He stood and cried to the armies of Israel, and said to them, Why are you come out to set your battle in array? am I not a Philistine, and you servants to Saul? choose you a man for you, and let him come down to me.
 But the Lord takes care not long after, as we learn in the next chapter (1 Samuel 17:1-58), that a far more urgent need, not merely personal but connected with the whole people, and in opposition to the power that the enemy put forward at this very time, should bring David publicly and permanently on Israel's behalf into the king's court.
