1 Samuel 17:15 Commentary and Bible Study

‘David went and returned from Saul to feed his father's sheep at Bethlehem.’ The KJV rendering of this sentence may be a little misleading, because the Hebrew could be translated differently; it could refer to what had happened in the past – ‘David had departed and returned from Saul’ – because it is unlikely that he would have gone from Saul just then. He was in the service of Saul, where he was a harpist and instrumentalist, appointed to sooth Saul’s great depressions, and he was also one of Saul’s official armour bearers, mostly a kind of ceremonial role up to this point. So it is more likely that he was in an out of court. He would go and do a spell at court, and then he would go back to his father and to the estate, and then return to court again. And maybe he had returned to his father a year or two before this event.‘And the Philistine drew near morning and evening, and presented himself forty days.’ You can imagine that he started at the top of the rocky hillside, where the Philistine troops were drawn up and arranged ready for battle. He would let out his bellowing challenge and insults to the slaves of Saul, and slowly descend the hill. Then he would work his way across the dried-up riverbed at the bottom of the ravine, and begin to ascend the hill where the Israelite troops were arranged. That would be how it was done as you see the language through these verses: he came down, he came down, he came down, and all of a sudden he came up. Over forty days he was letting out this cry.Then we switch back to the scene where the battle lines were drawn up. One would imagine that just as Goliath had this immense build and stature, so he must have had a mighty voice, roaring across the valley and then up from the river bed. To be heard by a large army of many thousands, ringing out this challenge for Israel to choose a champion. But it was just at this point that Jesse happened to say to David his son, ‘Take now for thy brethren an ephah of this parched corn, and these ten loaves’, and it says here, ‘and run to the camp to thy brethren; And carry these ten cheeses’ – which could have been enormous, but that is speculation – ‘unto the captain of their thousand,’ – the colonel or brigadier of their brigade – ‘and look how thy brethren fare, and take their pledge.’ ‘Take their pledge’ – all the modern translations make something quite different out of the Hebrew phrase. But the Hebrew is quite clear: ‘take their pledge’. The old writers were certain they knew what it meant: ‘pay their debts’. These sons of Jesse were probably not terribly reliable people, and they had gone to the front there, and were likely to be running up debts for food and so on; it is a term which could mean something like that: honour their pledges, pay their debts, settle their affairs.