The Challenge Everyone Hears and David Answers Differently

Shochoh and Azekah lay in the Shephelah, the low hills west of Bethlehem, well inside land “which belongeth to Judah”. The Philistines are pushing up the valley routes toward the hill country. Ephes-dammim probably means “boundary of blood”, a name that suggests the ground had been fought over before.

Elah means terebinth, a large spreading tree, so this is the Valley of the Terebinth. “Set the battle in array” is arak, to lay out in rows, a word that runs through the chapter as the army’s ranks. Israel has taken up position; it has not yet done anything.

The verse is a diagram: a hill, a valley, a hill. Whichever side went down first would have to fight uphill against the other, which may explain why neither moves for forty days, though the text does not say so. The only thing that crosses the valley is one man’s voice.

“Champion” is literally “the man of the in-between”, the fighter who steps into the space between two lines. Gath was one of the five Philistine cities, and Joshua 11:22 notes that Anakim, the giants of Canaan, survived there. Six cubits and a span comes to about nine and a half feet.

“Brass” in 1611 covered what we call bronze. “Coat of mail” is literally a coat of scales, using the word for the scales of a fish (Leviticus 11:9): overlapping bronze plates. Five thousand shekels is roughly 125 pounds, more than many men weigh.

Greaves were bronze shin guards. The King James “target” means a small shield, but the Hebrew kidon more likely names a javelin or curved sword slung across the back; Joshua held out a kidon at Ai (Joshua 8:18). Goliath is armed at every range.

A weaver’s beam was the heddle rod of a loom. Yigael Yadin suggested the comparison describes a spear fitted with a loop and cord for throwing, like the leash on a loom rod. The head alone weighs about fifteen pounds, and it is iron, the metal Israel was forbidden to forge (13:19).

The Hebrew has “Am not I the Philistine?”, with the definite article, as though he embodies his nation. “Let him come down” names the move neither army will make. He addresses a whole army and asks it for one man.

Deciding a war by single combat is known from Homer, where Paris and Menelaus fight to settle the Trojan war (Iliad 3), and the Philistines came from the Aegean world, though a direct link is an inference. The stakes are servitude either way; the loser’s nation serves the winner’s.

“Defy” is charaf, to taunt or reproach, the verb behind the “reproach” Nahash wanted to lay on Israel (11:2). It recurs through the chapter, in the soldiers’ mouths, in David’s, and in David’s reply to Goliath. The challenge is an insult first and a proposal second.

“Dismayed” is chatat, to be shattered. The pair “dismayed” and “afraid” turns inside out the charge given to Joshua: “fear not, neither be dismayed” (Joshua 1:9). Saul, taller than any of his people (9:2), was the obvious match for Goliath, and he is among the frightened.

Ephrath was the old name of Bethlehem (Genesis 35:19), and Elimelech’s family in Ruth are “Ephrathites of Beth-lehem-judah” (Ruth 1:2). David is reintroduced as though for the first time, and the main Greek manuscript, Codex Vaticanus, lacks verses 12–31 altogether. Jesse is too old for the campaign.

The three eldest are named in the same order in which they passed before Samuel (16:6–9). The sons the LORD did not choose now serve in the army of the king he has rejected, while the chosen one is at home with the flock.

The Hebrew sets “the youngest”, haqqatan, the little one, against “the three eldest”, literally “the three big ones”. Little and big is the contrast the whole chapter plays out in the valley.

“Went and returned” describes a young man going back and forth between court and flock. “Feed” is ra’ah, to shepherd, and it becomes David’s royal commission: “Thou shalt feed my people Israel” (2 Samuel 5:2).

Morning and evening were the hours of Israel’s daily sacrifices (Exodus 29:38–39), and Goliath keeps them like a liturgy of insult. Forty days is Israel’s number for testing, the length of Moses’ stay on the mountain and of the spies’ search of the land.

An ephah was about half a bushel. “Parched corn” was roasted grain, a soldier’s staple, and the same food Boaz handed Ruth at harvest (Ruth 2:14), David’s great-grandmother in the same fields. Soldiers in this army ate what their families sent.

“Ten cheeses” is literally “ten cuts of milk”, portions of curd. They go to the captain of a thousand, a gift to keep the commander well disposed toward Jesse’s sons. “Their pledge” is some token proving they were alive and well.

The line may be Jesse still speaking, telling David where to find them, or the account’s own aside; the Hebrew allows either. “Fighting” is a participle, “were fighting”, which is a generous description of forty days of standing still.

“The trench” is ma’gal, the circle of the encampment, perhaps a ring of wagons. David arrives just as the army marches out raising the war cry, the same daily cry that led nowhere. He has left the sheep “with a keeper”, a small fact that matters in verse 28.

“Army against army” is literally “rank against rank”, ma’arakah, the chapter’s word for battle lines. Both sides are drawn up, and the verse states the stand-off in five Hebrew words without a verb of motion.

“Carriage” in 1611 meant baggage, things carried, not a vehicle. “Saluted his brethren” is literally “asked his brothers of their shalom”, exactly the errand Jesse gave in verse 18, where “look how thy brethren fare” is literally “see to their shalom”.

Goliath is named only here and in verse 4; everywhere else he is simply “the Philistine”, a title more than a man. 2 Samuel 21:19 credits Elhanan of Bethlehem with killing “Goliath the Gittite”, and 1 Chronicles 20:5 makes Elhanan’s victim Goliath’s brother, a difficulty long discussed.

The whole line breaks at the sight of one man walking forward, before he speaks. So the forty days were not a standoff so much as a daily rout, with Israel retreating morning and evening and coming back to its position.

The reward has three parts: riches, the king’s daughter, and a “free” household. The word chofshi is the one used of a Hebrew slave going free (Exodus 21:2); here it probably meant exemption from royal taxes and forced service, the burdens Samuel warned of in 8:11–17.

These are David’s first recorded words in the book, and they begin with a question. “Reproach” is cherpah, the disgrace Nahash wanted to lay on Israel (11:2). “The living God” is the phrase Joshua used at the Jordan (Joshua 3:10), set against a people whose god Dagon fell on his face before the ark.

“After this manner” is literally “according to this word”, and the chapter keeps counting words passed from mouth to mouth. David now has the terms confirmed by men who heard them, not by rumour alone.

“Naughtiness” in 1611 meant wickedness, not mere mischief. “Why camest thou down hither?” is sharp in context: Goliath has asked forty days for someone to come down to him (verse 8), and the first to come down is scolded by his brother for it.

“Is there not a cause?” renders a Hebrew phrase that more likely means “Was it not just a word?”: I only asked. “What have I now done?” sounds like a youngest brother who has heard accusations before.

David does not answer Eliab; he simply turns to someone else. The Hebrew repeats “word” again, the former word, the same word. Questions travel along the line of men, and by the next verse they reach the king.

“Rehearsed” means repeated or reported. The Hebrew says Saul “took him”, the verb of royal conscription Samuel warned of in 8:11. Music brought David to Saul in chapter 16; now words do.

“Let no man’s heart fail” is literally “let no man’s heart fall upon him”. David calls himself “thy servant”, a title he uses repeatedly in this conversation. Goliath had sneered at Israel as “servants to Saul” (verse 8), and David takes the title up gladly.

Saul uses the same root twice: David is a na’ar, a boy, and Goliath has been a warrior from his ne’urim, his boyhood. Goliath had been a soldier for longer than David had been alive, or near enough.

Lions lived in the Jordan thickets and the Judean wilderness (Jeremiah 49:19). Amos pictures a shepherd who can save from a lion’s mouth only two legs or a piece of an ear (Amos 3:12), the remains a shepherd produced as proof that a beast, not he, had taken the animal (Exodus 22:13).

“Beard” is the word for a man’s chin or beard, here the lion’s jaw or mane. “Delivered” is natsal, to snatch away, the verb David applies to God in verse 37. Samson also killed a lion, but with the Spirit on him and his bare hands (Judges 14:6).

David classes Goliath with the lion and the bear, animals who took what was not theirs. Goliath will ask a few verses later whether he is a dog (verse 43), and the insult has already been answered.

The “paw” of the lion and bear is literally their “hand”, yad, and so is the “hand” of the Philistine. Three hands, one deliverer. Saul’s blessing, “the LORD be with thee”, prays for what the courtier already said was true (16:18).

“His armour” is Saul’s maddav, his own tunic or battle dress, the word used when Jonathan gives David “his garments” in 18:4. Saul was one of only two men in Israel with proper weapons (13:22), and he hands his kit to a shepherd.

“Assayed” means tried. “Proved” is nissah, to test, the verb of God proving Abraham (Genesis 22:1). The Hebrew says David could not “walk” in them. The sword he girds and then removes sets up the line in verse 50: there was no sword in his hand.

The brook is the wadi bed in the valley floor, where water had rounded the stones. “Scrip” was old English for a small bag; the Hebrew word appears nowhere else. Benjamin had slingers who could hit a hair and not miss (Judges 20:16), and sling stones found at excavated sites are roughly the size of a tennis ball.

The Hebrew lingers on Goliath’s approach: walking, going, drawing near, the slow advance of a man in a hundred pounds of bronze behind a shield-bearer. Every verb for David in the coming verses will be quick.

“Disdained” is bazah, to despise, the verb Michal will use of David when she watches him dance before the ark (2 Samuel 6:16). “Ruddy” and “fair countenance” repeat the description of 16:12 word for word; Goliath sees what Samuel saw and draws the opposite conclusion.

“Staves” is plural though David carries one staff, perhaps a sneer, or perhaps Goliath counts the sling. His curse “by his gods” makes the contest openly religious. The Greek adds David’s retort: “No, but worse than a dog.”

Leaving a body to birds and beasts was the curse of the unburied, the worst fate the ancient world could name (Deuteronomy 28:26). “Come to me” repeats the demand that someone come down, now as a personal invitation.

“The LORD of hosts” is YHWH tseva’ot, “LORD of armies”, the title first heard at Shiloh (1:3). David pairs it with a second word for armies, the ranks of Israel that Goliath has defied. The kidon rendered “shield” here is the weapon slung on Goliath’s back in verse 6.

David takes Goliath’s curse of verse 44 word for word and enlarges it from one body to the whole Philistine host. “That all the earth may know” is the purpose clause of the plagues (Exodus 9:14, 16), which the Philistines themselves remembered with dread (4:8; 6:6).

“This assembly” is qahal, the word for Israel gathered before God, so an army becomes a congregation. “The battle is the LORD’s” is heard again when a prophet tells King Jehoshaphat, “the battle is not yours, but God’s” (2 Chronicles 20:15).

Goliath “arose”, perhaps from where he had been waiting, and moves forward. David “hasted, and ran” toward the ranks; the only running in the combat is his, and he runs toward the Philistine line rather than away from it.

“Slang” is the old past tense of sling. “Sunk” is taba’, the verb for Pharaoh’s captains sinking in the Red Sea (Exodus 15:4). “Forehead” is metsach, from the same root as the “greaves” of verse 6, which has led a few scholars to suggest the stone struck below the knee, a minority reading.

“Prevailed” is chazaq, the verb Goliath used in verse 9: “if I prevail against him”. His own word is turned on him. The verse is the chapter’s summary sentence, placed before the details of verse 51 like a headline.

“Stood upon” is the victor’s stance over a fallen enemy. “Champion” here is gibbor, “mighty man”, not the “man of the in-between” of verse 4. The sword David draws will turn up again wrapped in a cloth behind the ephod at Nob (21:9).

Israel and Judah are named apart again. The Greek reads “Gath” for “the valley”, which pairs neatly with Ekron: the two nearest Philistine cities. Shaaraim, “two gates”, was a town of the Shephelah near the battlefield (Joshua 15:36).

“Chasing” is dalaq, literally “burning after”, the verb Jacob used when he protested that Laban had “hotly pursued” him (Genesis 31:36). The army that fled the sight of one man now plunders the tents of a whole camp.

Jerusalem was still a Jebusite city until 2 Samuel 5. “His tent” has no clear referent, since David was a visitor with no tent in camp; it may mean his home. The sword later lies at the sanctuary at Nob (21:9), perhaps given there as a thank offering, though the text never says how it arrived.

“As thy soul liveth” is a courtier’s oath. Abner, the king’s cousin and general (14:50), will one day negotiate with David for the kingdom (2 Samuel 3:12). From here on Saul tends to call David “the son of Jesse”, often as a sneer (20:27, 31; 22:7), and the question of parentage starts here.

“Stripling” in 1611 meant a youth not yet full grown. The Hebrew elem is rare, used again only in 20:22 of Jonathan’s boy. The king uses a softer word than the na’ar of verse 33.

“Abner took him”, the same verb Saul used in verse 31 and will use again in 18:2. David comes before the king holding the severed head, which shows that verse 54 is summarising what happened later.

“Jesse the Beth-lehemite” is the exact title the LORD used in 16:1 and the courtier in 16:18, and now David says it himself. Calling his father “thy servant” places the whole household at Saul’s disposal in the answer that ends the chapter.