Then a champion named Goliath, who was from Gath, came out from the Philistine camp. He was six cubits and a span in height,
It was not long ago that the Philistines were soundly beaten, and put to the worse, before Israel, and they would have been totally routed if Saul's rashness had not prevented; but here we have them making head again. Observe, I. How they defied Israel with their armies, Sa1 17:1.
Commenting on 1 Samuel 17:1-11
And there went out a champion out of the camp of the Philistines,.... Or a "middle person", or a man "between two" (y); meaning either one that went and stood between the two armies of Israel and the Philistines, as the Jewish writers generally interpret it: or a "dueller" (z), as others, with which our version agrees; one that proposed to fight a duel, and...
GOLIATH CHALLENGES A COMBAT. (Sa1 17:4-11) a champion--Hebrew, a "man between two"; that is, a person who, on the part of his own people, undertook to determine the national quarrel by engaging in single combat with a chosen warrior in the hostile army.