1 Samuel 17

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1Now the Philistines gathered their forces for war and assembled at Socoh in Judah. They pitched camp at Ephes Dammim, between Socoh and Azekah.

2Saul and the Israelites assembled and camped in the Valley of Elah and drew up their battle line to meet the Philistines.

3The Philistines occupied one hill and the Israelites another, with the valley between them.

4A champion named Goliath, who was from Gath, came out of the Philistine camp. He was over nine feet tall.

5He had a bronze helmet on his head and wore a coat of scale armor of bronze weighing five thousand shekels;

6on his legs he wore bronze greaves, and a bronze javelin was slung on his back.

7His spear shaft was like a weaver's rod, and its iron point weighed six hundred shekels. His shield bearer went ahead of him.

8Goliath stood and shouted to the ranks of Israel, “Why do you come out and line up for battle? Am I not a Philistine, and are you not the servants of Saul? Choose a man and have him come down to me.

9If he is able to fight and kill me, we will become your subjects; but if I overcome him and kill him, you will become our subjects and serve us.”

10Then the Philistine said, “This day I defy the ranks of Israel! Give me a man and let us fight each other.”

11On hearing the Philistine's words, Saul and all the Israelites were dismayed and terrified.

12Now David was the son of an Ephrathite named Jesse, who was from Bethlehem in Judah. Jesse had eight sons, and in Saul's time he was old and well advanced in years.

13Jesse's three oldest sons had followed Saul to the war: The firstborn was Eliab; the second, Abinadab; and the third, Shammah.

14David was the youngest. The three oldest followed Saul,

15but David went back and forth from Saul to tend his father's sheep at Bethlehem.

16For forty days the Philistine came forward every morning and evening and took his stand.

17Now Jesse said to his son David, “Take this ephah of roasted grain and these ten loaves of bread for your brothers and hurry to their camp.

18Take along these ten cheeses to the commander of their unit. See how your brothers are and bring back some assurance from them.

19They are with Saul and all the men of Israel in the Valley of Elah, fighting against the Philistines.”

20Early in the morning David left the flock with a shepherd, loaded up and set out, as Jesse had directed. He reached the camp as the army was going out to its battle positions, shouting the war cry.

21Israel and the Philistines were drawing up their lines facing each other.

22David left his things with the keeper of supplies, ran to the battle lines and greeted his brothers.

23As he was talking with them, Goliath, the Philistine champion from Gath, stepped out from his lines and shouted his usual defiance, and David heard it.

24When the Israelites saw the man, they all ran from him in great fear.

25Now the Israelites had been saying, “Do you see how this man keeps coming out? He comes out to defy Israel. The king will give great wealth to the man who kills him. He will also give him his daughter in marriage and will exempt his father's family from taxes in Israel.”

26David asked the men standing near him, “What will be done for the man who kills this Philistine and removes this disgrace from Israel? Who is this uncircumcised Philistine that he should defy the armies of the living God?”

27They repeated to him what they had been saying and told him, “This is what will be done for the man who kills him.”

28When Eliab, David's oldest brother, heard him speaking with the men, he burned with anger at him and asked, “Why have you come down here? And with whom did you leave those few sheep in the desert? I know how conceited you are and how wicked your heart is; you came down only to watch the battle.”

29“Now what have I done?” said David. “Can't I even speak?”

30He then turned away to someone else and brought up the same matter, and the men answered him as before.

31What David said was overheard and reported to Saul, and Saul sent for him.

32David said to Saul, “Let no one lose heart on account of this Philistine; your servant will go and fight him.”

33Saul replied, “You are not able to go out against this Philistine and fight him; you are only a boy, and he has been a fighting man from his youth.”

34But David said to Saul, “Your servant has been keeping his father's sheep. When a lion or a bear came and carried off a sheep from the flock,

35I went after it, struck it and rescued the sheep from its mouth. When it turned on me, I seized it by its hair, struck it and killed it.

36Your servant has killed both the lion and the bear; this uncircumcised Philistine will be like one of them, because he has defied the armies of the living God.

37The Lord who delivered me from the paw of the lion and the paw of the bear will deliver me from the hand of this Philistine.” Saul said to David, “Go, and the Lord be with you.”

38Then Saul dressed David in his own tunic. He put a coat of armor on him and a bronze helmet on his head.

39David fastened on his sword over the tunic and tried walking around, because he was not used to them. “I cannot go in these,” he said to Saul, “because I am not used to them.” So he took them off.

40Then he took his staff in his hand, chose five smooth stones from the stream, put them in the pouch of his shepherd's bag and, with his sling in his hand, approached the Philistine.

41Meanwhile, the Philistine, with his shield bearer in front of him, kept coming closer to David.

42He looked David over and saw that he was only a boy, ruddy and handsome, and he despised him.

43He said to David, “Am I a dog, that you come at me with sticks?” And the Philistine cursed David by his gods.

44“Come here,” he said, “and I'll give your flesh to the birds of the air and the beasts of the field!”

45David said to the Philistine, “You come against me with sword and spear and javelin, but I come against you in the name of the Lord Almighty, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied.

46This day the Lord will hand you over to me, and I'll strike you down and cut off your head. Today I will give the carcasses of the Philistine army to the birds of the air and the beasts of the earth, and the whole world will know that there is a God in Israel.

47All those gathered here will know that it is not by sword or spear that the Lord saves; for the battle is the Lord's, and he will give all of you into our hands.”

48As the Philistine moved closer to attack him, David ran quickly toward the battle line to meet him.

49Reaching into his bag and taking out a stone, he slung it and struck the Philistine on the forehead. The stone sank into his forehead, and he fell facedown on the ground.

50So David triumphed over the Philistine with a sling and a stone; without a sword in his hand he struck down the Philistine and killed him.

51David ran and stood over him. He took hold of the Philistine's sword and drew it from the scabbard. After he killed him, he cut off his head with the sword. When the Philistines saw that their hero was dead, they turned and ran.

52Then the men of Israel and Judah surged forward with a shout and pursued the Philistines to the entrance of Gath and to the gates of Ekron. Their dead were strewn along the Shaaraim road to Gath and Ekron.

53When the Israelites returned from chasing the Philistines, they plundered their camp.

54David took the Philistine's head and brought it to Jerusalem, and he put the Philistine's weapons in his own tent.

55As Saul watched David going out to meet the Philistine, he said to Abner, commander of the army, “Abner, whose son is that young man?” Abner replied, “As surely as you live, O king, I don't know.”

56The king said, “Find out whose son this young man is.”

57As soon as David returned from killing the Philistine, Abner took him and brought him before Saul, with David still holding the Philistine's head.

58“Whose son are you, young man?” Saul asked him. David said, “I am the son of your servant Jesse of Bethlehem.”

Commentary

17:1 Gathered, and c. - Probably they had heard, that Samuel had forsaken Saul, and that Saul himself was unfit for business. The enemies of the church are watchful to take all advantages, and they never have greater advantage, than when her protectors have provoked God's Spirit and prophets to leave them.

17:1-11 Men so entirely depend upon God in all things, that when he withdraws his help, the most valiant and resolute cannot find their hearts or hands, as daily experience shows.

Chapter 17 David is the man whom God now delights to honour, for he is a man after his own heart. We read in the foregoing chapter how, after he was anointed, Providence made him famous in the court; we read in this chapter how Providence made him much more famous in the camp, and, by both, not only marked him for a great man, but fitted him for the throne for which he was designed. In the court he was only Saul’s physician; but in the camp Israel’s champion; there he fairly fought, and beat Goliath of Gath. In the story observe, I. What a noble figure Goliath made, and how daringly he challenged the armies of Israel (v. 1–11). II. What a mean figure David made, when Providence brought him to the army (v. 12–30). III. The unparalleled bravery wherewith David undertook to encounter this Philistine (v. 31–39). IV. The pious resolution with which he attacked him (v. 40–47). V. The glorious victory he obtained over him with a sling and a stone, and the advantage which the Israelites thereby gained against the Philistines (v. 48–54). VI. The great notice which was hereupon taken of David at court (v. 55–58).Verses 1-11 It was not long ago that the Philistines were soundly beaten, and put to the worse, before Israel, and they would have been totally routed if Saul’s rashness had not prevented; but here we have them making head again. Observe,I. How they defied Israel with their armies, v. 1. They made a descent upon the Israelites’ country, and possessed themselves, as it should seem, of some part of it, for they encamped in a place which belonged to Judah. Israel’s ground would never have been footing for Philistine-armies if Israel had been faithful to their God. The Philistines (it is probable) had heard that Samuel had fallen out with Saul and forsaken him, and no longer assisted and advised him, and that Saul had grown melancholy and unfit for business, and this news encouraged them to make this attempt for the retrieving of the credit they had lately lost. The enemies of the church are watchful to take all advantages, and they never have greater advantages than when her protectors have provoked God’s Spirit and prophets to leave them. Saul mustered his forces, and faced them, v. 2, 3. And here we must take notice, 1. That the evil spirit, for the present, had left Saul, ch. 16:23. David’s harp having given him some relief, perhaps the alarms and affairs of the war prevented the return of the distemper. Business is a good antidote against melancholy. Let the mind have something without to fasten on and employ itself about, and it will be the less in danger of preying upon itself. God, in mercy to Israel, suspended the judgment for a while; for how distracted must the affairs of the public have been if at this juncture the prince had been distracted! 2. That David for the present had returned to Bethlehem, and had left the court, v. 15. When Saul had no further occasion to use him for the relief of his distemper, though, being anointed, he had a very good private reason, and, having a grant of the place of Saul’s armour-bearer, he had a very plausible pretence to have continued his attendance, as a retainer to the court, yet he went home to Bethlehem, and returned to keep his father’s sheep; this was a rare instance, in a young man that stood so fair for preferment, of humility and affection to his parents. He knew better than most do how to come down again after he had begun to rise, and strangely preferred the retirements of the pastoral life before all the pleasures and gaieties of the court. None more fit for honour than he, nor that deserved it better, and yet none more dead to it.II. How they defied Israel with their champion Goliath, whom they were almost as proud of as he was of himself, hoping by him to recover their reputation and dominion. Perhaps the army of the Israelites was superior in number and strength to that of the Philistines, which made the Philistines decline a battle, and stand at bay with them, desiring rather to put the issue upon a single combat, in which, having such a champion, they hoped to gain the victory. Now concerning this champion observe,1. His prodigious size. He was of the sons of Anak, who at Gath kept their ground in Joshua’s time (Jos. 11:22), and kept up a race of giants there, of which Goliath was one, and, it is probable, one of the largest. He was in height six cubits and a span, v. 4. They learned bishop Cumberland has made it out that the scripture-cubit was above twenty-one inches (above three inches more than our half-yard) and a span was half a cubit, by which computation Goliath wanted but eight inches of four yard in height, eleven feet and four inches, a monstrous stature, and which made him very formidable, especially if he had strength and spirit proportionable.2. His armour. Art, as well as nature, made him terrible. He was well furnished with defensive armour (v. 5, 6): A helmet of brass on his head, a coat of mail, made of brass plates laid over one another, like the scales of a fish; and, because his legs would lie most within the reach of an ordinary man, he wore brass boots, and had a large corselet of brass about his neck. The coat is said to weigh 5000 shekels, and a shekel was half an ounce avoirdupois, a vast weight for a man to carry, all the other parts of his armour being proportionable. But some think it should be translated, not the weight of the coat, but the value of it, was 5000 shekels; so much it cost.

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Translations8 · 5

AMHEVG ፍልስጥኤማውያንም ጭፍሮቻቸውን በይሁዳ ባለው በሰኮት አከማቹ፤ በሰኮትና በዓዜቃ መካከል በኤፌስደሚም ሰፈሩ። አማርኛ BCV ፍልስጥኤማውያን ድማ ኽዋግኡ ሰራዊቶም ኣኽቲቶም ኣብ ሰኮት ናይ ይሁዳ ተኣከቡ፤ ኣብ ኣርፌስደሚም ኣብ መንጎ ሰኮትን ዓዜቃን ከዓ ሰፈሩ። ትግርኛ GAZBIB Baras Filisxeemonni loltoota isaanii“Sokoo” mandara Yihudaatti lolaaf walitti qabatanii, Sokoo fi Azeqaa gidduu Efes-Da… Afaan Oromoo BCV GIZ ወአስተጋብኡ ኢሎፍሊ አሕዛቢሆሙ ለፀብእ ወተጋብኡ ውስተ ሰኰት ዘይሁዳ ወተዐየኑ ውስተ ሰኰት ወማእከለ አዜቃ ውስተ ሴፌርሜም። giz GAZGAZ Baras Filisxeemonni loltoota isaanii“Sokoo” mandara Yihudaatti lolaaf walitti qabatanii, Sokoo fi Azeqaa gidduu Efes-Da… Afaan Oromoo BCV aksum ፍልስጥኤማውያን ድማ ኽዋግኡ ሰራዊቶም ኣኽቲቶም ኣብ ሰኮት ናይ ይሁዳ ተኣከቡ፤ ኣብ ኣርፌስደሚም ኣብ መንጎ ሰኮትን ዓዜቃን ከዓ ሰፈሩ። ትግርኛ AMHNIV ፍልስጥኤማውያን ሰራዊታቸውን ለጦርነት አሰባስበው፣ በይሁዳ ምድር በሰኰት ላይ አከማቹ፤ እነርሱም በሰኰትና በዓዜቃ መካከል ባለው በኤፌሰ ደሚም ሰፈሩ። አማርኛ SWAHSUV Wakati huo Wafilisti walikusanya majeshi yao kwa vita, nao wakakusanyika huko Soko, ulio mji wa Yuda, wakatua kati ya S… Kiswahili