1 SAMUEL 17:40 — KING JAMES VERSION 0 0
“And he took his staff in his hand, and chose him five smooth stones out of the brook, and put them in a shepherd’s bag which he had, even in a scrip; and his sling was in his hand: and he drew near to the Philistine.”
And David said to Saul, I cannot go with these, for I have not tested them — David's *lo uchol*, I cannot go, is a refusal that announces his true understanding of what victory requires. His return (*va'yasem otam mimennu*, he took them off him) represents a stripping away of false confidence, a return to the weapons that actually serve him. The *chamesh avaniyim chelqelot*, five smooth stones, gathered from the *nachal*, the stream (or wadi), are both literally effective and symbolically resonant: smooth stones polished by water, by the natural world's slow work, rather than shaped by human artifice. The *qela* (sling) is a shepherd's tool, the instrument of pastoral defense, not of trained warfare.
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