17:1-11 Men so entirely depend upon God in all things, that when he withdraws his help, the most valiant and resolute cannot find their hearts or hands, as daily experience shows.And the Philistine said, I defy the armies of Israel this day,.... Or "reproach" (s) them; that is, should they not accept his challenge, and send down a man to fight with them, he should then upbraid them with cowardice; and now he disdained them, as if there was not a man among them that dared to encounter with him:

give me a man that we may fight together; and so decide the controversy between us; such as were those duels fought between Paris and Menelaus in the Trojan war, and between the Lacedemonians and the Argives in the times of Orthryades, and between the Athenians and Romans by the Horatii and Curiatii, as Grotius observes.

(s) "exprobravo". V. L. Pagninus, Montanus; "probro affeci", Tigurine version; "probro affecero", Junius & Tremellius.