how you take a [01:04:00] monster down. 

JR: Yeah. 

David: I- 
 

JR: a piece of 

David: I've done it before," right? I've done, 

JR: Right. 

David: the other interesting thing about this idea of the, of the sling is elsewhere I think in Judges Yeah, it's actually Judges chapter 20. I'll just read this real quick. It said, "Among all the soldiers there were 700 select troops who were left-handed, each of whom could sling a stone at a hair and not miss." 

Okay, now this was a almost like a Special Forces unit of the Benjaminites, as I understand it. But it's interesting that in Judges they actually frame this as like we might say they were snipers,  

JR: Oh, yeah. Yeah. 

David:  
 

JR: and the left-handedness is less about, hey, they happen to be left-handed and, and more about, we've talked about this in the judges episode, left-handedness represents the unconventional, 

David: Yeah. Yeah. 

JR: the unconventional. That's 

David: Yeah 

JR: it could be the way you fight, it could be the way you think, whatever. 

It's an unconventional, nature about somebody. And so I think that's kinda interesting, and it plays into all the way back into the David story, [01:05:00] is is trying to give him the sword, is trying to give him the shield, is trying to give him the components of hand-to-hand combat, 

David: Yeah 

JR: David is taking the unconventional. And he's saying, "I, I don't need that. You know, I don't need a shield at all. I mean, he's not gonna get anywhere near me with that 25-pound, know, barbell that he's gonna be throwing at me. I can, I can snipe him at 100 yards. He's not gonna get anywhere near me." 

David: It's like, it's like, it's got... I don't know. It's like, you know, Steph Curry versus Shaq. You know? It's like you need to muscle up against Shaq inside. He's like, "Dude, you're nuts." He can't guard me outside, though. I have no plans of going down in the paint."  

JR: yeah, let him try to catch the water bug out at the three-point line, and I'm just gonna sink him all day  

David: Yeah, yeah. But it, it is interesting that this idea of the sling, though, a- again, we can kind of make this into a kids thing, but it really is, it's like David's like, "Look, have you forgotten? We have this elite special forces group. You're dogging the idea that I'm here with my sling. have you forgotten the Benjamite [01:06:00] special forces?" 

This is what they're ... And what he's getting at is this is what they were trained to do, and you're trying to engage in hand-to-hand combat. It's almost like, "What's wrong with you," right? 

JR: Yeah, why are you trying to beat them at their 

David: Yeah. 

JR: don't you play your game? And so, and I really like this idea Saul says, " 

 Wear this armor. Wear this big armor." Goliath later on says, we'll get to that, where it says, "Fight like me." And David is refusing both of them. You know, and if you want a practical takeaway for this particular story, this is it. don't imitate others. You know what I mean? Fight 

David: Yeah 

JR: who God made you to be, and David is the consummate shepherd, like literally and figuratively. And when he approaches a challenge this way, it actually turns out not to be an underdog story, but a what was Goliath thinking story. 

Like, like I just said, you know, who brings a knife to a gunfight? And that's really the practical lesson you can get out of this if you want just something practical [01:07:00] without digging into all the history like we're, like we're doing  

David: Yeah, The last thing I'll point about the sling is that I am, again, appreciating the idea that all throughout Judges, and then this is a continuation of it, that God uses, the left hand. It fits right into the left-handedness almost. God uses the unconventional means to defeat a far superior army, and he does it time and time again throughout Judges. 

And so, again, I think David with a sling is just another example of that. God's like, "I don't care that they have bronze. I don't care how much his spearhead weighs. None of that matters to me,"  

JR: Yeah. Quit trying to make that comparison, 

David: Yeah 

JR: you know, what has God equipped you to do?  

David: Yeah, yeah, something like that. All right, let's have people listen to 48 to 50. This'll kind of... This is where he kills Goliath.  

JR:  

David: and then we'll come back and, finish the story up. 

As the Philistine moved closer to attack him, David ran quickly toward the battle line to meet him. [01:08:00] Reaching into his bag and taking out a stone, he slung it and struck the Philistine on the forehead. The stone sank into his forehead, and he fell face down on the ground. So David triumphed over the Philistine with a sling and a stone. 

Without a sword in his hand, he struck down the Philistine and killed him. 

David: okay, so these are the verses where obviously David kills Goliath, it says in verse 49, you know, reaching into his bag and taking out a stone, and this is actually worth going back for the previous verses that we didn't talk about. the five smooth stones. you find any significance to the five smooth stones? 'Cause I've heard a couple things like if he only needed one, why did he get five? And I've heard whatever, that Goliath had four brothers, and so he was preparing for all five of them. I don't know. You know, which is a kind of 

Yeah  

JR: I don't know. Is there anything symbolic? I actually had trouble figuring out anything definitive, but I guess there were some interesting ideas out 

David: Yeah, I, I didn't pick up anything really deep [01:09:00] symbolically. There's the practical reason that hey, if you c- if you got six chambers in your gun, go ahead and fill them up, right?  

JR: Yeah, right. 

David: that . That would've been a gangster move for Dave just to take one stone. 

but again, 

this is more practical. 

Like, he's fought a lion and a bear. I don't know, just the practicality is like, "Hey dummy, take more than one stone," right? Because it may take more than one to take this monster down, right? but there's been some theological ideas. I think Augustine, he said the five stones represent the five books of Moses, which It's kind of interesting. It's this idea of, it's their beginning story. It's their origin story that's led up to Joshua, Judges. And again, if you see David as a continuation of this story, then, you know, I could see that representation there of... 

JR: Yeah, that's kinda 

David: Yeah. 

JR: It's a little obscure, 

David: a little, a little theological. It's not even symbolic. 

It's more just at the theological level. But no, I didn't come up with anything other than, you know, I think what's more symbolic, is the fact that he has to go to a, a [01:10:00] river, a brook, to get these stones. 

JR: Oh yeah, right. Well, the threshold that has to be crossed, right? 

David: Yeah 

JR: Yeah, no, that's totally worth pointing out. I'm glad you did it, 'cause we've talked about the water, wilderness, mountain pattern throughout the Bible, and this is a smaller version of that same phenomenon. So the brook, the valley, the pursuit up the other side to, to defeat the enemy, that's, that's essentially that water, wilderness, mountain. 

And so at the bottom of the valley, you've got the brook, and so the brook becomes the Red Sea. It becomes the Jordan River. It becomes the temple entrance, right? It's the necessary threshold that has to be crossed. And so of course, he has to cross the 

David: Yeah. 

JR: of course, this story ports it out. 

David: Yeah 

JR: It's not just a silly detail like, okay, just to get your frame of reference, he had to go down to the brook to get the smooth stones. it's more like a retelling of the Jordan River crossing to go back to the Canaan 

David: Right. They cross over the Jordan to enter the Promised Land. And [01:11:00] if you see, yeah, if you see all the ways that they've been in the wilderness, you know, for 40 days, it, it only makes sense. You'd be shocked if he didn't have to go cross a brook,  

JR: Right. 

David: to take on the giant. That's where the giant is, right? 

It's the other side of the brook 

JR: like you can take... Yeah, it's almost like you can take any significant story and say, "Okay, where's the water feature in this? 

David: Yeah, yeah 

JR: Where's the mountain feature?" And it's almost like the pattern just lays on. It's just, it's crazy how, how many times that happens 

To the point that you could think of any water feature, what comes to mind in the Bible? Just when I say water, what comes to mind? All those things, th- you can, you can lay that pattern right over. You can see 

David: Blood, the Red Sea, the Jordan. Yeah, it's, it's 

JR: Right. Look close enough, you'll find the 40. 

Look close enough, you'll find the mountain. You know what I 

David: Yeah. 

JR: the ascent, the descent. Yeah, it's all there 

David: Yeah, yeah. 

JR:  

David: Okay, so he, he strikes the Philistine on the forehead in verse 49. He falls over dead. And again, I use the [01:12:00] idea of the Achilles' heel, right? Like, what is that? That's the one place you could kill Achilles, right, is the heel. So the legend goes, right? So it's like David knew the one vulnerable point, and it's the same thing if you're hunting animals, right? 

If you're killing a lion or a bear, it's like you better know the one place to hit them, or you better have a lot more stones in your sl- pocket, right? 'Cause that thing's coming at you. So  

It wasn't just a lucky shot,  

JR: Right. Well, also symbolically, the forehead is the place of identity, 

David: Hmm 

JR: So the high priest wears Yahweh's name on the forehead. We saw this in Israel, you know, the little box that strapped to their forehead to this day. the beast marks the forehead. Revelation seals God's people on the forehead, right? 

So it's a symbolic way of saying the death blow was directly to his identity, and it goes back to the idea that we're, we're not talking about David and Goliath. We're talking about two spiritual worldviews. It's Yahweh versus Dagon, [01:13:00] so when it struck Goliath in the head, it was a blow not just the fatal blow to Goliath, it was a blow to the Philistines' very identity 

David: Yeah, that's true. you brought this up real quick, but it's also interesting because it does say that there were four other giants, that Goliath had brothers, right? It says it later in, in Samuel. I think it's 2 Samuel where it actually calls out specifically that once David is, I think he's king by that time, and he's got his, his own band of warriors with him, that they actually kill the other four giants. 

And so I don't know, maybe the five stones did represent something that like, "Hey, they've got five giants." And David's like, "Well, just in case, I'm packing five stones," right?  

JR: Yeah, so I m- uh, were there actually four brothers? I mean, I know that, later on in Samuel that they destroyed  

them, do you think there was something a little bit more  

significant to the five stones representing the five brothers or the five total? 

David: It, well, it could be. And I looked this up because I knew [01:14:00] it was kind of alluded to, but in 2 Samuel it actually specifically says, and it's talking about these giants. He said, "These four..." So it n- it lists four more, right? "These four were descended from the giants in Gath." All right, so they were brothers or kin with Goliath, " and they fell by the hand of David and by the hand of his servants," or his warriors with him.  

JR: cool. 

David: it actually does say... 

JR: David. 

David: Yeah. 

JR:  

David: Which, okay, so this starts to wrap things up then, because the verse we just read here talking about the four other giants and the fact that David killed them is significant because David then is the person who finishes the job of cleansing the promised land of the giants,  

JR: Yes. 

David: 2 Samuel, the verse we just read, talks about it. There is something very significant to say they were descendants of the Gath giant clan, and David killed them 

JR: most Christians have no idea why Goliath matters. [01:15:00] He, you know, 

David: Yeah 

JR: just a big soldier, right? He's that last representation of the Nephilim tradition that we talked about last episode. I'm glad you found that verse, 'cause when it says that David killed the final four, it just The conquest is truly complete. And again, to go back to Canaan, it's that thread that connects Joshua to Judges to Samuel that you were talking about. It's one continuous storyline that you don't wanna miss because you simply know the story in isolation 

David: Yeah, and it really does, so Saul and David don't get along. David's getting all the glory, right? But eventually Samuel says, "Saul, you're not God's anointed anymore." David becomes king. All right? That's important because this really does establish David as the new Joshua, the person who finally cleansed the promised land of the giants,  

JR: Mm-hmm. 

David: it also points to the idea of why Saul was not the guy. Like, you didn't do it, right? You were hiding [01:16:00] in your tent when all this was going down. 

JR: Yeah, and it's, it's why that number 40 feels like the transition point from Saul to David. Saul is what man considered to be a leader and the attributes he embodied, and David is what God considered to be a leader and the attributes that he embodied 

David: Yeah, I've been reading some of the Arthurian stories. That Arthur comes and he's able to pull this sword out of the stone, and that signals to everyone this is the true king, right? 

I think something similar is happening here with the story of David and Goliath. I think this is a signal to all the people, he just pulled the sword out of the stone. This is our true king here,  

JR: Yeah. No, I think you're right. detail worth pointing out is that after David strikes Goliath with the stone, mean, he's probably already dead. Just from what we talked about, from the, from the velocity 

David: Oh, yeah, yeah 

JR: it hits you in the head, I mean, it's like being shot in the face. But David then turns around and cuts off his head. r- right, which now [01:17:00] seems m- maybe it seems a little performative or over the top until you remember exactly what you just said. First of all, David is the Arthurian legend. You know, he pulls the sword from the stone, and he lops off the head of the Not the final Nephilim because he's got the brothers, but the Nephilim idea. You know, he's, 

David: Mm-hmm. 

JR: beheads it. And so you remember that both David and Goliath are representative of the gods of both armies, then you can start to s- pull all this stuff together. 

So in back in, back in ... I mentioned earlier, back in Samuel chapter 5, you remember that the Philistines captured the Ark of the Covenant, right? they placed it in the same room their altar to Dagon, their god, right? And when they came in the next morning, if you remember, the statue had fallen, and so they prop 

David: Yeah 

JR: up. 

And then the morning after that, they came in again and it was fallen again. And the verses say that the hands and the head were broken off the statue. And so David cuts off Goliath's head, he's ... It's like he's physically [01:18:00] reenacting Yahweh's victory over 

David: The head has fallen off again 

JR: Yeah. I mean, yes, exact- that's exactly what it is. 

Go- Goliath falls face down just like his god's statue did, and David removes his head to show that their champion has met the exact same demise as the deity that he represented. I mean, it, it's just so clear once you kind of understand and start to pull these threads together, and because of that, that means That David is the representative of the new king. You know, the proper king that was God-appointed, not man-appointed  

David: Yeah, and I think there's so many signals that that's what's going on here. the completion of the promised land, the rightful king, the whole ... Man, the, the one thing that didn't occur to me until we started talking about it on this episode is the whole reenactment of entering the promised land again. 

 A- and it's all that.  

JR: Yeah 

David: Okay, well, just to wrap this up, I would encourage people to read 1 Samuel chapter 17, and you'll pick up on all these things. 

JR: Once you kind of have the background that has been laid out, there's so much more that [01:19:00] we just didn't have time to get to But, yeah, I would encourage people to read it. Did you have any other final thoughts on this? 

David: My only final thought is to really get it practical, right? So it's like, okay, what does this mean, For how I live my life or whatever. I just like the idea that David reframes the problem. If I'm wandering in the wilderness for 40 days or 40 years and there's a problem I can't solve, what does this call me to do? 

It calls me to look at it differently, if I have God on my side, right, then what is it that I'm missing? Am I trying to do it on my own? Am I trying to solve it by myself? How has God equipped me, right? Because I guarantee you, one of the takeaways at a really practical level is reframe the problem, look how God has equipped you, and then go face whatever. 

Go face the monster that God's equipped you to take down  

JR: Well, and I'm glad you said that about, you know, if God's on my side. 'Cause it's easy to [01:20:00] hear that and think, you know, the buddy Jesus, God in my back pocket, can get whatever I want out of it. But when you sincerely frame a problem and compare it to God, that implicitly requires that you adjust your own self and say, "Well, do I have the right to, to compare my problems to God? 

Am I, am I anywhere near God in this moment?" I mean, or is that the reason I'm, I'm sitting, have this problem to begin with? So just the act of saying, comparing your problems to God, again, is not saying, that he's like a Merlin or a genie in a bottle that you can just rub the 

David: Right  

JR: it, it implicitly says, "Am I aligned with that to begin with?" know, 'cause a lot of times, man, that's the answer to your problem, is you're not aligned with God anyway. You're not aligned with, with reality. But if you are aligned, then you can say, "Well, if I'm aligned with God, now I can compare my problems to God, and yes, it's a mistake to look at my own and say, 'Well, I can't, [01:21:00] I can't tackle this.'" But if you're aligned with God, then you have to say that, "Well, okay, then I compare my problems to him and not myself." 

David: Yeah, yeah. There's almost several steps in there to say if you're stuck somewhere in the wilderness, okay, realign yourself with God, right? View the problem from that perspective. Make sure you have a clear picture of reality, and then look at what you've been equipped to do, and see if that doesn't reframe the problem altogether, right? 

Because chances are it's just you've been looking at it, the guy with the little sword and the monster across the field at me, right? It's like, and that's not how David saw things. And I, and I love it, and  

And so I'll just finish by saying that I'm not sure that David even saw this as an underdog story, and that's where I kinda think we get this wrong  

JR: No, I'm certain he didn't. and every sermon you've sat in that sort of frames this story and it's like, "Well, s- let's start naming the Goliaths that are in your life," that's just a shallow, that's a shallow [01:22:00] way to view it. And, I hope what we've uncovered in this episode is that your alignment with Creator is the fundamental place that you start. And once that alignment is correct, then everything lines up to that and, and therefore your problems, y- you know, now have to face up to that. But you have to be in alignment first. And this is just a, the recurring story of everybody else was not aligned properly. Saul was not aligned properly. 

David: Yeah 

JR: was David that was aligned properly and saw it the correct way. 

He just had to demonstrate it for everybody else to follow, which is what a true leader does 

David: Yeah, yeah. It, all this plays into setting up David as being the true king. You could see that he was equipped for it his whole life, and that's why he becomes basically Israel's greatest king. So there you go. 

JR: Yeah, 

David: All right, next episode, where are we taking 

All right, so this one should be really interesting. We're gonna do Balaam and his donkey. Remember the story how the [01:23:00] donkey 

JR: Oh, 

David: talks back to Balaam? So I don't-- 

JR: this has a lot of fairy tale elements to it 

David: it does. It, it lends itself very much almost to that kind of, like this weird why is this even in the Bible, right? 

JR: Yeah, the talking animals. Right, yeah. Okay, this is, this'll 

David: that'll be fun unpacking that one. 

And if you wanna read ahead, read Numbers chapter 22. and then we'll talk about 

JR: Yeah, we'll unpack that 

David: the talking donkey. 

JR: All right, that sounds good 

David: I actually think they're all gonna be cool. This is gonna be a cool series