Gigantic Exaggerations – Part 2
David said to Saul, “Let no man’s heart fail on account of him; your servant will go and fight with this Philistine.” Then Saul said to David, “You are not able to go against this Philistine to fight with him; for you are but a youth while he has been a warrior from his youth.” [1 Samuel 17:32-33]
We paused our last lesson by noting that we Christians often are spiritually immature in our understanding of the Bible. Allow me to give one more example of spiritually obtuse thinking vis-à-vis the Bible. In our Bible verses quoted at the commencement of this study, the Philistine “giant” Goliath daily challenged the Israelites to send out their champion warrior to fight him. Whoever won the fight would be accredited with winning the war for his people, and the other people would be their slaves.
Well, Goliath is a bit on the large size—oh, think head and shoulders above Shaquille O’Neal. All the Israelites cowered before his blustering. Israel needed a Michael Jordan to step forward, but instead they got timorous mice who hid in their holes.
One day while Goliath was fuming his morning rant, David ben Jesse brought some food from home to his three oldest brothers who were on the battlefield with the other Israelite soldiers. When he heard the blasphemy against the God of Israel spewing from Goliath’s lips, he looked around at the Israelite troops and was astonished. Not a soul would stand up and honor the name of God by defeating this giant moron, Goliath.
So David told King Saul, “Not to worry, O King. I’ll whop him for ya’.”
King Saul pointed out to David that Goliath had been trained from his “youth” to be a mighty soldier, an expert in the art of war. On the other hand David was simply a “youth”, so he wasn’t equipped to confront such a gigantic warrior. Then Saul added, “Thanks but no thanks, son. Take yourself home and leave the fighting to us men.” Like there were any “men” to be seen on the side of Israel that day!
Let’s cut to the chase. Saul’s word to describe David, i.e., a youth or a young man, has given rise to thinking in a vacuum. It is commonly assumed that David killed Goliath when he was only ten or twelve years old, maybe even younger! After all, he was a youth. The word and its connotation is imagined in terms of today’s imagery. But that is to take the word out of context. As Rule #1 for Bible study states, a text without a context is a pretext. So let’s consider the word within the context of those days, rather than in the context of today.
The Hebrew word is na‘ar. It means “a young man” or “a youth”. The wording is used of teenagers today. Sometimes we refer to our teenagers as “young adults”, which in today’s immature society is wishful thinking. Sorry, teenagers who read this. Don’t know you personally, but I do know our society.
Wow! Time sure flies when you’re having fun. We must be having fun because we’re already out of time for today. See you tomorrow, same time, same channel.
To further research this issue, I direct you to my book Numbers: Volume 4 of Heavenly Citizens in Earthly Shoes. To purchase my books please go to:
http://www.amazon.com/Randy-Green/e/B...
We paused our last lesson by noting that we Christians often are spiritually immature in our understanding of the Bible. Allow me to give one more example of spiritually obtuse thinking vis-à-vis the Bible. In our Bible verses quoted at the commencement of this study, the Philistine “giant” Goliath daily challenged the Israelites to send out their champion warrior to fight him. Whoever won the fight would be accredited with winning the war for his people, and the other people would be their slaves.
Well, Goliath is a bit on the large size—oh, think head and shoulders above Shaquille O’Neal. All the Israelites cowered before his blustering. Israel needed a Michael Jordan to step forward, but instead they got timorous mice who hid in their holes.
One day while Goliath was fuming his morning rant, David ben Jesse brought some food from home to his three oldest brothers who were on the battlefield with the other Israelite soldiers. When he heard the blasphemy against the God of Israel spewing from Goliath’s lips, he looked around at the Israelite troops and was astonished. Not a soul would stand up and honor the name of God by defeating this giant moron, Goliath.
So David told King Saul, “Not to worry, O King. I’ll whop him for ya’.”
King Saul pointed out to David that Goliath had been trained from his “youth” to be a mighty soldier, an expert in the art of war. On the other hand David was simply a “youth”, so he wasn’t equipped to confront such a gigantic warrior. Then Saul added, “Thanks but no thanks, son. Take yourself home and leave the fighting to us men.” Like there were any “men” to be seen on the side of Israel that day!
Let’s cut to the chase. Saul’s word to describe David, i.e., a youth or a young man, has given rise to thinking in a vacuum. It is commonly assumed that David killed Goliath when he was only ten or twelve years old, maybe even younger! After all, he was a youth. The word and its connotation is imagined in terms of today’s imagery. But that is to take the word out of context. As Rule #1 for Bible study states, a text without a context is a pretext. So let’s consider the word within the context of those days, rather than in the context of today.
The Hebrew word is na‘ar. It means “a young man” or “a youth”. The wording is used of teenagers today. Sometimes we refer to our teenagers as “young adults”, which in today’s immature society is wishful thinking. Sorry, teenagers who read this. Don’t know you personally, but I do know our society.
Wow! Time sure flies when you’re having fun. We must be having fun because we’re already out of time for today. See you tomorrow, same time, same channel.
To further research this issue, I direct you to my book Numbers: Volume 4 of Heavenly Citizens in Earthly Shoes. To purchase my books please go to:
http://www.amazon.com/Randy-Green/e/B...
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