I'm going to tell you a tale .... sorry for my English.

[sMartins]

Long time ago,
Valley of Elah, a piece of land in between the big mountains and the big cities on the east, being Jerusalem one of them, and the great sea on the west, from where a threat was coming, an army, Philistines.
Both the army were already deployed on two opposite ridges, Philistines on one side and Israelites on the other, just the valley in between.
There was silence, and noone of the armies was willing to attack first, and it was already a while when suddenly a man from the Philistines raised up.
He was a giant, three meters tall, fully equipped with metal plates and a bronze helm as armors, while bringing a sword, a spear and a javelin as weapons, he was the first to break the silence when he started yelling in the air: " here I am, I am Goliath, the strongest champion between the Philistines, why spill the blood of all of us? Israelites! just send to me your strongest champion, only us will fight, only one of us will die and only one of us will bring the victory to his people".
( and if it was a Greek tale another champion would raise up and the duel will start, but this is not a Greek tale, this is a Jews tale )
Between the Israelites army still silence, but people was also starting to look each others like if they were asking:"fuck that giant, what we do?"
Still no answer from the Israelites that in the mean while were getting noisy, confronting each others to find a way out, nobody willing to fight the giant.
At some point between the Israelites a child appears, he was not a soldier, he was there just cause his brothers were in the army and his task was to take the salary from them and bring it back to their old father, but you know kids? right? he soon started to ask for everything and doing questions to the soldiers, you know? inappropriates questions, kinda like: " Hey, hi, wow, do you see that giant, it's huge, are you brave enough to fight against the great Goliath? who fight the giant? have you heard the king will marry his daughter to who will defeat the great Goliath? and you, are you willing to fight the great Goliath? who will win? you or the great Goliath?"
And the soldiers trying to shake him off: "Go away! what a pain in the ass ... do you want to see us die? Go away!".
So the child feels a bit touchy, sensitive, he is a child afterall, he is prickly and he is opinionated: "you know what then? I'll fight the great Goliath!Yes! Me!"
The soldiers: " you cannot fight the great Goliath, he is a man, a warrior, a champion, he trained for his whole life, since even he was younger than you, you are just a child, you cannot, please go away"
The child then, not sure what to say and willing to have the last word: "Oh No! It's not true! cause you know? do you know? I'm a shepard boy! ... and I take care of my sheeps ... and if a bear or a lion is stalking my sheeps, you know what? .. I jump on the beast saving her from its jaws ... yeah yeah, if the beast, after that, attacks me, then .... I kill him with my bare hands!"
That bullshit was clearly a lie, BUT the Israelites were desperate and they said: "Oh well, all right!What's your name?"
The child: "I'm David".
Then Saul( trusty man), the king, gave him his armor, but David, wearing Saul's armor, cannot walk at all ... .... and so he said:" please take this armor off of me cause ... you know ... I'm just not used to it".
After that it was time to choose the weapons and David, lacking of any knowledge about the art of war, choose his shepard cane and then he just walks around looking for small rocks and stones to throw with the sling.
(Now, here we need to make a small break just to explain that the sling was not really a "war weapon" .... yeah it could be used by swirling in one way, from the bottom to the top, to throw mass far away, without aiming, rocks and stones, hoping to hit some enemies, but only when the armies were still far from each others, such as with arrows, so it does not makes sense in a close combat duel, you have no time to load the stone, aim and throw before the enemy cut you in half and so on.)
Well, of course, David was a child and he didn't know about weapons, wars or what a duel is, or what the pride and the victory are.
David came forward.
Goliath, finally, sees someone coming off the Israelites lines and he thinks that the moment he was always looking for is coming, an epic duel with an enemy champion, to the death.
And then both, David and Goliath, walk down the ridges, along the valley ..... and they walk and walk .... untill when they finally are close enough, Goliath sees that the champion of Israelites, sent to him ..... is a child?! A child with a stick in his hands?!!!!!!
The great Goliath feels really offended by that, it's a personal insult, he was mad and he started yelling to David:"Am I a dog? Am I perhaps a dog? You! kid! how dare you walking to me with a stick in your hands?! come here kid!! I'll feed your flesh to the beasts!!!"
And David, as the child he was: "No, you come here and I'll feed your flesh to the beasts!"
Goliath:"ahahhahhhhhhhrrghhhhhhhhhhh!!!"
Goliath gets a running start, ready to crash the kid, David then throw away the stick, load a rock and by swirling the sling in the opposite way, from top to bottom, it is possible to take aim, at cost of range, such as for small games hunting (we H&H, we know), all of this while Goliath was shortening the distance.
And the rest is legend.


We have always thought, the fight between David and Goliath, it was unfair, yeah sure it was, it was unfair for Goliath, David was bringing something that nowdays we would call a gun against an unarmed man, and some luck.

[Jalpha]

Why?

In the version I was taught the other soldiers believed it was a ploy by the philistines to lure their best fighter to his death. Because Goliath was a giant. David was seen as disposable and his death at the hands of Goliath would have no effect on the outcome of the upcoming battle. Nobody expected him to win. Likely he was offered the armour as it would make David too slow to outrun his enemy. The jews just wanted to go home and sacrificing David was the way to do it.

It's a parable about the dangers of underestimating your opponent and the rewards of thinking outside the box, defying social decorum, and having courage and faith. David landed an incredibly lucky shot and likely baited Goliath into removing his helmet.

[Zentetsuken]

[i]
Goliath gets a running start, ready to crash the kid, David then throw away the stick, load a rock and by swirling the sling in the opposite way, from top to bottom, it is possible to take aim, at cost of range, such as for hunting small games (we H&H, we know), all of this while Goliath was shortening the distance.

[sMartins]

Why?

In the version I was taught the other soldiers believed it was a ploy by the philistines to lure their best fighter to his death. Because Goliath was a giant. David was seen as disposable and his death at the hands of Goliath would have no effect on the outcome of the upcoming battle. Nobody expected him to win. Likely he was offered the armour as it would make David too slow to outrun his enemy. The jews just wanted to go home and sacrificing David was the way to do it.

It's a parable about the dangers of underestimating your opponent and the rewards of thinking outside the box, defying social decorum, and having courage and faith. David landed an incredibly lucky shot and likely baited Goliath into removing his helmet.

Why? ehehe there's no why, that is just what happened , the rest is legend.

You are right, do not think you are too good for something, something so easy that you are offended by, cause that time may be the one time in which you have no hope at all and vice versa do not desperate when you are facing a challenge that you think it's impossible for you, when you think you are totally the wrong guy for that challenge .... cause maybe you are the right one, maybe God, given the choice, will put his trust exactly on you.

No need to remove his helmet, I was not joking, a stone, with its weight and thrown at that speed is really comparable to a gunshot these days, for its power or force of impact.

EDIT: but, be careful, it was not a ploy or a trick of any sort (that, again, would be a Greeks tale), that's just what happened, just the innocence, the naivety of a child.

[Jalpha]

I checked my facts and must have confused my historical figures. The helmet was made of feathers.

[sMartins]