The Philistine army camped on one hill of the Valley of Elah, the army of Saul on the other, the Wadi between. The Philistine champion Goliath of Gath — over nine feet tall, armoured in bronze, his spear shaft like a weaver's beam — came out morning and evening for forty days, defying the army of the living God to send one man against him. None of Saul's men would go.
David, the youngest of Jesse's eight sons, was sent by his father to bring bread to his brothers at the front. Hearing Goliath's defiance, he volunteered. Saul tried to clothe him in royal armour; he could not move in it. He took only his shepherd's staff and his sling, chose five smooth stones from the wadi bed, and walked toward Goliath. As Goliath cursed him by all his gods, David answered: 'You come to me with a sword and with a spear and with a javelin; but I come to you in the name of the LORD of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied.' He slung; the stone struck Goliath in the forehead; the giant fell. David ran to him, drew Goliath's own sword, and cut off his head. The 2008 excavations at Khirbet Qeiyafa in the Valley of Elah produced the earliest Hebrew inscription discovered (the Qeiyafa ostracon, c. 1000 BC), datable to David's own time — confirming the historical depth of the period in which the David narrative places the battle.