David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants

by Malcolm Gladwell

As the historian Moshe Garsiel writes, “To the Israelites, this extraordinary spear, with its heavy shaft plus long and heavy iron blade, when hurled by Goliath’s strong arm, seemed capable of piercing any bronze shield and bronze armor together.” Can you see why no Israelite would come forward to fight Goliath? Then David appears. Saul tries to give him his own sword and armor so at least he’ll have a fighting chance. David refuses. “I cannot walk in these,” he says, “for I am unused to it.” Instead he reaches down and picks up five smooth stones, and puts them in his shoulder bag. Then he descends into the valley, carrying his shepherd’s staff. Goliath looks at the boy coming toward him and is insulted. He was expecting to do battle with a seasoned warrior. Instead he sees a shepherd—a boy from one of the lowliest of all professions—who seems to want to use his shepherd’s staff as a cudgel against Goliath’s sword. “Am I a dog,” Goliath says, gesturing at the staff, “that you should come to me with sticks?” What happens next is a matter of legend. David puts one of his stones into the leather pouch of a sling, and he fires at Goliath’s exposed forehead. Goliath falls, stunned. David runs toward him, seizes the giant’s sword, and cuts off his head. “The Philistines saw that their warrior was dead,” the biblical account reads, “and they fled.” The battle is won miraculously by an underdog who, by all expectations, should not have won at all. This is the way we have told one...