Now the men of Israel had been saying, “Do you see how this man keeps coming out to defy Israel? To the man who kills him the king will give great riches. And he will give him his daughter in marriage and exempt his father’s house from taxation in Israel.”
Forty days the two armies lay encamped facing one another, each advantageously posted, but neither forward to engage. Either they were parleying and treating of an accommodation or they were waiting for recruits; and perhaps there were frequent skirmishes between small detached parties.
Commenting on 1 Samuel 17:12-30
And the men of Israel said,.... To one another: have ye seen this man that is come up? taken notice of him, and observed him? surely to defy Israel is he come up; to challenge them to fight with him, and upbraid them with cowardice that they did not: and it shall be that the man who killeth him; this, and what follows, they said...
make his father's house free in Israel--His family should be exempted from the impositions and services to which the general body of the Israelites were subjected.