TINY TUESDAY - SOMETHING BEGINNING WITH "B"

BALLAST - MEANING : something that helps someone or something to succeed, especially by keeping them or it under control.

This is a very tenuous link to today's challenge of "Something beginning with B"!

I will explain - every morning I get myself a cup of coffee and then go up into my Quiet Room to read my Bible and pray - sometimes for half an hour and sometimes longer.

While I was reading today - it happened to be the story of David and Goliath and I'm sure most people know that story - when I got to the part where it was describing what Goliath, the giant fighting for the Philistines, was wearing, it said:

"A champion named Goliath, who was from Gath, came out of the Philistine camp. His height was six cubits and a span (about 9 feet 9 inches or 3 metres).  He had a bronze helmet on his head and wore a coat of scale armour of bronze weighing five thousand shekels (about 125 pounds or about 58 kilograms);  on his legs he wore bronze greaves, and a bronze javelin was slung on his back. His spear shaft was like a weaver’s rod, and its iron point weighed six hundred shekels (about 15 pounds or about 6.9 kilograms). His shield bearer went ahead of him.’

He was obviously a very impressive looking giant dressed in all his gear, but that wasn't what struck me - I had never noticed the words "bronze greaves" and as I am into learning new words at the moment looked up the word "greaves".

"Greave (from the Old French greve "shin, shin armour") or jambeau is a piece of armour that protects the leg.”

I found out more from Mr. Google, which I found very interesting:

"The primary purpose of greaves is to protect the tibia from attack. The tibia, or shinbone, is very close to the skin, and is therefore extremely vulnerable to just about any kind of attack. Furthermore, a successful attack on the shin results in that leg being rendered useless, greatly hampering one's ability to manoeuvre in any way.  Greaves were used to counteract this. They usually consisted of a metal exterior with an inner padding of felt. The felt padding was particularly important because, without it, any blow would transfer directly from the metal plating to the shin."

And that, as Mr. HCB has opined is why footballers wear shin pads - trust him to turn it round to football!

Anyway, all that aside, my brain was then working out how I could use this on today’s Blip, so I went outside to the gravel path in front of our newish fence - and found five little stones.  In the story, I'm sure you all know that when David spoke out about Goliath and the fact that he was defying God, he said someone should stop him, so David was then chosen to go out and fight the giant.  However, he refused to wear any armour because after trying it on he found it too big and bulky, and couldn’t even walk properly whilst wearing it.  So having taken off the armour, he went just as he was, a humble shepherd boy, who chose five small stones from the stream to use in his sling with which to fight Goliath.

Several in the Israelite army were angry with David and couldn’t see how he was going to fight dressed as he was and with just five small stones in his pouch - and as he approached this nine feet high giant, he was ridiculed by him but one of the stones (ballast) he slung, struck Goliath in the forehead and killed him.  Although David wasn’t wearing a sword, he cut off Goliath’s head with his own sword and once the Philistine army saw their hero was dead, they ran for their lives.  

And so a small stone or piece of ballast was also something that helped David to succeed as it says in the meaning above.

I wonder how many of those reading this knew the meaning of this word - or whether you have ever even heard of it?  I certainly hadn’t and must have read that story in the Bible countless times - so it just proves that every day on Blip is a school day - and we can all learn something, no matter how old we are!  

Have a great day - another new word tomorrow!