1 Samuel 17:3

The Philistines stood on one hill and the Israelites stood on another, with the valley between them.

BSB

Parallel translations

4 additional translations

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KJV

And the Philistines stood on a mountain on the one side, and Israel stood on a mountain on the other side: and there was a valley between them.

ASV

And the Philistines stood on the mountain on the one side, and Israel stood on the mountain on the other side: and there was a valley between them.

YLT

And the Philistines are standing on the mountain on this side, and the Israelites are standing on the mountain on that side, and the valley is between them.

DBT

And the Philistines stood on the mountain on the one side, and Israel stood on the mountain on the other side; and the ravine was between them.

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On this verse

And the Philistines stood on the mountain on this side, etc. And even to this day, unclean spirits contending against the Church stand lifted up with proud boasting, after the example of that first proud one, of whom it is written in the Revelation of …

Bede· Commentary on Samuel, 735patristic

Related commentary

And the Philistines stood on a mountain on the one side, and Israel stood on a mountain on the other side, Before the Israelites are said to encamp in or by the valley; but here they are said to take the higher ground, and face the Philistines, who were on a mountain or hill on the other side over against them, which Kimchi reconciles thus; the whole or the grand army lay encamped in the valley, and, they that were set in array, or the first ranks, the first battalion, ascended the mountain to meet the Philistines.

John Gill· Exposition of the Old Testament (1748-1763)reformed

(In the middle of the broad open valley 1Sa 17:2 is a deep trench 1Sa 17:3 with vertical sides, a valley within a valley: the sides and bed of the trench are strewn with water-worn pebbles. (Conder.))

Albert Barnes· Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869)evangelical

Business is a good antidote against melancholy. Let the mind have something without to fasten on and employ itself about, and it will be the less in danger of preying upon itself. God, in mercy to Israel, suspended the judgment for a while; for how distracted must the affairs of the public have been if at this juncture the prince had been distracted!

Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible, 1710puritan

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Rabbinic commentary

How the Hebraic tradition has read this verse — and Marcus Brown’s own reading of it.

Cross-references

1 linked verse

The verses this one reaches1

2 Samuel 21:21
and when he taunted Israel, Jonathan the son of David’s brother Shimei killed him.

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The quotation web

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Around this verse

Rare words are the text's own signal of a deliberate thread — the fewer the occurrences, the more the places it appears belong together.

David Slays Goliath — Gustave Doré, Doré's English Bible (1866) — public domain

1 Samuel — The transition from judges to monarchy. Samuel rises as prophet-judge; Israel demands a king; Saul rises and is rejected; David is anointed in obscurity and flees across the wilderness. Three lives overlapping — the prophetic-judicial-royal handoff.

Canon: Old Testament
Author: Traditionally Samuel (with additions after his death by Nathan and Gad — cf. 1 Chr 29:29)
Date: Events c. 1050–1010 BC; compilation during the early monarchy

Continue: 1 Samuel 17 →