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So I wanted to tell a story

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that really obsessed me when I was writing my new book,

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and it's a story of something that happened

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3,000 years ago,

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when the Kingdom of Israel was in its infancy.

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And it takes place in area called the Shefala

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in what is now Israel.

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And the reason the story obsessed me is that

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I thought I understood and then I went back over it

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and I realized that I didn't understand it at all.

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Ancient Palestine had, along its eastern border,

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there's a mountain range.

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Still same is true of Israel today.

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And in the mountain range are all of the ancient cities

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of that region, so Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Hebron.

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And then there's a coastal plain

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along the Mediterranean, where Tel Aviv is now.

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And connecting the mountain range with the coastal plain

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is an area called the Shefala,

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which is a series of valleys and ridges that run east to west,

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and you can follow the Shefala, go through the Shefala

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to get from the coastal plain to the mountains.

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And the Shefala, if you've been to Israel, you'll know

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it's just about the most beautiful part of Israel.

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It's gorgeous, with forests of oak

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and wheat fields and vineyards.

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But more importantly, though, in the history of that region,

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it's served, it's had a real strategic function,

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and that is, it is the means by which hostile armies

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on the coastal plain find their way,

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get up into the mountains and threaten those living in the mountains.

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And 3,000 years ago, that's exactly what happens.

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The Philistines, who are the biggest of enemies

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of the Kingdom of Israel,

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are living in the coastal plain.

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They're originally from Crete. They're a seafaring people.

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And they may start to make their way

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through one of the valleys of the Shefala

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up into the mountains,

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because what they want to do is occupy the highland area

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right by Bethlehem and split the Kingdom of Israel in two.

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And the Kingdom of Israel, which is headed by King Saul,

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obviously catches wind of this,

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and Saul brings his army down from the mountains

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and he confronts the Philistines in the Valley of Elah,

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one of the most beautiful of the valleys of the Shefala.

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And the Israelites dig in along the northern ridge,

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and the Philistines dig in along the southern ridge,

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and the two armies just sit there for weeks

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and stare at each other, because they're deadlocked.

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Neither can attack the other, because to attack the other side

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you've got to come down the mountain into the valley

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and then up to the other side, and you're completely exposed.

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So finally, to break the deadlock,

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the Philistines send their mightiest warrior

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down into the valley floor, and he calls out

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and he says to the Israelites,

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"Send your mightiest warrior down,

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and we'll have this out, just the two of us."

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This was a tradition in ancient warfare called single combat.

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It was a way of settling disputes

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without incurring the bloodshed of a major battle.

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And the Philistine who is sent down,

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their mighty warrior, is a giant.

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He's 6 foot 9.

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He's outfitted head to toe in this glittering bronze armor,

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and he's got a sword and he's got a javelin

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and he's got his spear. He is absolutely terrifying.

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And he's so terrifying that none of the Israelite soldiers

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want to fight him.

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It's a death wish, right? There's no way they think they could take him.

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And finally the only person who will come forward

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is this young shepherd boy,

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and he goes up to Saul and he says, "I'll fight him."

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And Saul says, "You can't fight him. That's ridiculous.

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You're this kid. This is this mighty warrior."

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But the shepherd is adamant. He says, "No, no, no,

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you don't understand, I have been defending my flock

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against lions and wolves for years. I think I can do it."

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And Saul has no choice. He's got no one else has come forward.

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So he says, "All right."

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And then he turns to the kid, and he says,

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"But you've got to wear this armor. You can't go as you are."

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So he tries to give the shepherd his armor,

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and the shepherd says, "No."

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He says, "I can't wear this stuff."

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The Biblical verse is, "I cannot wear this for I have not proved it,"

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meaning, "I've never worn armor before. You've got to be crazy."

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So he reaches down instead on the ground

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and picks up five stones

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and puts them in his shepherd's bag

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and starts to walk down the mountainside to meet the giant.

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And the giant sees this figure approaching,

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and calls out, "Come to me so I can feed your flesh

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to the birds of the heavens and the beasts of the field."

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Right? He issues this kind of taunt towards this person

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coming to fight him.

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And the shepherd draws closer and closer,

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and the giants sees that he's carrying a staff.

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That's all he's carrying. Right?

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Instead of a weapon, just this shepherd's staff,

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and he says, he's insulted,

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"Am I a dog that you would come to me with sticks?"

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And the shepherd boy takes one of his stones

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out of his pocket, puts it in his sling

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and rolls it around and lets it fly

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and it hits the giant right between the eyes,

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like, right here, in his most vulnerable spot,

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and he falls down either dead or unconscious,

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and the shepherd boy runs up and takes his sword

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and cuts off his head,

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and the Philistines see this and they turn and they just run.

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And of course, the name of the giant is Goliath

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and the name of the shepherd boy is David,

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and the reason that story has obsessed me

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over the course of writing my book

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is that everything I thought I knew about that story

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turned out to be wrong.

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So David, in that story, is supposed to be the underdog.

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Right? In fact, that term, "David and Goliath,"

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has entered our language a metaphor for

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improbable victories

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by some weak party over someone far stronger.

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Now why do we call David an underdog?

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Well, we call him an underdog because he's a kid,

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a little kid, and Goliath is this big, strong giant.

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We also call him an underdog

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because Goliath is an experienced warrior,

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and David is just a shepherd. Right?

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But most importantly, we call him an underdog

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because all he has is, it's that Goliath is outfitted with

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all of this modern weaponry, right,

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this glittering coat of armor

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and a sword and a javelin and a spear,

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and all David has is this sling.

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Well, let's start there with the phrase

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"All David has is this sling,"

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because that's the first mistake that we make.

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In ancient warfare, there are three kinds of warriors.

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There's cavalry, men on horseback and with chariots.

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There's heavy infantry, which are foot soldiers,

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armed foot soldiers with swords and shields

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and some kind of armor.

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And there's artillery, and artillery are archers,

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but, more importantly, slingers.

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And a slinger is someone who has a leather pouch

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with two long cords attached to it,

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and they put a projectile, either a rock or a lead ball,

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inside the pouch, and they whirl it around like this

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and they let one of the cords go,

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and the effect is to send the projectile forward

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towards its target.

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That's what David has, and it's important to understand

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that that sling is not a slingshot.

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It's not this, right? It's not a child's toy.

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It's in fact an incredibly devastating weapon.

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When David rolls it around like this,

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he's turning the sling around probably

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at six or seven revolutions per second,

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and that means that when the rock is released,

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it's going forward really fast,

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probably 35 meters per second.

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That's substantially faster than a baseball

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thrown by even the finest of baseball pitchers.

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More than that, the stones in the Valley of Elah

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were not normal rocks. They were barium sulphate,

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which are rocks twice the density of normal stones.

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If you do the calculations on the ballistic,

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on the stopping power of the rock fired from David's sling,

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it's roughly equal to the stopping power

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of a 45 mm handgun. Right.

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This is an incredibly devastating weapon.

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Accuracy, we know from historical records

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that slingers, experienced slingers could hit

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and maim or even kill a target at distances of up to 200 yards.

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From medieval tapestries, we know that slingers

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were capable of hitting birds in flight.

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They were incredibly accurate.

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When David lines up, and he's not 200 yards away from Goliath,

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he's quite close to Goliath,

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when he lines up and fires that thing at Goliath,

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he has every intention and every expectation

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of being able to hit Goliath at his most vulnerable spot

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between his eyes.

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If you go back over the history of ancient warfare,

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you will find time and time again

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that slingers were the decisive factor against infantry

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in one kind of battle or another.

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So what's Goliath? He's heavy infantry,

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and his expectation when he challenges the Israelites to a duel

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is that he's going to be fighting another heavy infantryman.

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Right? When he says, "Come to me that I might

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feed your flesh to the birds of the heavens and the beasts of the field,"

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the key phrase is "Come to me."

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Come up to me because we're going to fight,

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hand to hand, like this.

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Saul has the same expectation.

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David says, "I want to fight Goliath,"

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and Saul tries to give him his armor,

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because Saul is thinking, "Oh, when you say 'fight Goliath'

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you mean 'fight him in hand-to-hand combat,'

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infantry on infantry."

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But David has absolutely no expectation.

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He's not going to fight him that way. Why would he?

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He's a shepherd. He's spent his entire career

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using a sling to defend his flock against lions and wolves.

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That's where his strength lies.

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So here is, this shepherd, experienced

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in the use of a devastating weapon,

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up against this lumbering giant

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weighed down by a hundred pounds of armor

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and these incredibly heavy weapons

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that are useful only in short range combat.

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Goliath is a sitting duck. He doesn't have a chance. Right?

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So why do we keep calling David an underdog,

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and why do we keep referring to his victory as improbable?

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There's a second piece of this that's important.

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It's not just that we misunderstand David

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and his choice of weaponry.

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It's also that we profoundly misunderstand Goliath.

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Goliath is not what he seems to be.

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There's all kinds of hints of this in the Biblical text,

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things that are in retrospect quite puzzling

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and don't square with his image as this mighty warrior.

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So to begin with, the Bible says that Goliath

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is led onto the valley floor by an attendant.

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Now that is weird, right?

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Here is this mighty warrior

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challenging the Israelites to one-on-one combat.

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Why is he being led by the hand

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by some, you know, young boy, presumably,

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to the point of combat?

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Secondly, the Bible story makes special note

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of how slowly Goliath moves,

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another odd thing to say when you're describing

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the mightiest warrior known to man at that point. Right?

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And then there's this whole weird thing

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about how long it takes Goliath to react

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to the sight of David.

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So David's coming down the mountain,

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and he's clearly not preparing for hand-to-hand combat.

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Right? There is nothing about him that says,

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"I am about to fight you like this."

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He's not even carrying a sword.

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Why does Goliath not react to that?

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It's as if he's oblivious to what's going on that day.

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And then there's that strange comment he makes to David:

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"Am I a dog that you should come to me with sticks?"

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Right? Sticks? David only has one stick.

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Well, it turns out that there's been a great deal

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of speculation within the medical community over the years

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about whether there is something wrong,

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fundamentally wrong with Goliath,

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an attempt to make sense of all of those apparent anomalies.

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There have been many articles written.

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The first one was in 1960 in the Indiana Medical Journal,

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and it started a chain of speculation

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that starts with an explanation for Goliath's height.

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So Goliath is head and shoulders above

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all of his peers in that era,

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and usually when someone is that far out of the norm,

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there's an explanation for it.

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So the most common form of giantism

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is a condition called acromegaly,

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and acromegaly is caused by a benign tumor

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on your pituitary gland

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that causes an overproduction of human growth hormone.

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And throughout history, many of the most famous giants

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have all had acromegaly.

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So the tallest person of all time

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was a guy named Robert Wadlow

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who was still growing when he died at the age of 24

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and he was 8 foot 11.

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He had acromegaly.

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Do you remember the wrestler Andre the Giant?

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Famous. He had acromegaly.

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There's even speculation that Abraham Lincoln had acromegaly.

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Right? Anyone who's unusually tall,

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that's the first explanation we come up with.

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And acromegaly has a very distinct set of side effects

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associated with it,

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principally having to do with vision.

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The pituitary tumor, as it grows,

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often starts to compress the visual nerves in your brain,

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with the result that people with acromegaly

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have either double vision or they are profoundly nearsighted.

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So when people have started to speculate

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about what might have been wrong with Goliath,

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they've said, "Wait a minute,

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he looks and sounds an awful lot like someone

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who has acromegaly."

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And that would also explain so much of what was strange

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about his behavior that day.

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Right? What does he move so slowly

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and have to be escorted down into the valley floor

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by an attendant?

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Because he can't make his way on his own. Right?

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Why is he strangely oblivious to David

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that he doesn't understand that David's not going to fight him

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until the very last moment?

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Because he can't see him. Right?

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When he says, "Come to me that I might feed your flesh

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to the birds of the heavens and the beasts of the field,"

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the phrase "Come to me" is a hint also of his vulnerability.

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Come to me because I can't see you. Right?

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And then there's, "Am I a dog that you should come to me with sticks?"

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He sees two sticks when David has only one.

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So the Israelites up on the mountain ridge

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looking down on him thought he was

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this extraordinarily powerful foe.

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What they didn't understand was that

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the very thing that was the source of his apparent strength

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was also the sources of his greatest weakness.

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And there is, I think, in that,

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a very important lesson for all of us.

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Giants are not as strong as powerful as they seem.

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And sometimes the shepherd boy has a sling in his pocket.

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Thank you.

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(Applause)