# David and Goliath

_Retold by Talerie (talerie.com) from King James Version_ · 10 min read · ages 7+

When the giant Goliath of Gath defies King Saul’s army in the Valley of Elah, the shepherd David takes off the armor Saul puts on him and goes down with his sling and five smooth stones. A stone strikes Goliath in the forehead, David cuts off his head with the giant’s own sword, and Abner brings David before Saul.

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The Philistines gathered their armies for war. They came together at Socoh, a town that belonged to Judah, and made their camp between Socoh and Azekah, at a place called Ephes Dammim.

King Saul gathered the men of Israel, too. They camped by the Valley of Elah and drew up their battle lines to face the Philistines. The Philistines stood on a hill on one side, the Israelites stood on a hill on the other side, and the valley lay between them.

Out of the Philistine camp came a champion named Goliath, from the city of Gath. He was six cubits and a span tall. (A cubit is about the length of a man’s forearm, and a span is the width of a spread hand.) He wore a bronze helmet on his head and a coat of scale armor, and the coat alone weighed five thousand shekels of bronze. Bronze guards covered his shins, and a bronze javelin hung across his back. The shaft of his spear was as thick as a weaver’s beam, and its iron point by itself weighed six hundred shekels. In front of him walked a soldier carrying his shield.

Goliath stood still and shouted across the valley to the ranks of Israel.

“Why have you come out and lined up for battle?” he called. “Am I not a Philistine, and aren’t you Saul’s servants? Choose one man and send him down to me. If he can fight me and kill me, then we will be your servants. But if I beat him and kill him, then you will be our servants and serve us.”

Then he said, “Today I defy the armies of Israel! Give me a man, and let the two of us fight it out.”

When Saul and all the Israelites heard what Goliath said, they lost heart and were terribly afraid.

Now there was a man in Bethlehem named Jesse, from the clan of Ephrath. By Saul’s time he was already an old man, and he had eight sons. His three oldest sons had followed Saul to the war: Eliab, the firstborn, then Abinadab, and the third, Shammah. David was the youngest. He went back and forth between Saul’s camp and Bethlehem, where he looked after his father’s sheep.

Meanwhile Goliath came forward every morning and every evening and took his stand before the army of Israel. He did it for forty days.

One day Jesse said to his son David, “Take a full ephah of this roasted grain and these ten loaves of bread, and hurry to the camp to your brothers. Take these ten cheeses to the commander of their thousand men, too. See how your brothers are getting along, and bring me back some token from them to show they’re well.”

Saul, the three brothers, and all the men of Israel were in the Valley of Elah at that time, at war with the Philistines.

David got up early the next morning, left the sheep with someone to watch them, loaded up the food, and set off as Jesse had told him. He reached the edge of the camp just as the army was marching out to its battle lines, shouting the war cry. Israel and the Philistines were drawing up their lines, army facing army.

David left his load with the man who kept the supplies, ran to the battle lines, and greeted his brothers. While he was still talking with them, the Philistine champion, Goliath of Gath, stepped out of the ranks and shouted the same words as before. David heard every one of them.

When the Israelites saw the giant, they all ran from him, terrified.

“Have you seen this man who keeps coming out?” they said to one another. “He comes out to defy Israel. The king will make whoever kills him very rich. He will give that man his own daughter to marry, and his father’s family will never have to pay taxes in Israel again.”

David turned to the men standing near him. “What will be done for the man who kills this Philistine and takes away Israel’s disgrace?” he asked. “Who is this Philistine, that he should defy the armies of the living God?”

The men told him the same thing again. “That is what will be done for the man who kills him,” they said.

Eliab, his eldest brother, heard David talking with the men, and he grew angry with him.

“Why have you come down here?” Eliab said. “And who did you leave those few sheep with, out in the wilderness? I know how proud you are, and how wicked your heart is. You only came down to watch the battle.”

“What have I done now?” said David. “Can’t I even ask a question?”

He turned away from his brother to someone else and asked the same thing, and the men gave him the same answer as before.

What David had said did not stay among the soldiers. It was repeated to Saul, and the king sent for David.

“Your Majesty,” David said to Saul, “no one should lose heart because of this man. I, your servant, will go out and fight this Philistine.”

“You can’t go out against this Philistine and fight him,” Saul answered. “You’re only a boy, and he has been a warrior since he was a boy himself.”

But David said, “Your Majesty, I have been keeping my father’s sheep. Once a lion came, and once a bear, and carried off a lamb from the flock. Each time I went after the beast, struck it, and pulled the lamb out of its mouth. When it turned on me, I grabbed it by its beard, struck it, and killed it. I have killed both the lion and the bear, and this Philistine will end up like one of them, because he has defied the armies of the living God.” He went on, “God saved me from the paw of the lion and the paw of the bear, and he will save me from the hand of this Philistine.”

“Go,” said Saul, “and may God be with you.”

Then Saul dressed David in his own armor. He set a bronze helmet on David’s head and fastened a coat of mail around him. David strapped the king’s sword over the armor and tried to walk, but he had never worn armor before.

“I can’t go out in these,” he told Saul. “I’m not used to them.”

So David took them all off again.

He took his shepherd’s staff in his hand and chose five smooth stones from the stream. He dropped them into his shepherd’s bag, the pouch he always carried, and with his sling in his hand he went down toward Goliath.

Goliath came on, closer and closer to David, with his shield-bearer walking in front of him. He looked around, caught sight of David, and sneered at what he saw: a youth with a ruddy, handsome face.

“Do you take me for a dog,” Goliath said, “coming at me with sticks?” And he cursed David by his gods. “Come over here,” he said, “and I will feed your flesh to the birds and the wild animals!”

David answered him, “You come against me with a sword, a spear, and a shield. But I come against you in the name of God, the God of the armies of Israel, the God you have defied. Today God will hand you over to me. I will strike you down and cut off your head, and this very day I will give the bodies of the Philistine army to the birds and the wild animals, so that the whole world will know there is a God in Israel. And everyone gathered here will know that God does not save by sword or spear. The battle is God’s, and he will hand all of you over to us.”

As Goliath moved in to attack, David ran quickly toward the battle line to meet him. He reached into his bag and took out a stone. He set it in the leather pouch of his sling, whirled it over his head, and let it fly. The stone struck Goliath in the forehead and sank deep into it, and the giant fell face down on the ground.

So David beat the Philistine champion with a sling and a stone. He struck him down, and there was no sword in David’s hand.

David ran over and stood on the fallen giant. He took hold of Goliath’s own sword, drew it out of its sheath, and killed him with it. Then he cut off Goliath’s head.

When the Philistines saw that their champion was dead, they turned and fled. The men of Israel and of Judah rose up with a great shout and chased them all the way to the valley and to the gates of Ekron. Wounded and dead Philistines lay all along the road to Shaaraim, as far as Gath and Ekron. When the Israelites came back from the chase, they plundered the Philistine camp.

David took Goliath’s head, and later he brought it to Jerusalem, but he kept Goliath’s armor in his own tent.

Earlier that day, as Saul watched David going out to meet Goliath, he had turned to Abner, the commander of his army.

“Abner,” the king asked, “whose son is this young man?”

“As surely as you live, Your Majesty, I don’t know,” Abner answered.

“Then find out whose son the boy is,” said Saul.

So as soon as David came back from killing Goliath, Abner took him and brought him before Saul. David was still holding Goliath’s head in his hand.

“Whose son are you, young man?” Saul asked him.

“I am the son of your servant Jesse of Bethlehem,” David answered.

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## About this tale

David and Goliath is a Bible story rather than a fairy tale. It fills chapter 17 of the book that the King James Version titles “The First Book of Samuel, Otherwise Called the First Book of the Kings”. The chapter never says who wrote it. Our retelling follows the King James Version, which first came out in 1611.

We retold the chapter in plain modern English, from its first verse to its last, and the page has two versions. Gentler is shorter and gives Goliath no height in numbers, while Original, the longer version, keeps the cubits and shekels. Both say God where the King James text has “the LORD”.

> You come against me with a sword, a spear, and a shield. But I come against you in the name of God, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied.
>
> King James Version, 1611, 1 Samuel 17:45: 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, whom thou hast defied.

### 1 Samuel 17 in the King James Version and in our retelling

|  | King James Version | Our retelling |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Goliath | “a champion”, never a giant | a giant |
| His height | “six cubits and a span” | six cubits and a span in Original only |
| Helmet and coat | brass | bronze |
| God’s name | “the LORD” | God |
| David’s looks | “ruddy, and of a fair countenance” | ruddy and handsome |
| The reward | his father’s house “free in Israel” | no more taxes for his father’s family |
| Goliath’s head | brought to Jerusalem | brought to Jerusalem “later”, in Original only |

### What our two versions tell

Gentler opens with the two armies on two hills and the valley of Elah between them. Goliath comes out morning and evening for forty days, and nobody answers him. Jesse sends David, the youngest of his eight sons, to the camp with grain and bread for his brothers and cheeses for their commander. David hears the challenge, is scolded by his eldest brother, Eliab, tells Saul about the lion and the bear he killed while keeping the sheep, and takes off the armor Saul lends him. He goes out with his staff, five smooth stones and his sling; the note that a sling is “a leather pouch on two long cords” is ours. The stone sinks into Goliath’s forehead and he falls face down. Original adds the camp at Ephes Dammim, Goliath’s height with our own note on what a cubit and a span are, the weight of his coat and spearhead, and the head taken to Jerusalem, where the word “later” is ours.

Gentler leaves a good deal out, though not the end. David stands on the fallen Goliath, kills him with Goliath’s own sword and cuts off his head, and in the last scene he still holds the head when he comes before Saul. The killing and the head take up only a few sentences, but a young child will hear them if you read Gentler aloud.

### Who David is, and a word the King James text never uses

In the chapter itself David is Jesse’s youngest son and keeps his father’s sheep at Bethlehem. Near its end, Saul asks whose son the young man is, and David answers that he is the son of Jesse of Bethlehem. The chapter closes on that answer, and so do both our versions. Later, in 2 Samuel 5:3, David is anointed king over Israel.

In chapter 17 the King James Version calls Goliath “a champion” and “the Philistine”, never a giant. The word is ours, and both of our versions use it.

Sources (claims checked against them on 2026-10-30):
- The King James Version of the Bible, Project Gutenberg eBook #10, The First Book of Samuel, ch. 17 [our source] (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/10)
- Wikidata Q13472331 (https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q13472331)

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- Read online: https://talerie.com/en/tales/david-and-goliath-original
- Characters: Saul
- Version: longer, more faithful retelling; the gentler retelling: https://talerie.com/en/tales/david-and-goliath.md
- Also in: [German](https://talerie.com/de/maerchen/david-und-goliath-original.md), [French](https://talerie.com/fr/contes/david-et-goliath-original.md), [Spanish](https://talerie.com/es/cuentos/david-y-goliat-original.md), [Portuguese](https://talerie.com/pt/contos/davi-e-golias-original.md), [Czech](https://talerie.com/cs/pohadky/david-a-golias-original.md), [Polish](https://talerie.com/pl/bajki/dawid-i-goliat-original.md)
- Wikidata: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q13472331
- Source: King James Version (1611; standard text of 1769), Project Gutenberg #10: 1 Samuel 17 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/10)
- Public-domain basis: Talerie contemporary retelling (CC0 2026), based on: King James Version (1611; standard text of 1769), Project Gutenberg #10: 1 Samuel 17 — EU anonymous-work rule, translation published ≤1769 (+70 passed)
- License: CC0-1.0 (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/)