Adam Clarke's Bible Commentary Verse 7. The staff on his spear was like a weaver's beam] Either like that on which the warp is rolled, or that on which the cloth is rolled. We know not how thick this was, because there were several sorts of looms, and the sizes of the beams very dissimilar. Our woollen, linen, cotton, and silk looms are all different in the size of their beams; and I have seen several that I should not suppose too thick, though they might be too short, for Goliath's spear.
His spear's head weighed six hundred shekels of iron] That is, his spear's head was of iron, and it weighed six hundred shekels; this, according to the former computation, would amount to eighteen pounds twelve ounces.
And one bearing a shield] hnxh hatstsinnah, from xmb[r tsan, pointed or penetrating, if it do not mean some kind of a lance, must mean a shield, with what is called the umbo, a sharp protuberance, in the middle, with which they could as effectually annoy their enemies as defend themselves. Many of the old Highland targets were made with a projecting dagger in the center. Taking the proportions of things unknown to those known, the armour of Goliath is supposed to have weighed not less than two hundred and seventy-two pounds thirteen ounces! Plutarch informs us that the ordinary weight of a soldier's panoply, or complete armour, was one talent, or sixty pounds; and that one Alcimus, in the army of Demetrius, was considered as a prodigy, because his panoply weighed two talents, or one hundred and twenty pounds.
Matthew Henry Commentary
Verses 1-11 - Men so entirely depend upon God in all things, that when he withdraw his help, the most valiant and resolute cannot find their hearts of hands, as daily experience shows.
Original Hebrew וחץ2671 חניתו2595 כמנור4500 ארגים707 ולהבת3852 חניתו2595 שׁשׁ8337 מאות3967 שׁקלים8255 ברזל1270 ונשׂא5375 הצנה6793 הלך1980 לפניו׃6440
