A single verse near the conclusion of 1 Samuel 17 mentions that after defeating Goliath, David took the giant’s severed head to Jerusalem (1 Sam. 17.54). The present paper argues that this text’s communicating of David’s preeminence through his act of decapitation draws on the widespread understanding of heads as uniquely powerful and vulnerable, while triumph over a giant or monstrous body casts the future Israelite king as uniquely dominant over monstrous enemies at the physical extreme. Narratives of monster-combat that center an adversary’s head and its subsequent display are widespread; the present paper discusses the Gilgamesh/Ḫumbaba and Perseus/Medusa narratives, with their corresponding visual art manifestations, to show how the biblical allusion to monstrous capital display functions socially and literarily to constitute David’s power.

撒母耳记下17章结尾处的一节经文提到，在击败歌利亚之后，大卫将巨人的割断的头颅带到了耶路撒冷（1 Sam。17.54）。本文认为，本文通过大卫的斩首行动传达了大卫的卓越地位，这是基于人们对头部的独特理解，即对头的独特力量和脆弱性的广泛理解，而对巨大或巨大身体的胜利则使未来的以色列国王成为对头上巨大敌人的独特统治者。身体上的极端。以敌人的头部为中心的怪物战斗的叙事及其随后的展示很普遍；本文讨论了吉尔伽美什/Ḫ巴巴和珀尔修斯/美杜莎的叙事，以及它们相应的视觉艺术表现形式，以表明圣经对奇特资本展示的暗示如何在社会和文学上发挥作用，以构成大卫的力量。