“… and that all this assembly may know that the LORD saves not with sword and spear. For the battle is the LORD’S, and he will give you into our hand” (1 Sam 17:47). Read: 1 Sam 17:1—58.

When the epic duel between David and Goliath was staged, the Philistines had a monopoly over iron technology. They had the weapons and did not allow their enemy to have the knowledge to make either weapons or tools.

“Now there was no blacksmith to be found throughout all the land of Israel, for the Philistines said, ‘Lest the Hebrews make themselves swords or spears.’ But every one of the Israelites went down to the Philistines to sharpen his ploughshare, his mattock, his axe, or his sickle, and the charge was two-thirds of a shekel for the ploughshares and for the mattocks, and a third of a shekel for sharpening the axes and for setting the goads” (1 Sam 13:19—21).

Goliath was well-equipped with a sword, shield, armour, and javelin, but there were only two swords in Israel, one for the king and the other for his son. “So on the day of the battle there was neither sword nor spear found in the hand of any of the people with Saul and Jonathan, but Saul and Jonathan his son had them” (1 Sam 13:22). Goliath ridiculed David as he approached him with a sling and five stones, without any protective armour or sword.

What clashed in the valley on that day were not swords but two worldviews. Goliath believed that the stronger, well-armed soldier would win, but for David, the battle belonged to the Lord of the armies of Israel.

Israel always believed their God was the Lord of hosts (armies), the commander of the armies of heaven and earth. When they were unarmed nomads in the wilderness, when they had to breach the walls of Jericho with the sound of trumpets, when their judge Gideon frightened the Midianites to flee with just three hundred untrained men, and throughout the storylines of the Old Testament, the Lord of Hosts had won their battles.

David moved towards the giant at the order of the Lord of Heaven’s armies and won the day.

David spoke faith for all of us struggling with small and big battles: “For the battle is the LORD’S.” It is not how much technology, money, power, or influence we have on our side but how much grace we have that decides victory in life’s battleground. We can hand over all our struggles to the Lord; he always wins.