1 Samuel 17


1 Samuel 17 is the seventeenth chapter of the First Book of Samuel in the Old Testament of the Christian Bible or the first part of the Books of Samuel in the Hebrew Bible. According to Jewish tradition the book was attributed to the prophet Samuel, with additions by the prophets Gad and Nathan, but modern scholars view it as a composition of a number of independent texts of various ages from c. 630–540 BCE. This chapter contains the battle of
David with Goliath, the Philistine. This is within a section comprising 1 Samuel 16 to 2 Samuel 5 which records the rise of David as the king of Israel.

Text

This chapter was originally written in the Hebrew language. It is divided into 58 verses.

Textual witnesses

Some early manuscripts containing the text of this chapter in Hebrew are of the Masoretic Text tradition, which includes the Codex Cairensis, Aleppo Codex, and Codex Leningradensis. Fragments containing parts of this chapter in Hebrew were found among the Dead Sea Scrolls including 4Q51 with extant verses 3–8, 40–41.
Extant ancient manuscripts of a translation into Koine Greek known as the Septuagint include Codex Vaticanus and Codex Alexandrinus. The text in the Codex Vaticanus is notably shorter than the others, consisting only of verses 1–11, 32–40, 42–48a, 49, 51–54.

Places

The section comprising 1 Samuel 16 to 2 Samuel 5 is known as the "History of David's Rise", with David as the central character, within which 1 Samuel 16:1 to 2 Samuel 1:27 form an independent unit with a central theme of "the decline of Saul and the rise of David". This narrative provides the test of David's suitability to the throne, in contrast to the testing of Jonathan at Michmash. It was emphasized that David did not enter into battle with Goliath because of 'arrogance or a spirit of adventure', but because he followed God's plan. The portrayal of David as a shepherd in this narrative had 'royal' connotations.

The challenge of Goliath, the Philistine (17:1–11)

After an unknown period of time, the Philistines again started a military action against Israel, assembling their army near Sochoh, a strategic passage between the Philistine and Israel territories. Saul assembled the Israel army at the opposite side of the Elah valley, anticipating a battle. However, this time, a gigantic man, Goliath, stepped up out of the Philistines, a seasoned veteran, wearing the most advanced weapons, challenging anyone among the Israel army for one-on-one combat, instead of thousands soldiers battling, to decide the outcome – winner takes all.
In his challenge, Goliath explicitly called for Saul perhaps in reference to Saul being the tallest among the Israelites, but Saul and all Israel soldiers were too afraid to accept the challenge.

Verse 1

The verse detailed the scene of David's memorable battle with Goliath with great exactness. The Philistines and Israel army camped on opposite sides of the wide valley of Elah to their rendezvous at Sochoh, and the Philistines pitched their camp in Ephes-dammim.
  • "Sochoh" : identified with the modern "Shuweikeh", about 16 miles southwest of Jerusalem on the road to Gaza.
  • "Azekah" mentioned in Joshua 10:10 in relation to the rout of the Philistines in the battle of Beth-horon.
  • "Ephes-dammim": meaning "boundary of blood", identified with modern Beit Fased, or 'House of Bleeding,' near Sochoh. The name was probably given as the scene of frequent battles between the Israelites and the Philistines.

    Verse 2

  • "Valley of Elah": now Wady-es-Sunt, running in a northwest direction from the hills of Judah near Hebron passing Gath to the sea near Ashdod. The ancient name "Elah" was taken from the Terebinth, the largest tree specimen in Palestine still standing in the vicinity, whereas the modern name "es-Sunt" is from the acacias which are scattered in the valley.

    Verse 4

  • "Goliath": a Philistine warrior from Gath. During excavations by Israel's Bar-Ilan University in the location of ancient Gath a potsherd was discovered, reliably dated to between the tenth to mid ninth centuries BC, with inscription of two names LWT and WLT, which were etymologically related to the name Goliath, so demonstrating that Goliath's name fits with the context of late tenth/early ninth century BCE Philistine culture, as well as could be linked with the Lydian king Alyattes, which also fits the Philistine context. A similar name, Uliat, is also attested in Carian inscriptions.
  • "Six cubits and a span" following Masoretic Text, approximately 9 ft. 9 in., but some manuscripts including 4QSam and Septuagint have 'four cubits and a span', as in the table below. A "cubit" is about 18 inches or 45 centimeters,, but there were longer and shorter cubits, as in Babylon and Egypt, measured 20.65 and 17.6 inches, respectively.
Textual witnessesSourceLanguageDateHeight
Height
Height
Dead Sea Scrolls
4QSam		JewishHebrew50 BCE4 cubits and a span26 ft. 9 in.
Josephus
Antiquities 6.171		JewishGreek80 CE4 cubits and a span26 ft. 9 in.
Symmachus JewishGreek~ 200 CE6 cubits and a span39 ft. 9 in.
Origen
Hexapla		ChristianGreek~250 CE6 cubits and a span39 ft. 9 in.
Lucian Greek recensionChristianGreek200-300 CE4 cubits and a span26 ft. 9 in.
Codex Vaticanus ChristianGreek300-400 CE4 cubits and a span26 ft. 9 in.
Codex Alexandrinus ChristianGreek400-500 CE4 cubits and a span26 ft. 9 in.
Vulgate ChristianLatin400 CE6 cubits and a span39 ft. 9 in.
Codex VenetusChristianGreek700-800 CE5 cubits and a span2.58 ft. 3 in.
Aleppo Codex JewishHebrew935 CE6 cubits and a span39 ft. 9 in.
Leningrad Codex JewishHebrew1010 CE6 cubits and a span39 ft. 9 in.

Most of the extant Hebrew manuscripts are based on Masoretic Text, but older manuscripts, such as from Symmachus, a Jewish translator of Hebrew texts to Greek in 200s CE for the Jewish community in Caesarea, cited by Origen in the fourth column of Hexapla and assumed to be "proto-MT", as well as Greek version of Origen in the fifth column of Hexapla have "6 cubits and a span". Billington suggests that the "4 cubits and a span" in the Septuagint and 4QSam could be a conversion from MT's data of common cubits into a measurement using royal Egyptian cubits.
Average height of men at the end of first century BCE in the Middle East and Mediterranean area was estimated based on the skeletons in some tombs to be about 3.5 cubits to about 175 cm. Whether it was 2 or 3 meters, the mention of Goliath's height certainly played a role for the Israelites to fear him, although in the whole chapter Goliath was never referred to as a "giant". However, Saul, being a tall person himself, was more concerned about Goliath's extensive military training. Therefore, the emphasis of mentioning Goliath's height in the narrative is that Saul, possessing unique height, weapons and armor among the Israelites, should be the logical choice to fight Goliath, but he was cowering in fear instead of delivering Israel.

Verse 5

  • "Armed": that is, "clothed with scaled body armor". The Hebrew terms for "helmet", "armed" and "coat" are also found in Isaiah 59:17.
  • "Coat of mail": or "breastplate of scales", a kind of shirt, protecting the back as well as the breast, made of bronze scales arranged like those of a fish, probably similar to the corselet of Ramesses III.
  • "Five thousand shekels of brass": about or probably 157 pounds avoirdupois. It is very likely that Goliath's brass coat may have been 'preserved as a trophy', so the weight of it could be ascertained.

    David's entrance into the battleground (17:12–30)

The narrative changes from the battleground to the hometown of David with specific information that Jesse, David's father, did not participate in the war because he was very old, but his three oldest sons were in the battlefield with Saul. While Saul was with his army, David was apparently excused to go home from his service to provide music for the king, so David was back tending his family's sheep. Forty days had passed since the army was assembled and Goliath first came out to challenge the Israelites. Jesse became worried about his sons, so he decided to send David to the front lines to get the news of their wellbeing. After arranging interim care for his flock, David went to the army campsite, bringing bread for his siblings and cheese for their commander. Right at the time David found his brothers, he heard Goliath's challenge and became angry at the insults to his God, a reaction that set him apart from all other Israelites in that place. David regarded Goliath's defying "the armies of Israel" as nothing less than defying "the armies of the living God". Then, David heard about the reward promised by Saul to the one who could defeat Goliath, and he kept inquiring of some people to make sure this information was true, even after Eliab, his eldest brother, wrongly accused David as just wanting to watch the battle. It could be argued that David's multiple inquiries—each time resulting in the same answer—were actually intended to 'get it on record' with those people as his witnesses for the reward he would get when he succeeded in winning the combat.