Attributed commentary excerpt
Keil & Delitzsch on 1 Samuel 17:1
A historical reference excerpt for this verse. Read it alongside the biblical text and other available sources.
Commentary on the Old Testament
C. F. Keil & F. Delitzsch · 19th-century historical commentary
Source: BibleWord.ai's local reference edition of this named work.
A war between the Philistines and the Israelites furnished David with the opportunity of displaying before Saul and all Israel, and greatly to the terror of the enemies of his people, that heroic power which was firmly based upon his bold and pious trust in the omnipotence of the faithful covenant God ( Sa1 17:1-3). A powerful giant, named Goliath, came forward from the ranks of the Philistines, and scornfully challenged the Israelites to produce a man who would decide the war by a single combat with him ( Sa1 17:4-11). David, who had returned home for a time from the court of Saul, and had just been sent into the camp by his father with provisions for his elder brothers who were serving in the army, as soon as he heard the challenge and the scornful words of the Philistine, offered to fight with him (vv. 15-37), and killed the giant with a stone from a sling; whereupon the Philistines took to flight, and were pursued by the Israelites to Gath and Ekron (vv. 38-54). Sa1 17:1-11 Some time after David first came to Saul for the purpose of playing, and when he had gone back to his father to Bethlehem, probably because Saul's condition had improved, the Philistines made a fresh attempt to subjugate the Israelites. They collected their army together (machaneh, as in Exo 14:24; Jdg 4:16) to war at Shochoh, the present Shuweikeh, in the Wady Sumt, three hours and a half to the south-west of Jerusalem, in the hilly region between the mountains of Judah and the plain of Philistia (see at Jos 15:35), and encamped between Shochoh and Azekah, at Ephes-dammim, which has been preserved in the ruins of Damm, about an hour and a half east by north of Shuweikeh; so that Azekah, which has not yet been certainly traced, must be sought for to the east or north-east of Damm (see at Jos 10:10). Sa1 17:2-3 Saul and the Israelites encamped opposite to them in the terebinth valley (Emek ha-Elah), i.e., a plain by the Wady Musur, and stood in battle array opposite to the Philistines, in such order that the latter stood on that side against the mountain (on the slope of the mountain), and the Israelites on this side against the mountain; and the valley (הגּיא, the deeper cutting made by the brook in the plain) was between them. Sa1 17:4-5 And the (well-known) champion came out of the camps of the Philistines (הבּנים אישׁ, the middle-man, who decides a war between two armies by a single combat; Luther, "the giant," according to the ἀνὴρ δυνατὸς of the lxx, although in Sa1 17:23 the Septuagint translators have rendered the word correctly ἀνὴρ ὁ ἀμεσσαῖος, which is probably only another form of ὁ μεσαῖος), named Goliath of Gath, one of the chief cities of the Philistines, where there were Anakim still left, according to Jos 11:22. His height was six cubits and a span (6 1/4 cubits), i.e., according to the calculation made by Thenius, about nine feet two inches Parisian measure, - a great height no doubt, though not altogether unparalleled, and hardly greater than that of the great uncle of Iren, who came to Berlin in the year 1857 (see Pentateuch, p. 869, note). (Note: According to Pliny (h. n. vii. 16), the giant Pusio and the giantess Secundilla, who lived in the time of Augustus, were ten feet three inches (Roman) in height; and a Jew is mentioned by Josephus (Ant. xviii. 4, 5), who was seven cubits in height, i.e., ten Parisian feet, or if the cubits are Roman, nine and a half.) The armour of Goliath corresponded to his gigantic stature: "a helmet o…
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