1) This is a difficult story to work with, as everyone thinks they know it so well. We also face the daunting task of taking a stiory we hear as children and making it applicable to adults.

2) One way is to speak of the aley of Elah in our lives (An Iraw movie has the title). Who or what is Goliath in our lives? Who is anxious Saul, trying to be too helpful?
3) When have you used your own 5 smooth stones as a weapon?

4) 2 Samuel 21:19 has another person killing goliath. Is this story made to make David look good/ Is it an ancient version of TR and the Rough Riders?

5) maybe you could look at the new power on the horizon, the Philistines. they were Sea people, sophisticated traders and good at weaponry. they would even give Egypt trouble. Palestine draws its name from them. Their coastal cities were impressive Iron Age places.

6) Goliath's name recalls exile in hebrew. What if this story was to speak fo the giant specter of exile for a later people?

7) Is David brave or spirit-intoxicated. I don't sense fear here, just teenage arrogance

8) David tactics are the ones of any small fighter: speed and cunning. He won't fight on Goliath's terms.

9) Eugene Peterson has an interesting chapter on this passage in his Leap Over a Wall. He has a good way at the start of the chpater ot get into the text by giving careful, vivd descriptionof the scene while David collects the 5 smooth stones

10) See Robert Alter on biblical Narrative150-3.

11) Depending on the textual variants, Golaith is around 6 feet 9 to around ten feet tall.

12)What do you think of the sibling rvalry section with Eliab?

13)Polzin in his Samuel and Deuteronomist sees the aftermath as Saul gaining allegiance from David, as the political contest ocntinues, even though the warfare is finished.

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