3 And he brought out the people who were in it and set them to labor with saws and iron picks and axes. And thus David did to all the cities of the Ammonites. Then David and all the people returned to Jerusalem.
4 And after this there arose war with the Philistines at Gezer. Then Sibbecai the Hushathite struck down Sippai, who was one of the descendants of the giants, and the Philistines were subdued. 5 And there was again war with the Philistines, and Elhanan the son of Jair struck down Lahmi the brother of Goliath the Gittite, the shaft of whose spear was like a weaver's beam. 6 And there was again war at Gath, where there was a man of great stature, who had six fingers on each hand and six toes on each foot, twenty-four in number, and he also was descended from the giants. 7 And when he taunted Israel, Jonathan the son of Shimea, David's brother, struck him down. 8 These were descended from the giants in Gath, and they fell by the hand of David and by the hand of his servants.
21:1 Then Satan stood against Israel and incited David to number Israel.
There always seems to remain a few giants in the land that need to be killed. The stories in the Old Testament are written for our learning and admonishment:
Now these things happened to them as an example, but they were written down for our instruction, on whom the end of the ages has come.
These events were not only real, historical happenings, they are lessons and word pictures for us to learn how to live with God and walk before Him in holiness. In the above passage there is separation between verse 3 and verse 4 of this passage (inserted by those who arranged the ESV text). It is regretful that they separated these verses, because it teaches us something about what it is like to serve God and walk with Him. David was given much victory under God’s power and authority. He subdued the land. He even tells young Solomon that fact later when charging the young man to build the Temple (27:6-9). What we learn, however, in this text, that even though God gave the nation peace there was still a few giants that needed to be conquered. There were physical giants sent to oppose David and the kingdom (vs. 4-8) and there was a spiritual giant sent by Satan (21:1) in David’s ego. We never really have absolute peace in our lives, even when living for God. Satan and our flesh are constantly at war with God and the Spirit in our live. That dynamic is a constant struggle (read Romans 6-8 to see Paul’s version of the struggle). We have to realize that we are constantly in a state of war with Satan and the flesh and the world around us. Giants will rise up to fight us all the time. That is why, like David, we need to surround ourselves with great men and woman of God who can fight with us and for us. That is the community God intended to provide us. The is the victory God intends for us.
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