Peter Pett's Commentary on the Bible
1 Samuel 17:1-19
Goliath Challenges Israel With No Takers. David Is Sent To Take His Brothers Food (1 Samuel 17:1).
This passage brings us face to face with two figures, the first the formidable Philistine warrior, Goliath, who challenges Israel to send a man to fight him, with no takers, and the second a shepherd boy who is sent to take food to his brothers who are in the Israelite army and to gather news of them.
Analysis.
a Now the Philistines gathered together their armies to battle, and they were gathered together at Socoh, which belongs to Judah, and encamped between Socoh and Azekah, in Ephes-dammim (1 Samuel 17:1).
b And Saul and the men of Israel were gathered together, and encamped in the vale of Elah, and set the battle in array against the Philistines (1 Samuel 17:2).
c And the Philistines stood on the mountain on the one side, and Israel stood on the mountain on the other side, and there was a valley between them. And there went out a champion out of the camp of the Philistines, named Goliath, of Gath, whose height was six cubits and a span (1 Samuel 17:3).
d And he had a helmet of bronze on his head, and he was clad with a coat of mail; and the weight of the coat was five thousand shekels of bronze, and he had greaves of bronze on his legs, and a javelin of bronze between his shoulders. And the staff of his spear was like a weaver's beam, and his spear's head weighed six hundred shekels of iron, and his shield-bearer went before him (1 Samuel 17:5).
e And he stood and cried to the armies of Israel, and said to them, “Why have you come out to set your battle in array? Am not I a Philistine, and you servants to Saul? Choose you a man for you, and let him come down to me. If he be able to fight with me, and kill me, then will we be your servants, but if I prevail against him, and kill him, then shall you be our servants, and serve us” (1 Samuel 17:8).
f And the Philistine said, “I defy the armies of Israel this day. Give me a man, that we may fight together” (1 Samuel 17:10).
e And when Saul and all Israel heard those words of the Philistine, they were dismayed, and greatly afraid (1 Samuel 17:11).
d Now David was the son of that Ephrathite of Beth-lehem-judah, whose name was Jesse, and he had eight sons: and the man was an old man in the days of Saul, stricken in years among men. And the three eldest sons of Jesse had gone after Saul to the battle, and the names of his three sons who went to the battle were Eliab the first-born, and next to him Abinadab, and the third Shammah. And David was the youngest, and the three eldest followed Saul. And David went to and fro from Saul to feed his father's sheep at Beth-lehem (1 Samuel 17:12).
c And the Philistine drew near morning and evening, and presented himself forty days (1 Samuel 17:17).
b And Jesse said to David his son, “Take now for your brothers an ephah of this parched grain, and these ten loaves, and carry them quickly to the camp to your brothers, and bring these ten cheeses to the captain of their thousand, and see how your brothers fare, and take their pledge” (1 Samuel 17:18).
a Now Saul, and they, and all the men of Israel, were in the vale of Elah, fighting with the Philistines. (1 Samuel 17:19).
Note that in ‘a' the Philistines were gathered to battle against Israel, and in the parallel Israel were in the Vale of Elah fighting with the Philistines. In ‘b' Saul and the men of Israel were gathered in the Vale of Elah, and in the parallel we learn how they are being fed. In ‘c' the Philistine champion came out to challenge Israel, and in the parallel he comes regularly to challenge Israel. In ‘d' we have the details concerning Goliath as a mighty man of war, and in the parallel we have the details stressing that David is a mere feeder of sheep whose elder brothers are men of war. In ‘e' the Philistine issues his challenge, and in the parallel the Israelites are greatly afraid. Central in ‘f' is the fact that the Philistine is defying the armies of Israel, and is seeking a man whom he can fight. These are two central themes in the whole passage, Goliath's defiance of Israel and their God, and the man whom God has chosen to put him in his place.
‘ Now the Philistines gathered together their armies to battle, and they were gathered together at Socoh, which belongs to Judah, and encamped between Socoh and Azekah, in Ephes-dammim.'
Once again the Philistines had gathered their fighting forces to seek to bring Israel into subjugation. This time they had approached the lowland territory of northern Judah near Azekah but had immediately found themselves faced with a large Israelite army under Saul. The place where this took place was at Ephes-dammim, (the boundary of blood), a place where no doubt much blood had been spilled in past border battles.
‘ And Saul and the men of Israel were gathered together, and encamped in the vale of Elah, and set the battle in array against the Philistines.'
Saul and the men of Israel had ‘gathered together' as a result of the call to arms going out to the tribes and they were encamped on a slope in the Vale of Elah in which there was a ravine separating the two armies. Their forces were all set in their battle lines with weapons at the ready.
‘ And the Philistines stood on the mountain on the one side, and Israel stood on the mountain on the other side: and there was a valley between them.'
The scene is set. On the mountain on one side of the valley were the Philistines with their chariots, and horsemen, and weapons of iron, and on the mountain on the other side were the Israelites, mainly fighting on foot and only having bronze weapons, while between them was the valley itself through which went a ravine which helped to keep the two armies apart.
‘ And there went out a champion out of the camp of the Philistines, named Goliath, of Gath, whose height was six cubits and a span, and he had a helmet of bronze on his head, and he was clad with a coat of mail, and the weight of the coat was five thousand shekels of bronze, and he had greaves of bronze on his legs, and a javelin of bronze between his shoulders. And the staff of his spear was like a weaver's beam, and his spear's head weighed six hundred shekels of iron, and his shield-bearer went before him.'
But there was another snag. The Philistines had issued a challenge through their ‘champion' (more literally ‘the man in the space between'). He had come down into the valley and laid down his challenge for someone to meet him in single combat. This was a regular custom in those days, and such a combat would be seen as having a significant impact on what followed, because it would be seen as demonstrating whose side the gods were on. No army liked to fight if its champion had been defeated, for it was seen as a mirror image of what would follow. Thus it was a challenge that could not be ignored.
And the further problem was that this champion was huge. He was nine foot six tall, covered in huge and impressive armour reinforced with copper or bronze, and bristling with offensive weapons, such as spear, sword and javelin. There is no good reason for doubting the statistics. Skeletons of men of that size coming from that era have been dug up in Palestine, and they crop up throughout the ages. The coat of mail would have been made of overlapping plates of metal and have reached down to the knees. The greaves protected the shins.
He was named ‘Goliath' and came from Gath. He may have been descended from the Rephaim (Deuteronomy 2:20; 2 Samuel 21:22) or the Anakim (Joshua 11:21). It is quite probable that ‘Goliath' was the name given to whoever was the recognised Philistine champion at the time, so that when this Goliath died another Goliath would replace him. This would explain how he could later seem to be slain again (2 Samuel 21:19). We can compare how the early Philistine commander-in-chiefs were all called Phicol, and their kings Abimelech (Genesis 20; Genesis 21:22; Genesis 26; Psalms 34 heading). For a similar phenomenon compare also the Pharaohs in Egypt and the Tartans who were commanders-in-chief over the Assyrian army (2 Kings 18:17).
‘ And he stood and cried to the armies of Israel, and said to them, “Why are you come out to set your battle in array? Am not I the Philistine, and you servants to Saul? Choose you a man for you, and let him come down to me. If he be able to fight with me, and kill me, then will we be your servants, but if I prevail against him, and kill him, then shall you be our servants, and serve us.” '
Each day this giant of a man would stride out into the valley with his shield bearer in front of him, and hurl his challenge at the Israelite army. And every day the Israelites looked at him, cowered back, and grew more and more afraid, for they knew that if no one dared to face Goliath it proved that YHWH was not with them. And they were aware only too well of what that would mean.
Then Goliath would laugh at their battle array and ask them why they went to all the trouble to arm themselves when all that they had to do was send out a champion to meet him. Once they were ready to do that they could come to an agreement that whichever champion won, their army would be seen as the victors and the other army would submit. It was all so easy (if you had such a man as your champion).
“The Philistine.” That is, the one who represented the whole of the Philistine army. Whoever fought him would, as it were, be fighting the whole of the Philistine army. Note how the title is repeated. All saw him in this way.
‘ And the Philistine said, “I defy the armies of Israel this day, give me a man, that we may fight together.” '
As the days went by his challenge grew more and more fierce. He defied the armies of Israel and called for a man to fight him. He was getting impatient. In this verse we note two of the themes of the whole passage, the Philistine's defiance of Israel, and therefore of YHWH, and the fact of a man who will arise to deal with him once and for all. His ‘prayer' will be answered.
‘ And when Saul and all Israel heard those words of the Philistine, they were dismayed, and greatly afraid.'
But all that these words did was sow terror among the ranks of Israel, which was of course their purpose. It is very probable that the Philistines did not expect an Israelite response. Who would want to fight Goliath alone? But they knew that the longer it went on, the more dismayed the Israelites would become for they would know that it presaged disaster not to meet him, and they would be little short of terrified.
‘ Now David was the son of that Ephrathite of Beth-lehem-judah, whose name was Jesse, and he had eight sons, and the man was an old man in the days of Saul, stricken in years among men.'
And suddenly into the picture in the mind of the writer comes a new development. Although they did not yet realise it the Israelites had an answer in the man on whom was the Spirit of YHWH. The writer knows this and that is why he gives David's full details here, even though he has given them to us before. For this is Israel's champion, David, the youngest son of Jesse the Ephrathite of Bethlehem-judah, the Jesse who had eight sons as described in the last chapter. And this Jesse was himself very old, which was why he was not with the army, while this David was one of his sons, his youngest. Of course we know of him already from the previous chapter, but the details are mentioned again in detail in order to bring out his importance in this situation. It is clear that he was not yet twenty as he had not been of an age to join up with the army.
‘ And the three eldest sons of Jesse had gone after Saul to the battle, and the names of his three sons who went to the battle were Eliab the first-born, and next to him Abinadab, and the third Shammah.'
His youth is emphasised by the fact that his three oldest brothers were with the army and were named Eliab, Abinadab and Shammah. So he comes from a war-like family, but is not a warrior himself. But the other four brothers, like David, were also not in the army. That would be because they also were under twenty, or because they had recently married (Deuteronomy 24:5).
‘ And David was the youngest; and the three eldest followed Saul.'
And David was the youngest and could not enlist in the army, even though the three eldest had. Even granted that the other four included twins, with one or two also recently married, he could in fact not have been more than seventeen. Thus we recognise that David was from a soldierly family and of an age too young to fight. In contrast his three elder brothers followed Saul and were with him on the battlefield (Of course, like many young men of his age, David would not have seen it that way. He probably felt that he was quite old enough to fight).
‘ Now David went to and fro from Saul to feed his father's sheep at Beth-lehem.'
As we know from earlier on David spent some time as a musician to Saul when Saul was going through his bad periods, but we learn here that he combined that with his duties as a shepherd, especially when Saul was on the front line and thus fully occupied, which would be quite often. Part of the reason for David's visits would be in order to keep his brothers supplied with food. Many Israelite family members would be doing the same for their relatives.
This fact that David is a mere feeder of the sheep, and not even qualified to be a warrior, is deliberately contrasted in the chiasmus with the picture drawn of the mighty Goliath.
‘ And the Philistine drew near morning and evening, and presented himself for forty days.'
Meanwhile ‘the Philistine' who was the cause of their problems still came out each morning and evening and presented his challenge. This had by now continued for ‘forty days'. ‘Forty days' is a recognised length of time indicating a portentous period in which YHWH is involved (Genesis 7:17; Genesis 8:6; Exodus 24:18; Exodus 35:28; 1 Kings 19:8). But the Philistine was unaware of that. He scoffed at YHWH. Thus he was not aware that the ‘forty days' hung like a dark shadow over his head.
‘ And Jesse said to David his son, “Take now for your brothers an ephah of this parched grain, and these ten loaves, and carry them quickly to the camp to your brothers, and bring these ten cheeses to the captain of their unit, and see how your brethren fare, and take their pledge.” '
And while the Philistine was presenting himself for forty days YHWH was preparing His champion. Jesse called David and told him to take food to his soldier brothers and to the captain of their unit, and to obtain news of how they fared and to bring back some evidence that they were still alive. We often do not stop to ask ourselves how armies were provisioned, especially when on their own territory where looting could not, of course, be allowed. Here we are given a solution. The families of the soldiers would send them provisions, and even extra provisions for others. Parched corn consisting of grains of wheat roasted in a pan were a common form of food in Palestine. It will be noted that while the brothers are expected to make do with basic food, their captain receives something somewhat more luxurious. He would be a man of high rank and important in Israel. ‘Ten' may here indicate ‘a number of' (compare Genesis 31:41; 1 Samuel 1:8).
“Their pledge.” The pledge required would be something, such as a note of hand, which demonstrated that the brothers were still alive.
‘ Now Saul, and they, and all the men of Israel, were in the vale of Elah, fighting with the Philistines.'
Meanwhile, the writer reminds us, Saul and all the men of Israel, were in the vale of Elah fighting with the Philistines. He recognises that this account would be read out at the festivals and wants to keep the audience up to date. There may also be an intentional indication here that not one of ‘all of the men of Israel' could solve Israel's problems. It would require a teenager who was not yet a man, but who was filled with the Spirit of YHWH. The emphasis is on the fact that when YHWH delivers it will not be as a result of Israel's capabilities.