The Giant in the Valley, the Friend Who Gave His Robe, and the King Who Stopped to Ask

1 Samuel 17–18; 24–26; 2 Samuel 5–7

The Boy Nobody Sent For

King Saul had an army. He had armor. He had a throne. What he didn't have, apparently, was anyone willing to walk down into that valley and face Goliath. For forty days — forty — the giant from Gath had been strutting out every morning and every evening, bellowing his challenge across the Elah Valley, and for forty days the entire army of Israel, king included, had been "greatly afraid" (1 Samuel 17:11). Nobody moved.

Then Jesse sent his youngest son to bring bread and cheese to his brothers at the front. David wasn't there as a soldier. He was there as a delivery boy. And when he heard Goliath's speech, his first reaction wasn't fear — it was offense. "Who is this uncircumcised Philistine, that he should defy the armies of the living God?" (1 Samuel 17:26). His brother Eliab immediately tried to put him back in his place — "I know thy pride, and the naughtiness of thine heart" (v. 28). Saul told him he was too young. Goliath looked at him and laughed.

Nobody in that story read David correctly except David — and the Lord.

Here's the detail that tends to get glossed over: David didn't just show up with blind bravado. He made a case. He told Saul about the lion and the bear he'd already killed protecting his flock. He had a track record with the Lord. He knew from personal experience that the God who delivered him from the paw of the lion would deliver him from this Philistine. That's not recklessness — that's a faith built on evidence.

He refused Saul's armor because he hadn't tested it. He went to the brook and chose five smooth stones. He ran — ran — toward Goliath. One stone. One throw. The giant fell face-forward into the dirt, and the Philistine army scattered.

The Come, Follow Me lesson makes a point worth sitting with: the whole reason Israel wanted a king in the first place was so someone could "fight our battles" (1 Samuel 8:20). Saul was supposed to be that guy. But on the day it mattered, it wasn't the king who saved Israel — it was a shepherd boy with a sling and a settled conviction that "the battle is the Lord's" (1 Samuel 17:47). Alma 26:12 says it a different way: "I know that I am nothing; as to my strength I am weak; therefore I will not boast of myself, but I will boast of my God." David would have understood that completely.

For your family today: The Goliaths in your kids' lives probably don't wear bronze helmets. But they're real, and they're loud, and they're designed to make everyone freeze. David's example isn't just inspiring — it's instructional. You build faith in the Lord by remembering the lions and bears He already helped you survive.

Dive Deeper: Slay the Giant

Slay the Giant

A shepherd with five stones and a covenant proved that the battle was never really ours to win alone.

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A Deeper Look: The Shepherd Who Needed No Sword

Before David ever stood in the valley of Elah, he had already fought for his flock. He told Saul about the lion and the bear — how he had gone after them, struck them, and delivered the lamb from their mouths. His case to Saul wasn't bravado. It was a resume. And the logic was simple: the same God who delivered the flock from the lion would deliver Israel from this Philistine.

What's easy to miss is what David didn't bring into that valley. No sword. No armor. No army. Just a staff, a sling, five stones, and a covenant. And that's precisely the point. God has a pattern in scripture of engineering deliverances that can only be explained one way. Gideon's three hundred men with lamps and jars against a Midianite army too numerous to count. David with a shepherd's sling against a giant in bronze armor. The method isn't incidental — it's the message. When God strips away every worldly explanation, what remains is His power alone.

But there's something even deeper here. David describes himself as a shepherd defending his flock at personal risk — going after the predator, not waiting for it to leave. That is the language of the Good Shepherd. Centuries before Jesus would say "I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep" (John 10:11), David was living out a type of that truth in the hills of Judah, and again in the valley below. He didn't send someone else. He went himself. He put himself between the danger and the flock. And he won — not because of his strength, but because of whose shepherd he was.

A Playful Aside: "I Know Thy Pride, and the Naughtiness of Thine Heart"

Let's just pause on verse 28 for a moment. David's oldest brother Eliab hears David asking questions about Goliath, and he unloads: "I know thy pride, and the naughtiness of thine heart." Naughtiness. It's hard not to smile at that word. Eliab sounds less like a battle-hardened soldier and more like a frustrated babysitter telling a seven-year-old to stop touching things.

But here's what makes this moment genuinely interesting rather than just funny: Eliab is spectacularly, almost cosmically wrong. Samuel had stood in Eliab's presence not long before this — the Lord looked him over, took in his impressive height and appearance — and passed. "The Lord seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart" (1 Samuel 16:7). Eliab was rejected specifically because of what God found when He looked at his heart. And now here is Eliab, lecturing David about the condition of David's heart. The irony is so thick you could spread it on bread.

Which raises a fair question for all of us: if the Lord looked at our hearts today, what would He find? Not in a heavy, crushing way — but honestly. Eliab's mistake wasn't just pride; it was that he couldn't see his own heart clearly enough to recognize what God was actually looking for. The Deuteronomy passages Moses taught just weeks ago in our curriculum hit exactly this note — love the Lord with all your heart, don't let a full belly and a comfortable life make you forget Him, circumcise the heart and cut away the pride (Deuteronomy 6; 8:11–14). If there's some naughtiness in your heart that needs a good look, that's the prescription. In case you need a refresher, we wrote a song for that too.

Dive Deeper: The Spiritual Checkup — Deuteronomy 6 & 8

Keeping the rhythm of the heart — because a full belly and a comfortable life have a way of making us forget who got us there.

Spiritual Checkup

We could all use a doctor’s visit for the soul. Whether we are at the Sacrament table or around the dinner table, we check our spiritual vitals—because the most dangerous time to forget God is when life finally feels good.

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The Prince Who Gave Away His Crown

Jonathan had every reason to be threatened by David. He was the king's son. He was next in line. He was a proven warrior in his own right — 1 Samuel 14 shows him pulling off his own miracle against the Philistines, just him and his armor-bearer against a garrison. Jonathan was not a small figure. And then David walks in from the valley with Goliath's head, the crowd goes wild, and the women start singing songs comparing Saul's thousands to David's ten thousands (1 Samuel 18:7).

The text says Jonathan "loved him as his own soul" (1 Samuel 18:1, 3). And he didn't just feel it — he acted on it. He took off his own robe and gave it to David. He gave him his sword, his bow, his belt. These weren't trinkets. A prince's robe and weapons were symbols of rank and succession. Jonathan was, in a very real sense, handing David the future that could have been his. No bitterness. No calculation. Just love.

Saul heard that same song and it ate him alive. From that day forward, he watched David with suspicion, hurled a spear at him twice, and eventually spent years hunting him across the wilderness. Jealousy is a corrosive thing. Jonathan heard the exact same song and loved David more.

The Come, Follow Me lesson asks a pointed question: what do you find in Jonathan's attitudes and actions that reminds you of Jesus Christ? It's worth actually stopping on that. Christ also laid down his glory, stripped himself of the honors of heaven, and gave everything — not because he had to, but because of love. Jonathan is one of the quieter types of Christ in the Old Testament, but he's one of the most human and therefore one of the most accessible.

The lesson also brings in 1 Nephi 19:23 — "liken the scriptures unto us." Nobody in scripture is flawless, and that includes David. The same chapter that shows Jonathan's generosity also sets up the tragic reality of Saul's jealousy spiraling into something dangerous. Both responses to David's success are on the table. The question the lesson invites is honest: when someone around you succeeds — your sibling, your coworker, your neighbor — which response do you recognize in yourself?

A Deeper Look: Jonathan as a Type of Christ

The Come, Follow Me lesson asks what Jonathan's attitudes remind you of in Jesus Christ. It's worth sitting with that question long enough to actually answer it. Jonathan isn't just a good friend — he's one of the most precise human types of Christ in the entire Old Testament.

For your family: Jonathan and David's friendship is a great conversation starter about what it actually looks like to celebrate someone else's win. Real friendship, the kind that lasts, looks a lot more like Jonathan than it does like Saul.

Dive Deeper: Like His Own Soul

Like His Own Soul

A crown handed away and a soul knit tight — this is what it sounds like when friendship looks like Jesus.

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The Rest of the Story: The Priest Who Paid for David's Escape

1 Samuel 21–22

When David fled from Saul, he stopped at Nob and asked the priest Ahimelech for bread and a weapon. Ahimelech gave him the showbread and Goliath's own sword — not knowing David was a fugitive. An Edomite named Doeg was watching. He reported back to Saul, and Saul ordered the execution of Ahimelech and every priest at Nob — eighty-five men, along with their families and livestock. Doeg carried it out when Saul's own soldiers refused. Only one of Ahimelech's sons, Abiathar, escaped and ran straight to David. David received him, protected him, and kept him close — Abiathar served as priest throughout David's entire reign. When David heard what had happened at Nob, he said plainly: "I have occasioned the death of all the persons of thy father's house" (1 Samuel 22:22). He owned it. The curriculum doesn't linger here, but the story does — and it raises a question worth sitting with your family: how many people in scripture played a supporting role that made everything else possible? Ahimelech didn't know he was part of the story. He just did the right thing when someone showed up at his door. That's often how it works.

Christlike Poise in the Cave — and the Woman Who Stopped a War

1 Samuel 24:6, 24:12; 1 Samuel 25:2-35; 3 Nephi 12:39; D&C 64:10; Romans 12:19

Saul is hunting David with three thousand chosen men. David and his small band are hiding in a cave at En-gedi. Saul walks into that exact cave — alone — to rest. David's men whisper that this is the moment the Lord has delivered his enemy into his hands. David creeps forward in the dark and cuts off the corner of Saul's robe. And then — this is the part that matters — he feels bad about it. "The Lord forbid that I should do this thing unto my master, the Lord's anointed" (1 Samuel 24:6). He holds his men back. He lets Saul walk out.

When Saul is safely away, David calls out to him, holds up the piece of robe, and essentially says: I could have killed you. I didn't. Judge between us. Saul weeps. He acknowledges David is more righteous than he is. Yet, because Saul remains consumed by insecurity, we know this pattern of pursuit will eventually repeat itself.

Chapter 25 shifts the scene entirely, and it introduces one of the most underrated figures in the Old Testament: Abigail. Her husband Nabal (whose name literally means "fool") has just insulted David's messengers and refused to share provisions, even though David's men had been protecting his flocks. David is furious and riding out with four hundred armed men to settle it. Nabal is about to get his household destroyed.

Abigail doesn't wait for permission. She loads up donkeys with bread, wine, sheep, grain, raisins, and figs, rides out to intercept David, and delivers one of the most remarkable speeches in the entire Old Testament — humble, wise, and completely disarming. She takes the blame. She appeals to David's better nature. She essentially tells him: don't let this fool drag you down to his level. Don't let a rash act stain your record before you become king. David stops. He thanks her. He goes home.

The Come, Follow Me lesson draws a direct line between Abigail and Jesus Christ — she intercedes, she absorbs the consequences of someone else's foolishness, she prevents destruction through wisdom and sacrifice. Sister Kristen Yee's conference message on forgiveness uses Abigail as a model of the healing path. That's not a stretch. It's right there in the text.

For your family: These two chapters together are a masterclass in what Elder Mark Bragg called "Christlike poise" — the ability to hold your power in check, to not retaliate when you could, to let the Lord be the judge. That's a hard skill at any age. It's worth naming it out loud with your kids.

The King Who Still Asked

David is finally king. After years of running, hiding in caves, living among the Philistines, watching Saul spiral, losing Jonathan — after all of it — he is anointed king over all Israel. He captures Jerusalem. He's consolidating power. He has an army, a throne, and a track record of military success that is, frankly, unmatched.

And then the Philistines come back.

Here's what's remarkable: David doesn't assume. He doesn't look at his resume and decide he's got this. Unlike Saul — who repeatedly acted on panicked impulse, tried to save face, and relied on conventional wisdom — David treated the Lord like his true command center. The Hebrew phrase is sha'al b'YHVH: to inquire of the Lord. It appears across David's life not as a one-time spiritual moment but as a practice, a habit, a posture. It is one of the primary reasons scripture describes him as a man after God's own heart.

A Deeper Look: The Nine Inquiries

Across 1 and 2 Samuel, there are nine recorded moments where David explicitly stopped to inquire of the Lord before a major decision. The pattern is worth seeing all at once.

The second Philistine inquiry is the one worth pausing on with your family: David had just won using one strategy. The same enemy is back in the same location. He could have assumed the same playbook would work. He didn't. He asked again — and got a completely different answer. That's not just military wisdom. That's the discipline of a man who understood that yesterday's revelation doesn't cover today's battle.

This is where the Restoration framing is genuinely helpful. We live in a time when personal revelation isn't just available — it's expected. D&C 8:2-3 describes the spirit of revelation as something that comes to the mind and heart. D&C 9:8 talks about studying it out first. David's pattern — stop, ask, listen, act on what you receive — is exactly the pattern the Lord has been teaching His people across every dispensation.

The Come, Follow Me lesson also notes that David's problems with the Philistines didn't end after Goliath. That's worth saying plainly to your kids: beating one giant doesn't mean giants stop showing up. What changes is your relationship with the One who helps you face them.

For your family: The word "inquired" shows up again and again across David's life, and the children's lesson actually has kids fold their arms every time they hear it. That's a good instinct. The word is doing real work. A king who still asks is a king worth learning from.

Dive Deeper: I'm Gonna Inquire

I’m Gonna Inquire

A crown doesn’t mean you stop asking — it means you finally know why you should.

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The House God Promised to Build

David has settled into his palace in Jerusalem, the wars are quieting down, and he has a thought: it doesn't feel right that he lives in a house of cedar while the ark of the covenant sits in a tent. He wants to build a temple. He tells the prophet Nathan, and Nathan's initial reaction is essentially, "Sounds great, go for it." But that night the Lord corrects Nathan and sends him back to David with a different message.

The Lord's response is one of the most layered passages in the Old Testament. He doesn't say the temple is a bad idea — He says David's son will build it (2 Samuel 7:12-13). But then the Lord pivots and makes David a promise that reframes the entire conversation: you wanted to build Me a house? I'm going to build you one. Not a building — a dynasty. A lineage. A throne that will endure forever (2 Samuel 7:16).

The Come, Follow Me lesson is careful to trace where that promise lands: in Jesus Christ. Matthew 1:1 opens the New Testament by identifying Jesus as "the son of David." Luke 1:32-33 has the angel Gabriel telling Mary that the Lord God will give her son "the throne of his father David: and he shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever; and of his kingdom there shall be no end." John 18:33-37 has Pilate asking Jesus directly, "Art thou the King of the Jews?" — and Jesus doesn't deny it. He reframes it.

Every earthly king in these chapters — Saul, David, the kings to come — is a partial, flawed sketch of something the world was waiting for. The kings of Israel couldn't save themselves, let alone their people. But the promise made to David in 2 Samuel 7 was pointing forward to a King who would be different in kind, not just degree. A King whose kingdom wouldn't end because He conquered the one enemy no earthly army ever has.

Revelation 19:16 calls Him "King of Kings and Lord of Lords." That title has roots in this chapter.

For your family: The Old Testament kings are a great teaching tool precisely because they're so human — brilliant and broken, faithful and foolish, sometimes in the same chapter. They show us what we need. And then the New Testament, the Book of Mormon, and the Restoration show us who actually fills that need. That's the whole arc.

The Rest of the Story: The Hill of Gilboa — and the Boy at the Table

1 Samuel 31; 2 Samuel 1; 2 Samuel 9

The curriculum moves from David becoming king straight into his reign, but it skips the moment that made it possible — and the grief that came with it. After roughly a decade of exile, hiding in caves, living as a fugitive while Saul hunted him with armies, David wasn't there when it ended. Saul and his sons, including Jonathan, died fighting the Philistines on Mount Gilboa. When David heard the news, he didn't celebrate. He tore his clothes, fasted, and wept. Then he composed a lament — one of the most beautiful pieces of poetry in the entire Old Testament — and in it he wrote: "I am distressed for thee, my brother Jonathan: very pleasant hast thou been unto me" (2 Samuel 1:26).

But the story doesn't end on the hill. Years later, after David was established as king, he asked a question almost nobody in his position would think to ask: "Is there yet any that is left of the house of Saul, that I may shew him kindness for Jonathan's sake?" (2 Samuel 9:1). He was told about Mephibosheth — Jonathan's son, disabled in both feet from a childhood fall, living in obscurity. David sent for him, restored all of Saul's lands to him, and insisted he eat at the king's table for the rest of his life — as one of the king's own sons. The friendship that began with a robe and a covenant didn't end on a battlefield. David carried it forward into the next generation.