Then David said to the Philistine: “You come to me with a sword and with a spear and with a javelin, but I come to you in the name of the Lord, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied. This day the Lord will deliver you into my hand, and I will strike you down and cut off your head. And I will give the dead bodies of the Philistines army this day to the birds of the air and to the wild beasts of the earth. All the earth may know that there is a God in Israel, and that all this assembly may know that the Lord does not need a sword or a spear to grant victory, for the fate of the battle is in His hands. When the Philistine charged at David, David put his hand in his bag and took out a stone and slung it and struck the Philistine on his forehead. The stone sank into his forehead, and he fell on his face to the ground. David ran and stood over him, took his sword, and finished him off by cutting off his head. When the Philistines saw that their champion was dead, they fled. Thus, with nothing but his sling and a stone, David defeated the Philistine and took his life. (1 Samuel 17, 45-51)

According to the Bible, Saul was the first king of Israel, but after disobeying certain instructions from the prophet Samuel, he fell out of favor. As a result, Samuel anointed David as the new king, a young shepherd who entered Saul’s court as a harpist.

In one of the many wars against the Philistines over territory, the most feared soldier, a giant named Goliath, confident in his strength, proposed that instead of fighting with full armies, only two men should fight, one from each side. No Jewish soldier dared to accept the challenge, except David, who had come to bring food to his brothers on the battlefield. He volunteered to fight, armed only with a sling and five stones.

The scene represents David as a young man who managed to knock down the giant, after throwing a stone with his sling and hitting the giant in the head. He has his enemy's sword in his hands and will use it to kill the giant by cutting off his head, taking it as a trophy to Jerusalem.

In Christianity, David has a specific importance as the ancestor of Christ, since many prophets foretold that the Messiah would come from his lineage.