1 Samuel 17:3

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.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(3, 4) And the Philistines stood. . . .—Conder, in his Tent Work in Palestine, writing on the spot, gives us a vivid picture of the scene of the well-known encounter between David and the giant Philistine:—“We may picture to ourselves the two hosts covering the low rocky hills opposite to each other, and half hidden among the lentisk bushes. Between them was the rich expanse of the ripening barley, and the red banks of the torrent, with its white shingly bed. Behind all were the distant blue hill-walls of Judah, whence Saul had just come down. The mail-clad warrior advanced from the west through the low corn, with his mighty lance perhaps tufted with feathers, his brazen helmet shining in the sun. From the east a ruddy boy in his white shirt and sandals, armed with a goat’s-hair sling, came down to the brook, and, according to the poetic fancy of the Rabbis, the pebbles were given voices, and cried, ‘By us shalt thou overcome the giant !’ The champion fell from an unseen cause, and the wild Philistines fled to the mouth of the valley, where Gath stood towering on its white chalk cliff, a frontier fortress, the key to the high road leading to the corn-lands of Judah and to the vineyards of Hebron.”

Goliath, of Gath.—The Philistine champion belonged to a race or family of giants, the remnant of the sons of Anak (see Joshua 11:22), who still dwelt in Gath and Gaza and Ashdod. The height mentioned was about nine feet two inches. We have in history a few instances of similar giants. This doughty champion was “full of savage insolence, unable to understand how any one could contend against his brute strength and impregnable panoply; the very type of the stupid ‘Philistine,’ such as has, in the language of modern Germany, not unfitly identified the name with the opponents of light and freedom and growth.”—Stanley.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

17:1-11 Men so entirely depend upon God in all things, that when he withdraws his help, the most valiant and resolute cannot find their hearts or hands, as daily experience shows.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

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

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

2. valley of Elah—that is, "the Terebinth," now Wady Er-Sumt [Robinson]. Another valley somewhat to the north, now called Wady Beit Hanina, has been fixed on by the tradition of ages.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

On a mountain on the other side, where they had disposed and fortified their cams, that if the one should assault the other, the assailant should have the disadvantage, and be obliged to fight from a lower place.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

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. Vatablus takes it to be the same mountain, that on one part of it the Philistines formed their first battalion, and the rest of the army was in the valley; and on the other part of the mountain the Israelites pitched their camp:

and there was a valley between them; the same as in the preceding verse.

Geneva Study Bible

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.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

3. on a mountain, &c.] Rather, upon the mountain … upon the mountain … and the ravine was between them. The E. V. obliterates the features of the scene. The ravine (Heb. gâî) was the stream-bed at the bottom of the valley (Heb. êmek). The Israelites encamped on the eastern, the Philistines on the western slopes of the valley. “In the middle of the broad open valley we found a deep trench with vertical sides, impassable except at certain places—a valley in a valley, and a natural barrier between the two hosts.… Here then we may picture to ourselves the two hosts, covering the low rocky hills opposite to each other, and half hidden among the lentisk bushes; between them was the rich expanse of ripening barley and the red banks of the torrent with its white shingly bed; behind all were the distant blue hill-walls of Judah, whence Saul had just come down.” Conder, Tent Work, 11. 161.

1 Samuel 17:3

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

Saul and the Israelites encamped opposite to them in the terebinth valley (Emek ha-Elah), i.e., a plain by the Wady Musur, and stood in battle array opposite to the Philistines, in such order that the latter stood on that side against the mountain (on the slope of the mountain), and the Israelites on this side against the mountain; and the valley (הגּיא, the deeper cutting made by the brook in the plain) was between them.