BOLD!

I’ve been hanging round in parts of Italy with my nephew the last week (and will be for most of this one). An unmistakable highlight was seeing Michelangelo’s David (sculpted: 1501–1504). This 17-foot mammoth is really an extraordinary sight as it stands in a special corner, under a custom-built dome in the Galleria Accademia in Florence. David is sizing up his 7 plus-foot enemy here, sling in one hand, stone in the other (scholars debate endlessly what hand is holding what and how the sling would actually work).

David’s is a relaxed posture, alert, in a classical contrapposto pose on one leg. He watches his gigantic foe with intense concentration, but there is a quiet confidence in this gaze and disposition. Not the terror of his fellow-Israelites when they sighted Goliath.

When all the men of Israel
saw the man [Goliath],
they fled from him
and were greatly afraid.
1 Samuel 17:24

David, on the other hand, is clearly thinking, “God (and I) can handle this guy!”

And David said,
“The LORD who delivered me
from the paw of the lion and
from the paw of the bear,
He will deliver me
from the hand of this Philistine.”
1 Samuel 17:37

Goliath didn’t think so. This kid? With a sling and a stone against shield, spear, and sword?

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.”
1 Samuel 17:43–44

That was a sore miscalculation on Goliath’s part. He’d forgotten the role of God in this cameo and who he really was up against.

For who is this uncircumcised Philistine,
that he should taunt
the armies of the living God?
1 Samuel 17:26

There is in David’s face and stance, art historians claim, a “Renaissance optimism”—not a brute with brawn, but a brawler with brain, who can handle anything and everything with his own resources. Or so they say. Maybe that is what Michelangelo intended.

But that’s not true of the real David. His was not a misplaced confidence in self, but a complete faith in the resources of his God who was jealous for His own name.

Then David said to the Philistine,
“… I come to you in the name of
the LORD of hosts,
the God of the armies of Israel,
whom you have taunted.
This day the LORD will deliver you
up into my hands,
and I will strike you down
and remove your head from you.
… that all the earth may know
that there is a God in Israel,
and that all this assembly may know
that the LORD does not deliver
by sword or by spear;
for the battle is the LORD’s and
He will give you into our hands.”
1 Samuel 17:45–47

The battle is, indeed, the LORD’s, for it is His glory that is at stake.

No sword, no armor, no fancy footwork. Just a sling, a stone, and … the LORD.

Thus David prevailed
over the Philistine
with a sling and a stone,
and he struck the Philistine
and killed him;
but there was no sword in David's hand. …
When the Philistines saw that
their champion was dead, they fled.
1 Samuel 17:50–51

That was the end of that!

I like that story! And seeing David, one has to admire his confidence, so palpably portrayed by Signor Buonarroti. Wonderful! And inspiring!

May our confidence in our God be as strong, as unshakeable, as bold.