1 Samuel 17

1 Samuel 17 is the seventeenth chapter of the First Book of Samuel in the Old Testament of the Christian Bible or the first part of the Books of Samuel in the Hebrew Bible. According to Jewish tradition the book was attributed to the prophet Samuel, with additions by the prophets Gad and Nathan, but modern scholars view it as a composition of a number of independent texts of various ages from c. 630–540 BCE. This chapter contains the battle of David with Goliath, the Philistine. This is within a section comprising 1 Samuel 16 to 2 Samuel 5 which records the rise of David as the king of Israel.

This chapter was originally written in the Hebrew language. It is divided into 58 verses.

Some early manuscripts containing the text of this chapter in Hebrew are of the Masoretic Text tradition, which includes the Codex Cairensis (895), Aleppo Codex (10th century), and Codex Leningradensis (1008). Fragments containing parts of this chapter in Hebrew were found among the Dead Sea Scrolls including 4Q51 (4QSam^a; 100–50 BCE) with extant verses 3–8, 40–41.

Extant ancient manuscripts of a translation into Koine Greek known as the Septuagint (originally was made in the last few centuries BCE) include Codex Vaticanus (B; ${\displaystyle {\mathfrak {G}}}$^B; 4th century) and Codex Alexandrinus (A; ${\displaystyle {\mathfrak {G}}}$^A; 5th century). The text in the Codex Vaticanus is notably shorter than the others, consisting only of verses 1–11, 32–40, 42–48a, 49, 51–54.

The section comprising 1 Samuel 16 to 2 Samuel 5 is known as the "History of David's Rise", with David as the central character, within which 1 Samuel 16:1 to 2 Samuel 1:27 form an independent unit with a central theme of "the decline of Saul and the rise of David". This narrative provides the test of David's suitability to the throne, in contrast to the testing of Jonathan at Michmash (1 Samuel 14:13–14). It was emphasized that David did not enter into battle with Goliath because of 'arrogance or a spirit of adventure', but because he followed God's plan. The portrayal of David as a shepherd in this narrative had 'royal' connotations (cf Psalm 78:70–72 and the prophecies of Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Zechariah).

After an unknown period of time, the Philistines again started a military action against Israel, assembling their army near Sochoh, a strategic passage between the Philistine and Israel territories. Saul assembled the Israel army at the opposite side of the Elah valley, anticipating a battle. However, this time, a gigantic man, Goliath, stepped up out of the Philistines, a seasoned veteran, wearing the most advanced weapons, challenging anyone among the Israel army for one-on-one combat, instead of thousands soldiers battling, to decide the outcome – winner takes all. In his challenge, Goliath explicitly called for Saul ("are you not the servants of Saul"; verse 8) perhaps in reference to Saul being the tallest among the Israelites (1 Samuel 10:23), but Saul and all Israel soldiers were too afraid to accept the challenge.

The verse detailed the scene of David's memorable battle with Goliath with great exactness. The Philistines and Israel army camped on opposite sides of the wide valley of Elah (verse 2) to their rendezvous at Sochoh, and the Philistines pitched their camp in Ephes-dammim.

Most of the extant Hebrew manuscripts are based on Masoretic Text (MT), but older manuscripts, such as from Symmachus, a Jewish translator of Hebrew texts to Greek in 200s CE for the Jewish community in Caesarea, cited by Origen in the fourth column of Hexapla and assumed to be "proto-MT" (Vorlage to the MT), as well as Greek version of Origen in the fifth column of Hexapla have "6 cubits and a span". Billington suggests that the "4 cubits and a span" in the Septuagint and 4QSam^a could be a conversion from MT's data of common cubits (1 cubit ≈ 18 inches) into a measurement using royal Egyptian cubits (1 cubit ≈ 20.65 inches).