The Enemy's Own Sword: David and Goliath and the Victory of Christ
Old Testament: 1 Kings 17:49-51
And he put his hand into his scrip, and took a stone, and cast it with the sling, and fetching it about struck the Philistine in the forehead: and the stone was fixed in his forehead, and he fell on his face upon the earth. ... And as David had no sword in his hand, He ran, and stood over the Philistine, and took his sword, and drew it out of the sheath, and slew him, and cut off his head. And the Philistines seeing that their champion was dead, fled away.
Old Testament, also: 1 Kings 17:45, 47
Thou comest to me with a sword, and with a spear, and with a shield: but I come to thee in the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, which thou hast defied. ... And all this assembly shall know, that the Lord saveth not with sword and spear: for it is his battle, and he will deliver you into our hands.
New Testament: Hebrews 2:14; Colossians 2:15
Therefore because the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself in like manner hath been partaker of the same: that, through death, he might destroy him who had the empire of death, that is to say, the devil: ... And despoiling the principalities and powers, he hath exposed them confidently in open shew, triumphing over them in himself.
The connection
Two armies stand still while one man fights. That is the shape of the scene, and it is the reason it reads as more than a story about courage: whatever happens to the champion happens to the whole people behind him, who strike no blow in the fight itself and are delivered by it. Israel could not save itself, and is saved by one, and the terms were the Philistines' own. The details refuse to let the victory be David's. David comes without armour, having taken off the king's, and says why: "I come to thee in the name of the Lord of hosts", and "the Lord saveth not with sword and spear: for it is his battle" (17:45, 47). The stone goes into the forehead, and the giant falls on his face. Then comes the detail the Fathers seize on, which the text is careful to explain first: "as David had no sword in his hand", he takes Goliath's, draws it out of its own sheath, and cuts off his head with it. The weapon that was brought to kill him is what kills him. That is precisely how Hebrews describes the Passion. The enemy's weapon is death, and Christ takes hold of it by dying: "that, through death, he might destroy him who had the empire of death, that is to say, the devil" (Hebrews 2:14). Not death defeated from outside, but death drawn out of its sheath and turned. Colossians finishes the scene the way the Philistines saw it, the powers stripped and held up in open shew, and an army that did not fight the giant is free because its champion died. St Augustine reads it exactly so: "This our David also did, He overthrew the devil with his own weapons." St Jerome calls Christ "the true David" who taught the Church "to wrench the sword of the enemy out of his hand and with his own blade to cut off the head of the arrogant Goliath." St Cyprian reads the stone itself as Christ, thrown at the forehead, "signifying that the devil and his servants are thereby thrown down", and notes which part of the head is struck: the place a Christian is sealed.
Moral sense
David could not fight in Saul's armour and, having tried it, laid it off; he went out with what was his own and with the name of the Lord, and said out loud, before anything was thrown, that the battle was not his. Trust littleness. The armour the world insists on is usually the thing that would have got you killed, and the temptations that come armed have a way of being beaten with what they brought.
Anagogical sense
The champion falls, and an army that did not fight the giant walks free. At the last judgment every proud power is publicly and finally unmasked, stripped and held up in open shew, and the people who stood behind their champion share a victory only He could win.
The Fathers
St Augustine, Expositions on the Psalms, Psalm 143 (144), 1: "Then, having smitten and overthrown him, he took the enemy's sword, and with it cut off his head. This our David also did, He overthrew the devil with his own weapons." St Jerome, Letter LXX, To Magnus an Orator of Rome: "he had learned from the true David to wrench the sword of the enemy out of his hand and with his own blade to cut off the head of the arrogant Goliath." St Cyprian, Three Books of Testimonies Against the Jews, That Christ also is called a Stone: "this is the stone in the first book of Kings, with which David smote the forehead of Goliath and slew him; signifying that the devil and his servants are thereby thrown down, that part of the head, namely, being conquered which they have not had sealed."
Warrant
No New Testament writer names David and Goliath, so the badge is patristic rather than scriptural. What the New Testament supplies is the logic rather than the figure: Hebrews 2:14 has Christ destroying the holder of the empire of death by means of death itself, which is the same movement as taking the giant's sword out of its own sheath, and Colossians 2:15 has the powers stripped and exposed. The reading is old and explicit. Augustine states it outright on Psalm 143, with the sword and the severed head; Jerome calls Christ the true David in the same connection; Cyprian, reading Christ as the stone, gives the blow to the forehead and the seal. The entry keeps their reading and does not press the parallel further: the five stones are Augustine's own allegory of the five books and are not used here, and nothing is made of David's shepherding or of the Philistines' flight beyond what the text says.
Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraph 635.
The verses
1 Kings 17:49 · 1 Kings 17:50 · 1 Kings 17:51 · 1 Kings 17:45 · 1 Kings 17:47 · Hebrews 2:14 · Colossians 2:15
