For Israel and the Philistines had put the battle in array, army against army.
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
For Israel and all the Philistines had put the battle in array,.... Both sides prepared for it, and drew up in line of battle: army against army; rank against rank, battalion against battalion, the right wing of the one against the left of the other, &c.
1Sa 17:20-21 In pursuance of this commission, David went in the morning to the waggon-rampart, when the army, which was going out (of the camp) into battle array, raised the war-cry, and Israel and the Philistines placed themselves battle-array against battle-array.
Commenting on 1 Samuel 17:20-21