And the men of Israel said, “Have you seen this man who has come up? Surely he has come up to defy Israel. And the king will enrich the man who kills him with great riches and will give him his daughter and make his father’s house free in Israel.”
For forty days the armies faced each other, neither moving, while Goliath bellowed his challenge twice daily and grew proud in his defiance, and Israel grew timid in theirs. God was ripening him for ruin and preparing to make Israel's rescue shine the brighter. All this time David kept his father's sheep, content in obscurity after his service at court, until Providence set him in the field to seize the laurel no other Israelite dared reach for.
AI summary
Commenting on 1 Samuel 17:12-30
And the men of Israel said,.... To one another: have ye seen this man that is come up? taken notice of him, and observed him? surely to defy Israel is he come up; to challenge them to fight with him, and upbraid them with cowardice that they did not: and it shall be that the man who killeth him; this, and what follows, they said...
make his father's house free in Israel--His family should be exempted from the impositions and services to which the general body of the Israelites were subjected.