1 Samuel 17:1

ADVANCE OF DAVID IN REPUTATION BY THE SLAUGHTER OF GOLIATH ( 1 Samuel 17:1-58 .).

EXPOSITION

GOLIATH 'S DEFIANCE OF ISRAEL ( 1 Samuel 17:1-11 ).

The Philistines gathered together their armies. As the object of the historian is not to give us an account of the Philistine wars, but only to record the manner of David's ripening for the kingly office, nothing is said as to the space of time which had elapsed between Saul's victory at Michmash and the present invasion. We are, however, briefly told that "there was sore war against the Philistines all the days of Saul" ( 1 Samuel 14:52 ), and apparently this inroad took place very many years after Saul's establishment upon the throne. The Philistine camp was at Ephes-dammim , called Pas-dammim in 1 Chronicles 11:13 . The best explanation of the word gives as its meaning the boundary of blood, so called from the continual fighting which took place there upon the borders. Shochoh , spelt more correctly Socoh in Joshua 15:35 , was one of fourteen villages enumerated there as lying in the Shephelah, described by Conder ('Tent Work,' 2:156) as a region of "low hills of limestone, frowning a distinct district between the plain and the watershed mountains.'' In this district Socoh lay northeast of Eleutheropolis (Beth-jibrin), midway between it and Beth-shemesh, from each of which places it was distant about eight or nine miles. It is now called Shuweikeh. For Azekah see Joshua 10:10 .