“Goliath … shouted
… choose you a man for you, and let him come down to me.
If he be able to
fight with me, and to kill me, then will we be your servants …”.
I Samuel 17:8-9
Taken from
John R. Salverda's
David as
Cadmus (Part One)
….
Another
source of David's army, a group of volunteers from Gath, called
"Gittites" (also called "might men" or
"Gibborim." These Gittites are called Gibborim by the Septuagint and
by Josephus.) may have served as an "inspirational" model for the
Greek myth. David seems to have earned no small measure of respect amongst the
Philistines, especially those of Goliath's hometown Gath, this may be due to
the giant's, little noted, taunting pledge;
"And
there went out a champion out of the camp of the Philistines, named Goliath, .
. . And he stood and cried unto the armies of Israel, and said unto them, . . .
choose you a man for you, and let him come down to me. If he be able to fight
with me, and to kill me, then will we be your servants: but if I prevail
against him, and kill him, then shall ye be our servants, and serve us."
(1st Samuel 17:4-9).
These, the
words of Goliath's own mouth, may indeed have had something to do with the fact
that David was able to find refuge among the Philistines at the city of Gath
when King Saul had made him his enemy. David stayed with the Philistines for
more than a year and was eventually made a commander of a Gittite contingent of
the Philistine army. David retained the city of Ziklag and 600 soldiers from
Gath who swore allegiance to him and were his faithful men. It is almost as if
many of the Philistines from the city of Gath, the home town of Goliath, were
honoring the pledge of their champion to serve under David in the event that he
should kill Goliath. This is perhaps another way to understand how Cadmus could
obtain soldiers from the teeth (his word) of the slain monster (Goliath). ....
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