Throughout the latter half of 1-2 Samuel, Saul and David are locked in hand-to-hand combat. It seems an unequal contest. All the heavy artillery is on Saul’s side. To understand the full scope of the conflict, we need to back up to the beginning of the book.
Prior to Saul’s ascension to the throne, the Lord had shown the power of His hand. After the Philistines defeated Israel at Aphek and stole the ark, the Lord laid a heavy hand on the Philistines, striking them with Egyptian plagues, dismantling the cities of Philistia. As Philistia turns formless and void, the word “hand” appears seven times in the narrative with reference to Yahweh’s creative and decreative hand(1 Samuel 5:6-7, 9, 11; 6:3, 5, 9). In the process, Yahweh disables the Philistine god Dagon by pushing him over and breaking off his head and both hands (5:4).
This is why Samuel can be so confident in facing the Philistines. Yahweh has delivered Israel from the hands of their enemies again and again (12:9-11), and He’ll do the same with the Philistines (7:8, 13-14). It doesn’t matter much that the Philistines have a monopoly of metallurgy and weaponry (13:22). As long as Yahweh is with Israel, His hand will rescue His people from the hands of their enemies. Conversely, if Israel refuses to listen to Yahweh, then He turns around and places His heavy hand on them (12:15). Human hands are weak flesh; Yahweh’s hand is Spirit and power. His hand is the only one that matters.
Jonathan gets the point. He makes an aggressive, not to say rash, assault on a Philistine garrison, confident that the Lord can give them into his hands (14:10, 12). Of course, David gets the point too. He knows that even a gigantic Philistine like Saul is nothing before the Lord. Yahweh has delivered David from the hand of lions and bears, and He will deliver from the hand of Goliath (17:37). He doesn’t have a sword in his hand (17:50), and he doesn’t need one. A stone is enough (17:49), a stone and Yahweh’s help. Yahweh will give Goliath into his hand (17:46), and the battle ends with David triumphantly carrying Goliath’s titanic head back to Saul (17:57). In a hand-to-hand struggle between the boy and the Philistine giant, Goliath is the one out-manned. His hands are full of weaponry, but a single stone and faith in Yahweh overcomes him. In weakness, David’s hands are made strong.
Saul, however, doesn’t get the point. He can only see the strength of Philistine hands, and because of this Saul sees everything backwards. When Jonathan defeats the Philistine garrison, Saul doesn’t join him. Instead, Saul is ready to seize his son, until the people deliver Jonathan from his hands. When Goliath shows up in the valley of Elah, Saul stays in his tent cowering before the Philistine giant.
Saul doesn’t rely on the hand of Yahweh, but instead fills his hand with the weapons of Philistia. He and Jonathan are the only warriors in Israel with metal weapons (13:22), but they turn their weapons in opposite directions. Jonathan uses his to attack Philistines. Saul has a spear in his hand all the time, but he never uses it to fight Israel’s enemies. Seething with envy, he points his spear at David (18:10-11; 19:9-10) and Jonathan (20:33). Giant that he is, he is a mirror image of Goliath, who also aimed his telephone-pole spear at David. When David finally gets a sword, Goliath’s, he uses it to fight Philistines and Amalekites (21:8).
It’s in these scenes that we see the clash between Saul and David most vividly. An evil spirit plagues Saul, so David comes in to calm him. Saul has his spear in his hand “as usual” (literally the Hebrews says “day by day,” 18:10). David also has something in his hand – a lyre (18:10). The king versus the armor bearer; the warrior versus the singer; the spear versus the harp – it seems an unequal contest, with Saul enjoying all the advantages. But the Spirit-hand of Yahweh is with David, and that changes the balance of power. Lyre in hand, he is invulnerable to Saul’s attacks, as Saul comes to realize. Envy quickly gives way to dread (18:12), and Saul finally cannot find Yahweh’s helping hand. David triumphs because Yahweh taught him to make war with his fingers (Psalm 144:1).
Saul’s trajectory is predictable. A king who relies on the spear can only end badly. After he falls on his sword during the battle of Mount Gilboa, the Philistines find his body, behead him, install his weapons in the temple of their gods, and expose his body on the wall of Beth-shan (31:9-10). It’s a tragically familiar ending: Live like Goliath, die like Goliath (cf. 17:50-54; 21:8-9).
David’s success is due not only to what he holds in his hands, but what he refuses to hold. Though persecuted by Saul, he never raises a hand against Yahweh’s anointed (24:6). Twice David has an opportunity to take his enemy into his hand – first when Saul comes to use the toilet in the cave where David is hiding (ch. 24) and then when David and Abishai sneak into Saul’s camp at night (ch. 26). In both cases, David’s men urge him to stretch out his hand against Saul, but he refuses. Even taking Saul’s robe in his hand leaves him conscience-stricken (24:4-5). As Abigail reminds him when David wants to avenge himself against Nabal by his own hand (25:26), becoming king along a path of blood is ultimately counter-productive. Bloody hands do not quality anyone for high office, but only leave a trace of paralyzing guilt (26:31; David confirms Abigail’s point when he lifts his hand against Uriah and falls into pathetic passivity). Ultimately, David’s patience under persecution is a sign of his faith: He refuses to lift a hand because he trusts Yahweh’s hand will deliver him.
1 Samuel gives a formula for victory in hand-to-hand combat with giants, whether Israelite or Philistine: First, don’t take things into your own hands; don’t lift a hand against your enemy, even in a symbol; empty your hands of all the usual weapons. And, second, fills your hands with lyres and harps; learn to fight with your fingers and voice; and trust the hand of Yahweh to rescue from the hand of every enemy.
Spear-wielders trudge toward disaster. Singers, poets and players go from strength to strength.
Peter J. Leithart is President of Trinity House.