Chap. 17
Verses 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 Damûm, 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 Damûm (see at Jos 10:10).
Verses 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.
Verses 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 1Sa 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).[1]
The armour
- ↑ 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.
