The Pulpit Commentary — 1 Samuel — Section 316

Philistines flccl to the mouth of the valley, armour to be capable of assuming the offensi, ~ where Gath stoo,I towering on its white against a light-armerl enemy. To Davi,! chalk cliff, n frontier fortress, the key to the belongs the credit of seeing that the Philis- high road leading to the corn-lands of Judah tine champion was a huge imposition. and to the vineynrcls of Hebron." Vers. 8-11.-He stood and cried unto Vers. 4-7. -A champion. Literally, the armies. Literally, "the ranks," the "a man of the two miclclles," i. e. one who word being .the noun formei.l from the verb enters the space between the two armies translated set in array, just below. The in order to decide the contest by a single same word is used throughout (see vers. combat. Of Gath. In Josh. xi. 21 this town 10, 20, 21, 22, 26, 45). Am not I a Philis- is mentioned, together with Gaza and Ashdod, tine l Hebrew, "the Philistine," the cham- as still having among its inhabitants men of pion on their side. I defy the armies. the race of Anak. Whose height was six Hebrew, " I have cast scorn or insult upon cubits and a span. In our measure his the ranks of Israel this clay." The sense i& height was eight feet five and one-third not so much that he defied them as that inches ; for the cubit is sixteen ·inches, and they were dishonoured by not accepting his the span (really the hand-breadth) is five challenge. They were dismayed. That is, and one-third inches. A span, sit, is eight terrified, and made uncertain what to do inches, but the word used here is zereth. (comp. Jer. 1. 36). We have seen from llfr. See on these measures, Conder, 'Handbook,' Conder's account that each army held an p. 79. This height, though very great, has impregnable position on the two sides of the been attained to in modern· times. Armed ravine, which neither could cross without with a coat of mail. Literally, ff clothed the certainty of being defeated in the attempt in a shirt of scales," i. e. a corselet made of by the other side. Under such circumstances motal scales sewn on cloth so as to overlap there seemed no way of deciding the contest one another. It was flexible, and protected except hy a single combat. But though the back and sides as well as the front. Saul and his warriors were too terrified at Five thousand shekels of brass. Really Goliath's appearance to venture to meet him, copper, as brass was then unknown. Conder still they held their ground for forty days, gives the shekel as equal to two-thirds of an inasmuch as it was evi<lently impossible for ounce. This would make the corselet weigh at him to cross the ravine cla<l in such cumbrous least two lrnnd.J-cd-weight, au enormous load armour, nor did the Philistines venture to to carry even for a short time. Goliath's make the· attempt, as the Israelites would other equipments coITespond in heaviness, have taken them at a manifest disadvantage. and largely exceed the weight of medieval DAVID'S VISIT TO THE Cil!P (vers. 12-31). suits of armour. Greaves of brass upon his The Vatican codex of the Septuagint omit, legs. The thighs were protected by the corselet, so that only the legs required de- the whole of this section, and it was insertecl fensive armour. This would account for the in the Alexandrian copy by Origen. It is weight of the corselet, as it was much longer foun<l, however, in the other versions ; an,! than the cuirnss, as worn by the Greeks and possibly this treatment of David's l1istory as Romans. A target. Really, ff a javelin." of a person unknown, just after the accou II t It wns can·iecl at the back, ready to be taken in the hand and thrown at the enemy when given of him in eh. xvi., did not seem so required. The versions have a different read- strange to rea<lers in old time as it does to ing- magan, shield, for chidon, javelin, us, with whom reading is so much more The shield was carried before him by an easy an accomplishment. It is, nevertheless, armour-bearer. The staff. The written text one of the many indications that the Books has a word which usually signifies shaft, arrow, for which the Kri substitutes wood, of Samuel, though compiled from contem- the noun actually found in 2 Sam. xxi. 19 ; poraneous documents, were not arranged in 1 Chron. xx. 6 ; but most probably the word their present form till long afterwards. It used here is an archaic name for the handle was only gradually that Samuel's schools dis- or staff of a spear. Six hundred shekels. persed throughout the country men trained The weight of the iron head of the spear would be about twenty-five pounds. How- in reading and writing, and trained up ever tall and strong Goliath may have been, scholars capable of keeping the annals of yet with all this vast weight of metal his each king's reign. The Books of Kinga were, movements must have been slow and unready. as we know, compiled from these anno.ls ; but He was got up, in fact, mor,i to tell upon probably at each prophetic school there tho imagination than for real fighting, and though, like n castle, he might have been would be stored up copies of Psalms written invincible if attacked with sword and spear, for their religious services, ballads such as he was much too encumbered with <lel'cnsivc those in the Book of J ashar, nml in the Book  THE FIRST BOOK OF SAMUEL. [u1. X\'11. 1-19