Human Defiance and the Name of God, an Analysis of Goliath's Speech and David's Speech in 1 Samuel 17:10, 37

This essay examines the literary and rhetorical function of two speech pauses in 1 Samuel 17. The first occurred in Goliath’s taunt. It is a pause that intensified fear, exposing Israel’s paralysis before a grotesquely human conception of power. The second pause occurred in David’s address to Saul ahead of the first use of the divine name in the story, shifting the perspective from human strength to divine deliverance. Through attention to repetition, pronouns, verbal forms, pauses and structural symmetry, the essay argues that these silences heighten dramatic tension while contrasting human perception with faith in Jehovah*, to whom the battle ultimately belonged.