Biblical Hebrew Forum

[K Randolph <kwrandolph AT gmail.com>]

Sorry, my last message got sent before I finished writing it (touched the send button by accident).

Hebrew narrative sometimes would carry one thought to its end, before getting onto the next subject. One example is in Genesis 2:19 where by modern western thought, it appears that God didn’t create the animals until after he said that it isn’t good that man was alone, but the Hebrew usage allows that the animals had been created before, just not mentioned until when necessary for the narrative. So the narrator of 1 Samuel wanted to finish what happened to Goliath’s head, where it eventually came to rest, before moving on to the next subject.

As for in whose tent David put Goliath’s implements (“vessels” is a mistranslation)—we find in 1 Samuel 18:2 that Saul didn’t allow David to return to Bethlehem. Therefore David needed a place to stay while with Saul, so “his tent” would have been one assigned by Saul.

 

2. After killing Goliath, David cut off his head. Then, according to verse 54, "And David took the head of the Philistine and brought it to Jerusalem, and he put his vessels in his tent". Why in the world would David run to Jerusalem (which at the time was ruled by the Jebusites) with a bloody head? Especially if in verse 57 he is still on the battlefield, and still has the head! And by the way, whose tent?

Karl W. Randolph.