1 Samuel 17 (David and Goliath)

David and Goliath as Real History and a Picture of Christ

Let's open up to 1 Samuel chapter 17. 1 Samuel 17, and of course, this is the story of David and Goliath. This is one of the greatest Bible stories, if not the greatest Bible story of all time in the Old Testament.

And of course, when I say a Bible story, I don't mean to suggest that this is something like a fairy tale or a legend, because of course, that's how some people view this. This here in 1 Samuel 17, this is a real historical account.

Anyone who takes an honest look at the books of 1 and 2 Kings, 1 and 2 Chronicles, 1 and 2 Samuel, you see it very clear. This is meant to be communicated as Israelite history. And it's not only that, it also serves as a powerful picture of the gospel and Christ's victory over sin and death.

Because as I like to remind you, the Old Testament is all about what? Or it's all about who? Yeah, it's all about Christ. So we're looking for Christ in these Old Testament stories. And is he in this story?

Well, David clearly pictures Christ. David is now God's anointed. Back in chapter 16, David was anointed by Samuel with oil, but then he was anointed by the Holy Spirit. So now David is the Lord's Christ in that sense, an Old Testament foreshadow of Christ, and he will overcome one of the greatest enemies, this man named Goliath.

So with that said, let's listen along as we go through 1 Samuel 17, verses one through 29.

Now the Philistines gathered their armies together to battle and were gathered at Soko, which belongs to Judah. They encamped between Soko and Ezekiel in Ephes Danin. And Saul and the men of Israel were gathered together and they encamped in the Valley of Elah and drew up in battle array against the Philistines.

The Philistines stood on a mountain on one side and Israel stood on a mountain on the other side with a valley between them. And a champion went out from the camp of the Philistines named Goliath from Gath, whose height was six cubits and a span.

He had a bronze helmet on his head and he was armed with a coat of mail. And the weight of the coat was 5 ,000 shekels of bronze. And he had bronze armor on his legs and a bronze javelin between his shoulders.

Now the staff of his spear was like a weaver's beam and his iron spearhead weighed 600 shekels. And a shield bearer went before him. Then he stood and cried out to the armies of Israel and said to them,.

Why have you come out to line up for battle? Am I not a Philistine and you the servants of Saul? Choose a man for yourselves and let him come down to me. If he is able to fight with me and kill me, then we will be your servants.

But if I prevail against him and kill him, then you shall be our servants and serve us. I defy the armies of Israel this day. Give me a man that we may fight together.

When Saul and all Israel heard these words of the Philistine, they were dismayed and greatly afraid. Now David was the son of that Ephrathite of Bethlehem Judah whose name was Jesse and who had eight sons.

And the man was old, advanced in years in the days of Saul. The three oldest sons of Jesse had gone to follow Saul to the battle. The names of his three sons who went to the battle were Eliab the firstborn, next to him Abinadab and the third Shammah.

David was the youngest and the three oldest followed Saul. But David occasionally went and returned from Saul to feed his father's sheep at Bethlehem. And the Philistine drew near and presented himself 40 days, morning and evening.

Then Jesse said to his son, David,.

Take now for your brothers an ephah of this dried grain and these 10 loaves and run to your brothers at the camp and carry these 10 cheeses to the captain of their thousand and see how your brothers fare and bring back news of them.

Now Saul and they and all the men of Israel were in the valley of Elah fighting with the Philistines. So David rose early in the morning, left the sheep with a keeper and took the things and went as Jesse had commanded him.

And he came to the camp as the army was going out to the fight and shouting for the battle. For Israel and the Philistines had drawn up in battle array, army against army. And David left his supplies in the hand of the supply keeper, ran to the army and came and greeted his brothers.

Then as he talked with them, there was the champion, the Philistine of Gath, Goliath by name, coming up from the armies of the Philistines. And he spoke according to the same words. So David heard them and all the men of Israel, when they saw the man fled from him and were dreadfully afraid.

So the men of Israel said.

Have you seen this man who has come up? Surely he has come up to defy Israel. And it shall be that the man who kills him, the king will enrich with great riches, will give him his daughter and give his father's house exemption from taxes in Israel.

Then David spoke to the man who stood by him.

What shall be done for the man who kills this Philistine and takes away the reproach from Israel? For who is this uncircumcised Philistine that he should defy the armies of the living God?

So shall it be done for the man who kills him.

David's Zeal for the Lord and the Meaning of "Is There Not a Cause?"

Now Eliab, his oldest brother heard when he spoke to the men. And Eliab's anger was aroused against David.

Why did you come down here? And with whom have you left those few sheep in the wilderness? I know your pride and the insolence of your heart. For you have come down to see the battle.

What have I done now? Is there not a cause?

This is where we're ending off here where David makes this statement. Is there not a cause? And this is one of my favorite lines from this chapter. David has such great zeal for God. He just can't believe that when he shows up to the battle, here's Goliath down there blaspheming the Lord.

And everyone's just kind of standing around and nobody's doing anything about it. And nobody's really even saying much about it. So David speaks up and instantly, cause they're not volunteering to go out.

David speaks up and instantly he gets slapped down. That David's really only there because he's prideful and David's the problem. And it's really kind of a sad thing. Because of your pride, he says, you just came here because you wanted to see the battle.

Now, is that true? Is that why David was there? Now, we read it. David, number one, he was instructed by his father to go. Number two, the Lord was sovereignly arranging this whole situation. And it's gonna help elevate David to the position of King.

You remember he's been anointed King, but is he reigning as King? No, it's gonna be many, many years before David actually takes the throne. And then number three, was there a cause? Yeah, there was a cause or there is a cause.

David had every right to speak up. The only sad part about it is that more people were not taking issue. Not to get off topic from the start, but I can really identify with that feeling of not seeing people kind of react when there's people maybe blaspheming the Lord.

There's been an outbreak of heresy in our area. And some of us have been dealing with this. And when I hear people blaspheming and teaching things totally contrary to the word of God, and they're doing it out in the open.

And when it comes, you can find out that this has actually been going on for a long time. And it doesn't really seem like people are all that bothered by it.

I don't know.

Sometimes I wonder. So I really appreciate those, not just pastors, but servants of God, church members, deacons, whoever it is that really have that zeal for God that when Christ's name is being dishonored, they're bothered by it.

They wanna see that put to an end. But anyways, that's just how I kind of identified with that statement a little bit. But what is zeal? You know, this statement about zeal, Psalm 69, verse nine, David will write later on, he'll write, zeal for your house.

He's speaking to God. He says, zeal for your house has eaten me up. And the reproaches of those who reproach you have fallen on me. So what does it mean to have zeal? Enthusiastic. Yeah, basically to have great passion or fervor for something.

So those who have a passion for the Lord and a passion for his word, when they hear God's word being mishandled or somebody blaspheming the name of God, they take it personally. Like it makes them upset.

I think of a man maybe who loves his wife and somebody else speaks against his wife or somebody else says something insulting against that man's wife. That's gonna affect him personally, right? Even though they're not insulting him, he's taking that personal and he's gonna want to stand up and defend his wife, right?

Well, that's the way it should be for the believer when people speak against God or speak blasphemies against God. That's certainly the way it was with David. David is very zealous when he hears Goliath down in the valley saying these things, what's his reaction?

Who is this? Who does he think he is talking about the Lord like that? So we could use a few more Davids, I think. So we know who David is. We've talked about David for a couple of weeks now, but who is Goliath?

Well, one thing everyone knows about Goliath, he's a giant, right? That's the first thing we get, but Goliath is also, what nation is he from? He is a

He's a Palestinian.

He is a Palestinian. No, that's not what the scripture says, but that's a good guess. Well, Goliath is a Philistine, right? And the Philistines were people from the land of Philistia. And Philistia was on the coast of the Mediterranean.

And I think this is where Mark is coming from when he says that. This is actually known as Gaza today or the Gaza Strip. So this is the area that we're hearing about in the news right now where Hamas is attacking Israel, mainly from the Gaza Strip.

So that is ancient Philistia. So it's just interesting that the Philistines were Israel's great enemy back in Bible times. And Israel, thousands of years later, is still fighting a great enemy in Philistia or Gaza.

Verse four, it calls Goliath their champion. So a champion is basically someone who fights on behalf of another. It says about Goliath that his height was six cubits and a span. Now, who knows what a cubit is?

What is it?

18 inches.

18 inches, or sometimes it's described as from the tip of your finger to your elbow. Basically, long story short, people estimate that Goliath is about 10 feet tall. Give or take, maybe nine, maybe it's 11 or 10 1⁄2.

But obviously, he's a huge man. Also, we see he's from the town of Gath. And apparently, there was a whole family of giants living in Gath because in 2 Samuel 21, we read that Goliath had what? He had brothers.

And the note about his brothers, they had six fingers and six toes on each of their hands and feet. So whatever this was, some people speculate that Goliath and his brothers were descended from the Nephilim, right?

And I don't think that's the case because the Nephilim were all destroyed in the flood, but that's one legend.

Larry?

Did he have four brothers? Does it say?

Yeah, does someone want to check that out?

The reason I asked is

For the five stones. David picked up five stones, one for each of them. Yeah, we're gonna get to that. Why did David pick up five stones? Yeah, he only needed one, right? Well, in case Goliath's brothers showed us.

Seriously, someone check that out. 2 Samuel 21 and let me know. But yeah, this, whether it's a genetic abnormality, whatever the case is, this is why some people don't believe the story because, I mean, who believes in giants?

Of course, he's not like the jolly green giant and he's 150 feet tall. I mean, he would only have been, yeah, nine or 10 feet. Are there people today who are that tall? Well, not quite, but there is a man named Robert Wadlow.

He was, according to the Guinness Book of World Records, I think he was something like nine feet tall and that was in the past 100 years. So I'm sure if Shaquille O 'Neal stood next to Tanya here, I'm sure he'd look like a giant, right?

But point is, it's not unreasonable to think someone could be that tall. Like there have been throughout history and as far as the six toes and six fingers, yeah, that's a little hard to imagine, but how many of you have seen or heard about this girl?

I think she lives in Britain. She has two heads, right? We've all seen that girl, a young woman with two heads. So I mean, stuff like this happens. So that's no reason to think that this is some myth because there's people that have been just about this tall in our day and age.

Erin.

Warned the giant in Gap and fell by the hand of David and by the hand of his servants.

Okay, so there was four. Thank you, Larry, for bringing that to my attention. So there was five in all, Goliath and his four brothers. So long story short, some people will make a big issue about this and who can believe in giants, but this is not difficult to believe.

People who do that, they're just trying to cast out on the word of God, same old story. So this isn't hard to believe at all. Let's continue on here in verse, well, 1 Samuel 17, verse 16. You have the armies of Israel on one side.

Can someone grab the phone? It's in the other room, sorry. So you have the, no one ever calls. I think this is the first time anyone's called on a Wednesday night that I can remember. But you have the armies of Israel on one side, the armies of the Philistines on the other, verse 16.

And the Philistine drew near and presented himself 40 days, morning and evening. And here you see the number 40. Why would the number 40 be significant? Well, it's one of those numbers that just gets repeated in the Bible.

And who remembers what 40 represents?

40 days and 40 nights.

Yeah, there's 40 days and 40 nights. Jesus was tempted, right? 40 days and the rain and the flood. Basically, it's generally accepted that 40 is like a probationary period. It's a time of testing. And I think it's safe to say Israel is being tested here because Goliath comes out, he's blaspheming God, he's challenging them.

And does anyone step up to the challenge? No, no. Now, Goliath's challenge is interesting. Basically, he says, if you can produce a warrior who will fight me if he wins, we, the Philistines, will be your servants.

I guess there's no guarantee they would have agreed to that. But he says, if you win, if the champion on your side wins, we'll be your servants. So this way, if you fight using this method, thousands or tens of thousands of people don't have to die.

This would actually be a very civilized way of fighting a battle. The representative, whoever wins, that's which nation will get to control the other. Now, why would this be a problem for the Israelites?

Yeah, well, I mean, that's the obvious problem that none of our guys are willing to do it and there's no way we can win. But there's another reason. Remember, God told the Israelites they are not allowed to make any agreements or any covenants with the people of the land.

So even if they had a warrior, which, you know, Dave, this is not the agreement. This is what I want you to know. David is not agreeing to the terms. David is just gonna go out there and he's gonna kill Goliath.

There's no covenant being made because that's strictly forbidden anyway. So David, he's, how old do we think David is at this point? Yeah, I mean, some people say as young as 10. I find that really hard to believe.

15, maybe 16, but a teenager. But he's the youngest of Jesse, we see that. But Jesse had three older sons and those sons were with Saul in the military. And did you notice anything about Jesse's three sons?

They weren't happy to see him.

Yeah, they weren't happy to see him, but they were the same exact three that were mentioned in the last chapter that got passed over when Samuel anointed David. You had a hand up?

Yeah, well, I don't think he was that young because whoever killed the giant, Saul said, can have my daughter instead of marriage. And we know that David got Michael.

True, yeah, that's something I hadn't considered.

He got his daughter after he didn't take that offer.

Right, yeah, I mean, that's something to consider. Of course, just because he was promised that, he could have married her later on or people did get married around age 14 and 15 back then. It wasn't that uncommon, but that's a good point, I think.

But basically, that's the challenge that Goliath is putting out there. And David is hearing this offer by Saul. So Saul says what? You'll get to marry my daughter, which doesn't end up being much of a deal when David does marry her later on.

That's not gonna work out well. But great wealth, right? His family will be exempt with paying taxes. So is David doing this for the money? Is David doing this for the fame? Is David, no, why is David doing this?

He's doing it for the Lord.

Right, he's doing it for the Lord. He wants to take away the reproach from Israel. Look at verse 26. It says, then David spoke to the men who stood by him saying, what shall be done for the man who kills this Philistine and takes away the reproach from Israel?

For who is this uncircumcised Philistine that he should defy the armies of the living God? So David's accusation against Goliath is what? You know, if there was some trash talking from side to side, this sort of seems like a strange thing to say.

This uncircumcised Philistine. What does it mean when he makes a comment like that? He's saying basically, what? He's a dog. Okay, he is one of the heathen. If you are uncircumcised, that meant you were not part of the covenant.

You did not know God. And it was just believed and it was true that the uncircumcised, they just lived a very immoral lifestyle, you could say. So it's sort of like calling Saul a degenerate or something like that.

Verse 29, David says, is there not a cause? And then he turned from him, verse 30, toward another and said the same thing. And these people answered him as the first ones did. Now, when the words which David spoke were heard, they reported them to Saul and he sent for him.

Then David said to Saul, let no man's heart fail because of him. Your servant will go and fight with the Philistine. And Saul said to David, you are not able to go against this Philistine to fight with him for you are a youth and he is a man of war from his youth.

But David said to Saul, your servant used to keep his father's sheep. And when a lion or a bear came and took a lamb out of the flock, I went out after it and struck it and delivered the lamb from its mouth.

And when it arose against me, I caught it by its beard and struck and killed it. Now, if somebody told you that, if some teenager told you that, would you believe them? I have to admit, I'm not so sure I'd believe that.

Verse 36, your servant, David continues, has killed both lion and bear and this uncircumcised Philistine will be like one of them, seeing he has defied the armies of the living God. And I can, it doesn't say this, but I can just imagine Saul sitting there listening to this and being like, yeah, right.

But let's say he is 15 or 16 and he's saying, okay, I killed a bear, a lion, probably some wild dogs. Today, it's not unheard of for a teenager to kill a big game because they have a rifle, right, or a shotgun.

Back then, I mean, this is borderline. I don't know that it's a miracle that David did this, but you think of this, I'm not sure about this because it says that the spirit of the Lord came upon David when Samuel anointed him.

But I think of Samson, correct me if I'm wrong, didn't Samson kill a lion with his bare hands, right? So it doesn't say that David did that, but did the spirit of God come upon him before? And this is like a miraculous thing.

Did he use the slingshot? Not really sure.

Back even as far back as pioneer times before everyone had rifles or what have you, there are tribes that kill animals with spears, large game with spears. It's not outside the realm of crituality. I can't speak English tonight.

But he could have done it with a rock, with a spear that he would have had.

He was a shepherd.

He had things to protect, sheep. And that's part of the job. And I mean, yeah, we see kids today that will go out with rifles, but back in pioneer times, the Native American kids went out with a spear, not a crossbow, and they killed large bears.

Right, so do we all agree that this is possible?

Yeah.

Well, I mean, as Christians, we believe the Bible, that if David says this, then we believe it happened. But these are the types of things that the skeptic, the unbeliever will say, that you can't believe David and Goliath because of these details.

Again, it's not that hard to believe. But this story, I think there's a spiritual lesson. The fact that if a lion came and got one of the sheep, just put yourself in that situation. Even a skilled hunter, you might be tempted to let, okay, let the lion have that sheep.

You know, I'm not gonna confront a lion. I'll take them. Let's say David had a hundred sheep. A lion gets a hold of one. We'll take the 90 and nine and go this way. And we'll just, was that his attitude?

No, and it reminds us of Christ, who is the good shepherd. And why is Christ a good shepherd? Because he doesn't allow even one of his sheep to be lost. So with Jesus, we would talk about this as the eternal security of the believer.

And we could talk about the gospel of John chapter 10, how not even one of his own are lost. But that really comes from David here. He's not gonna allow even one sheep. Whether he has to face off with a lion or a bear, it doesn't matter, he won't lose even one.

So David was a good shepherd. And there's just another thing that kind of points ahead to, you know, David is the foreshadow. Christ is the substance. So David, he convinces Saul to let, allow him to enter into this battle.

Verses 38 and 39, Saul has David put on his armor. So this would have been, is this a chain mail? It was an old type of armor here. And David puts it on and he's, first of all, it would have been too big for David.

Saul was much bigger individual, but David said, you know, I haven't tested this. David doesn't want the armor. David is gonna trust in the Lord to give him this victory and not Saul's armor. Look at verse 40.

And it says, he took his staff in his hand and he chose for himself five smooth stones from the brook and put them in the shepherd's bag and a pouch, which he had. And his sling was in his hand and he drew near the Philistine.

And again, this is the question some people have asked, why five stones? And we've already heard, yeah. This is the joke. People say it as a joke, but I mean, maybe this is his thinking. We don't know, in case his brothers show up.

But some people try to find like a symbolic meaning. I know we already talked about 40. 40 is a pretty well-established number representing the time of testing. I don't think there's any significance to the number five.

I mean, I've never seen anything like that. If some of you had any thoughts on the number five, yeah, the way I look at this, David is just being smart. He's going in prepared. If you had a revolver that held five rounds of ammunition, you're not gonna just put one in there.

Yeah, six. Yeah, well, I mean, there are some, the .357 Magnum might have five, but yeah, you're gonna take more than one just in case. I mean, this is just being prepared, right? So that's what it is.

And as Christians, we need to do the same thing. We need to be wise. We need to be smart. We need to be prepared. So I don't think there's anything mysterious here with five stones. Look at verse 41. So the Philistine came and began drawing near to David.

And the man who bore the shield went before him. And when the Philistine looked about and saw David, he disdained him for he was only a youth, ruddy and good looking. And we talked about this last week, how ruddy meant, you know, red or a healthy looking complexion, maybe red hair or a reddish complexion.

But David, it points out again that he's good looking. Now, why does that matter in this story? Here he is fighting the giant. Why do you gotta insert that he's good looking? Any thoughts?

You. Small. Yeah.

Well, you know, some people look at that. Okay, so Goliath, I don't know what Goliath looked like. He probably wasn't all that attractive. He's this big brute, whatever. But here comes David and he's looking at him like, are you serious?

You're sending this young pretty boy or whatever. You know, and I don't mean pretty boy like David. David was a man's man, I'm sure. But yeah, Goliath takes one look at David and is like, come on, this has to be a joke.

And he says, what am I, a dog? Because David has the stones, he has the slingshot, but he also has the staff. Like, what are you, here, like I'm a dog, you're coming at me with sticks? And it says that the Philistine cursed David by his gods.

So you see that Goliath is just mocking. So who are the gods of the Philistines? We know one for sure. Dagon was the primary god of the Philistines. Also, they worshiped Ashtoreth. Also Beelzebub was worshiped in Philistia.

Beelzebub, you know, is a name the New Testament uses for the devil. So basically, Goliath would have been worshiping these false deities, and Goliath made what is called an imprecation by the name of his deities that basically David is gonna die.

So by the name of Dagon, David, I'm sure he got creative in how he said it. But David would then write what are called imprecatory psalms when he became king and when he got older. And what are the imprecatory psalms?

David would invoke the name of the Lord to curse his enemies or to curse the Lord's enemies. Who has ever read or at least heard of the imprecatory psalms? Okay, so a couple of you. So Goliath is cursing David by his gods.

And New Testament Christians kind of don't know what to do with some of David's writings in the imprecatory psalms.

Why?

Because Jesus taught to love your enemy. So when people read David cursing his enemies, it's like, what do you do with that? Isn't this a contradiction? But really, David was cursing not his personal enemies.

David was cursing the enemies of God. You know, sometimes you come to a point where you just have to fight. Like someone, they're the enemy. And that's all there is to it. I think somebody said that today, if there was this battle, David and Goliath, that the Israelites would say, well, we just need to love on Goliath.

We just need to win them over that way. No, you need to kill Goliath, okay? Sometimes there's just that battle. But the imprecatory psalms were David cursing God's enemies. So that's Psalm 5 and in Psalm 11.

I might do a study on that some Wednesday night. But is this, my point is, is this a personal conflict between David and Goliath? This isn't personal. I mean, this is a battle, really, of good versus evil.

It's symbolic of the battle between the kingdom of God and the kingdom of darkness. So this isn't a personal dispute. Look at verse 44. And the Philistine said to David, come to me and I will give your flesh to the birds of the air and the beasts of the field.

Then David said to the Philistine, you come to me with a sword and with a spear and with a javelin, but I come to you in the name of the Lord of hosts and the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied.

This day, the Lord will deliver you into my hand and I will strike you and take your head from you. And this day, I will give the carcasses of the camp of the Philistines to the birds of the air and the wild beasts of the earth, and all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel.

Verse 47, then all this assembly shall know that the Lord does not save with sword and spear for the battle is, whose? The Lord's. For the battle is the Lord's and he will give you into our hands. So it was when the Philistine arose and came and drew near to meet David, that David hurried and ran toward the army to meet the Philistine.

Then David put his hand in the bag and took out a stone and he slung it and struck the Philistine in his forehead so that the stone sank into his forehead and he fell on his face to the earth. So David prevailed over the Philistine with a sling and a stone and struck the Philistine and killed him.

But there was no sword in the hand of David. Now, remember how massive Goliath is. So he may have been dead just by getting struck with the rock. But if you're David, you're not taking any chances, are you?

Now, verse 51, therefore David ran and stood over the Philistine, took his sword and drew it out of its sheath and killed him and cut off his head with it. Now, how many of you had a little storybook that you read, Bible stories to your child before bed?

I think David and Goliath is in every child's storybook and this part about him cutting Goliath's head off is always left out. I don't think this gets put in, which is understandable for little kids. But is there something we can learn from this?

Well, I think so because Goliath, okay, he has his head removed from his body. David is a picture of who?

Jesus.

Jesus and Jesus. So if Goliath represents the enemy, if he represents the devil, gets his head cut off, what does the Bible say about Jesus? He will do what to the head of the enemy? Crush it, right? So cutting it off, crushing it, not exactly the same, but it all kind of fits in with that picture of David as a foreshadowing of Christ.

Saul, Jesse, and the Question of Chronology

Verse 55, we're almost done. This is where you get into the question last week where some people have seen, this is another thing people complain about that has Saul and David already met? Yeah, David was playing the harp for him in the last chapter.

He was his armor bearer. And now Saul sort of acts like he doesn't know who David is. Look at verse 55. When Saul saw that David was going out against the Philistine, he said to Abner, the commander of the army, Abner, whose son is this youth?

And Abner said, as your Saul lives, oh, king, I do not know. Now, does Saul say that he doesn't know who David is? Yeah, that's not what he says. He's asking about David's father, okay? So there's a few different possibilities.

First of all, Saul is the king. He has a lot on his mind. He's meeting all sorts of people. The idea that he could have forgot who David was seems unlikely, but could he have forgot about Jesse? Yeah, very easily.

And remember, he needs to know who David's father is because that whole family is gonna be tax exempt now. So he's probably just forgot about Jesse. That's the first possibility. Another possibility is sometimes the Bible's not in chronological order.

You know, maybe 17 actually happened before parts of chapter 16. That's another possibility. Either way, it is definitely not a contradiction. So in starting to bring this study to a close, I think, okay, what's the takeaway?

Some view this as sort of the classic underdog overcoming obstacles story, and I think there is some validity to that just to remember that, hey, with God, all things are possible, and with God, seeing what God has done, hey, get some courage and face some giants, face some battles in your life.

If God is with you, you can overcome. I think there's some legitimacy to that, but since Jesus said that the whole Old Testament is about him, he said that in John 5, 39, you search the scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life, but these are they which testify of me.

So in other words, the whole Old Testament is about me. I think the proper application would be Christ and the gospel. So how do we see Christ in this passage? Well, basically, David, did anyone think he had a chance?

No.

I mean, Saul figured, I'm gonna send him off, and that's the last we'll see of him. When Jesus was on the cross, did it look like he had just won the victory or that he was winning the victory?

No.