Was Goliath Sickly?
Malcolm even states that “there’s this whole weird thing about how long it takes Goliath to react to the sight of David. So David’s coming down the mountain, and he’s clearly not preparing for hand-to-hand combat…..He’s not even carrying a sword. Why does Goliath not react to that? It’s as if he’s oblivious to what’s going on that day.” This is how Malcolm sets Goliath up to be anything but the actual fierce warrior that the Bible describes him to be. It is this sort of an explanation that can change a story, not by carefully searching into the details provided, but rather from new opinions colorfully added in.
This article is in response to a presentation made by Malcolm Gladwell on a TedTalk show in late 2013. In his description of the biblical story about David and Goliath, Malcolm broke down the story using an extra-biblical perspective and arranged it in such a way, that Goliath ended up being a near-sighted, slow-moving handicap that was born with deformities, and was an easy-to-beat opponent. With that in mind, the following is a biblically-grounded critique of Malcolm’s exposition, highlighting how all of the slight adjustments he has brought into the story are actually wrong interpretations of God’s Word. These small changes are NOT okay when taught authoritatively, and that is what the Bible calls a false teacher.
Below is a link to the presentation that can be viewed in order to understand the specific critiques in this article.
What’s Wrong with a Little Change?
There is a lot that can always be presupposed about God’s Word and the circumstances surrounding ancient Israel. Using necessary historical information can shed important light onto the events referred to in Scripture. What cannot be done, though, while still maintaining integrity concerning His Word, is making additions to God’s history. The only thing that can come from such a retelling of Scripture is that the speaker qualifies himself for the title of “False Teacher,” and the audience will likely be pointed away from seeing God aright due to the misleading perspective being propagated. So, although I did truly enjoy listening to the first few minutes of Gladwell’s presentation, I realized at the 3 minute 54 seconds mark that this was not going to be trustworthy and faithful exposition of the David and Goliath account found in the Bible. Once Malcolm, the speaker, stated that David said “I think I can do it,” as if that was the response that David had made about beating Goliath, it was evident that this was not exegesis (drawing out the available information from a text) of the account, but rather eisegesis (adding personal preferences to a text). It was Malcolm’s own preferential transformation of the story that was being taught as gospel truth. . . as the accurate way to see the story and the events therein.
What is important for us to understand is that Paul adamantly warned of false teachers (Romans 16:17-18), and of those that persuade people with meaningless words, professing themselves to be wise and yet deceptively crafting false ideologies (2 Timothy 4:3-4). These warnings need to be in the hearts and minds of all believers everywhere when considering that there will be those that deceptively profess to say right things about God using historical anecdotes. And yet, all the while, their interpretations sever the actual truth from God’s Word, and they destructively decorate the facts of Scripture with “better” or “more digestible” details.
Click HERE for an excellent expositional sermon and its transcript on false teaching
The presentation began with a description of the layout of the land for the battle line between Israel and the Philistines. The issue is that it ended up with David being subtly described as self-confident about his ability to fight off Goliath, and it was based solely on his own strategic fighting style with no mention of God throughout the entire narration. Now, while studying into 1 Samuel 17, where the actual events are depicted and taught, David is never described as having asserted any self-sufficiency when approaching the ensuing fight with Goliath. In fact, in 17:34-35, David explained his personal experience in protecting his flock, since he is a shepherd by trade. Although, 17:37 is where he states that God had always been credited with delivering him from the paw of the lion and that of the bear, and that it will be God delivering him from the giant Philistine warrior, Goliath.
At first glance, this might seem like a very small detail, but it actually speaks volumes concerning the character of the youth that God chose as the future king of Israel. It also speaks directly to the fact that David comes off as a very different person when God is removed from the equation, as Malcolm had done in his revision of the story. It was no longer about God’s faithful protection of His chosen nation Israel, but rather about David’s own capability. No matter what, anyone telling the story of God and His people, while subtracting God, is not being faithful to the Text of Scripture.
Goliath Needs Help?
The second red flag was the statement made at the 10:46 mark of the video: “Goliath is not what he seems to be.” Malcolm goes on to claim that there are all sorts of hints in the biblical narrative that point to Goliath as being something other than the warrior he was believed to be. At 11:13-11:24 of the TedTalk, it is explained that Goliath needed a helper to lead him “by the hand” to the battlefield. This, once again, is a clear mis-teaching of what the Scriptures actually present us with. In 1 Samuel 17:7 and again in 17:41, the individual walking with/ahead of Goliath is his shield-bearer. This is not some sort of hospice care attendant, as Malcolm seemingly alluded to throughout the presentation. With this concept in mind, the champion warrior appears to be dependent on a “young boy,” and cannot even walk himself out to battle. Such an interpretation isn’t accidental, and cannot come from a plain reading of the Text.
This is most likely an intentional adjustment to the facts of Scripture, falsely bringing the reader or listener to believe that God’s Word is up for discussion and requires editing.
He Walks Too Slow…
Here is where Goliath is taken down several more notches from the once-frightening and serious warrior to a pitiful and over-sensationalized fighter. At minute 11:23 of Malcom’s tear-down of the account, he states that “the Bible makes special note of how slowly Goliath moves towards David,” even though 1 Samuel 17:40-41 reads as such:
He took his stick in his hand and chose for himself five smooth stones from the brook, and put them in the shepherd’s bag which he had, even in his pouch, and his sling was in his hand; and he approached the Philistine.Then the Philistine came on and approached David, with the shield-bearer in front of him.
There is such a fast-paced detailing to the events surrounding David and Goliath, that comparative speed and agility are not even mentioned in the whole story. To say something of that sort is to bring into the story outside views that don’t come from the Text. But Malcolm makes these assertions as if they were hidden in the narrative the entire time, and were so easy to find once read and examined carefully. The problem is that when reading God’s Word about the scene described, there is no detail that can be highlighted concerning the agility of David surpassing that of Goliath. Although in 1 Samuel 17:48 the Text says that “David ran quickly toward the battle line to meet the Philistine,” it doesn’t compare the speed of the two fighters, or make it seem as if David were faster than Goliath, or even that Goliath was slow in any measure of that word.
The Near-Sighted Warrior
Malcolm also bring in the assumption that Goliath didn’t see David until he was rather close to him, and that also doesn’t come from the biblical account of the face off between the two individuals. He does this at the 11:37 mark of his presentation, but once again, there is no biblical reference to such a statement. The actual event is so briefly narrated in Scripture, that such a medical evaluation doesn’t come through any reasonable deduction, but rather from eisegetical inferences made to fit a new take on the OT Scripture account. Just for comparison, here is the actual account of David heading to the battlefield and Goliath reacting to it found in 1 Samuel 17:40-44:
He took his stick in his hand and chose for himself five smooth stones from the brook, and put them in the shepherd’s bag which he had, even in his pouch, and his sling was in his hand; and he approached the Philistine.Then the Philistine came on and approached David, with the shield-bearer in front of him.When the Philistine looked and saw David, he disdained him; for he was but a youth, and ruddy, with a handsome appearance.The Philistine said to David, “Am I a dog, that you come to me with sticks?” And the Philistine cursed David by his gods.The Philistine also said to David, “Come to me, and I will give your flesh to the birds of the sky and the beasts of the field.”
In these four verses, there is not even a hint that Goliath needed additional time to see David clearly, or that he had blurry vision of what David had in his hands (the stick) to fight against him. Malcolm even states:
“there’s this whole weird thing about how long it takes Goliath to react to the sight of David. So David’s coming down the mountain, and he’s clearly not preparing for hand-to-hand combat…..He’s not even carrying a sword. Why does Goliath not react to that? It’s as if he’s oblivious to what’s going on that day.”
Assuming that Goliath was prepared for hand-to-hand combat at that immediate moment is ignorant of what Scripture already afforded us in the later verses, specifically 1 Samuel 17:51, where David needed to remove Goliath’s sword from its sheath to kill him. Goliath didn’t need to use his sword first if we had other weapons on his person. As the Bible explains in 1 Samuel 17:5-7, he was armed with a javelin also, so he may very well have used his spear for a long distance attack if desired. This is how Malcolm sets Goliath up to be anything but the actual fierce warrior that the Bible describes him to be. It is this sort of an explanation that can change a story, not by carefully searching into the details provided, but rather from new opinions colorfully added in.
Medically Examining A Giant
As Malcolm asserts, among the medical community, there have been speculations concerning Goliath’s health, as if there was something “fundamentally wrong with Goliath.” One reference was a 1960 Indiana Medical Journal article which “started a chain of speculation.” If anything, such a statement concerning the Word of God ought to be discerned cautiously, because such perspectives often lead people into anti-biblical views that change their course from God-ward to something else other than the Christian faith. This article launched many into considering the possibility that Goliath was actually visually impaired due to a tumor on his pituitary gland. Since that gland controls growth and development, may in history with such a condition were giants, while yet unhealthy. As Malcolm closes in on his argument, he summarizes that all of the strange details about Goliath (that he didn’t actually get from the Bible) can be answered with the medical condition called acromegaly. This might have given him nearsightedness and a need to be escorted by an attendant onto the fighting line. But, this is not the biblical description at all concerning Goliath. He was indeed a towering giant, but never mentioned as slow, poor of sight, or in need of special care. In fact, 1 Chronicles 20:4-8 described Goliath as having descended from giants. This is not common for acromegaly, and there is no mention of any weakness or handicap among the giants in that lineage. They were known for their ferocity and their great stature as proficient warriors. Acromegaly, when gone untreated, usually brings with it all sorts of medical conditions and limitations, to include vision loss, carpal tunnel, and osteoarthritis. Biblically, there isn’t any reason to believe that these feared and revered warriors of the past, who seemed to have a family of giants, had such debilitating setbacks. For Malcolm to come to such a conclusion is unbiblical at best, and is most likely void of the expected and promised convictions of the Holy Spirit due to a gross mishandling of Scripture.
A Final Analysis
Malcolm’s teaching about David and Goliath isn’t just a retelling of the entire account, but it is a wringing out of the truth and an injection of unbiblical ideas that detrimentally impact the entire account of history that has been preserved in God’s Word. The image of Goliath being “not so tough,” or sickly, even, and concluding the presentation with the statement that “Giants are not as strong and powerful as they seem,” should be a red flag, a red lightbulb, and a piercing alarm sound ringing in the ear! Everything about the Bible-less version of this historical account screams “FALSE”. This isn’t okay. This isn’t healthy. This isn’t God-loving. If anyone would defend in saying “But he brought up the Bible and the unbelievers might have gotten a few seeds of faith planted and some curiosity generated about God,” well that, too, is a false expectation. There is never a way to take away from God’s Word without sinning. And, there is never a way to add to His Word without committing the self-same sin of distrusting God and thinking that we know better. This man did it all, and the audience wasn’t brought any closer to God or His Truth, but rather were drawn to their own self-sufficient beliefs that they can overcome anything because usually, the enemy isn’t really that bad.
This detracts from God’s Word and the truth of the fact, because David isn’t about us, but is more about how Christ would defeat the unbeatable foe for God’s Israel, making a way for us to begin to see His Kingdom spread and rule as the enemy is overcome little by little. To make the story about anything less than a foreshadowing of Christ, which is what all OT Scripture is about (John 5:39 & Luke 24:27), is to intrude upon it with our own devices and desired outcomes. But that is not how Scripture is read. You are not David! The giant in that story is not the giant problem you have in your financial or relationship trouble. The giant in that story foretells Satan as our great opponent, and Christ as our only capable Savior, giving way for us to find victory through His actual win. What Malcolm did here is unfaithful to the Word of God, and mustn’t be thought of as even an optional secondary perspective on the narrative of God.
Malcolm’s detailed explanation does not at all appear to be a presentation given by someone that has Holy Spirit-wrought convictions about the holiness of God’s Word, and the veracity of its content. More than likely, it seems to be the perspective of a progressive Christian, which probably isn’t even a Christian at all, making a self-encouraging assessment out of one of the most well-known Bible stories ever, and feeding it to those with itching ears (2 Timothy 4:3-4). Let us be very careful as to how we present the Word of God or its contents, because we will be accountable for every word we speak (Matthew 12:35-37), especially those that put themselves in authoritative position when speaking about God’s Word (James 3:1).
