Perhaps the most classic victory of an underdog is that of Dovid’s victory over Golias.
The armies of Klal Yisrael and the Pelishtim are at a military impasse in the Valley of Elah. The Pelishtim suggest a battle with a single combatant instead — your best against our best. They send 12-foot-tall Golias, wearing his magnificent full-body armor. No Jewish soldier steps forward to battle him.
Dovid has been sent by his father to bring food to his three soldier brothers and hears Golias’s taunts. He volunteers to fight him. Shaul Hamelech warns him that he’s but a youngster, while Golias is a seasoned man of war. But Dovid insists, and Shaul attempts to gird him for battle with sword and armor. But Dovid shrugs him off, saying he’s uncomfortable in them.
The slight boy trots out, shepherd’s staff in one hand and slingshot in the other. He tells Golias, “You come to me with a sword, spear, and javelin, but I come to you with the Name of Hashem,” and he picks up five stones from the valley floor and fits one into his slingshot. Then — bull’s eye — he hits Golias on the forehead and knocks him unconscious. Dovid runs up to the felled body and cuts off the head with his foe’s own sword.
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