I was reading Peter Leithart’s commentary on 1 & 2 Samuel, A Son To Me, and came across this passage:
When he heard Goliath’s blasphemy, David inquired about rewards and spoke boldly against Goliath’s defiance of Israel, and word of the brash young man got back to Saul. David told Saul that he was prepared to face the Philistine because he had already fought and defeated a bear and a lion (17:37). To David’s mind, when Goliath started defying God, he almost ceased to be human and became no more than a bear or lion. And David was confident that the Lord would deliver him from Goliath’s “hand” as He had delivered him from the “hand” of beasts. David was the new Adam that Israel had been waiting for, the beast-master taking dominion over bears and lions and now fighting a “serpent”.
Leithart likens Goliath to a serpent because of the particular attention to the scales of his armor. Here Israel’s deliverer vanquishes the serpent that oppresses God’s people in the wilderness for forty days.
Reading this made me realize how significant food laws and animal symbolism are in Scripture, and how we ignore them at our own peril. In Purity and Danger, Mary Douglass argues that the profound symbolism in the food laws that separated animals into clean and unclean would not be lost on the average ancient Israelite. The distinction between clean and unclean animals corresponds to the distinction between Israel, God’s set apart people, and the nations (who are throughout Scripture referred to symbolically as “wild beasts”). Amidst the clean animals there were only some that could be offered up sacrificially in worship, as there were only a select group that could offer such sacrifices on the people’s behalf. Douglass provides a host of other examples. The parallels are numerous and striking. Every meal offered an occasion for reflection on Israel’s election and vocation as a people.
It’s interesting that in Mark 1:13 we are told that Jesus is in the wilderness being tempted by Satan for forty days, with the wild beasts and the angels who are serving him. Like Adam Jesus is with the beasts and faces the serpent, but he does not succumb to temptation, and the angels are not called into to service to block his entrance into the Garden but to serve him as he procures the way for his people to enter the Holy City. As Prophet he quotes Moses to his adversary that he might not be distracted from his work as Priest, which would erase the distinction between the sheep of his flock and the beasts that would threaten to devour him, taking his place as the rightful King of all people, Jew and Gentile, all cleansed by the blood of the Lamb.