Championship
In several Israelite battle narratives the contest is decided not by the full clash of armies but by selected representatives — single combatants who fight on behalf of their people, with the implicit or explicit understanding that the outcome between them stands for the outcome between the hosts. The Philistine wars give the clearest examples: Goliath proposes single combat as the form of the day's fight, and David accepts; later wars produce a series of duels with descendants of the giant. A different version of the same convention appears between the houses of Saul and David at Gibeon, where chosen young men fight on behalf of their armies.
Goliath and David
The Philistine champion proposes the form of the contest before the armies on the slopes of Elah. "And he stood and cried to the armies of Israel, and said to them, Why do you⁺ come out to set your⁺ battle in array? Am I not a Philistine, and you⁺ slaves to Saul? Choose⁺ a man for yourselves, and let him come down to me. If he is able to fight with me, and kill me, then we will be your⁺ slaves; but if I prevail against him, and kill him, then you⁺ will be our slaves, and serve us. And the Philistine said, I defy the armies of Israel this day; give me a man, that we may fight together. And when Saul and all Israel heard those words of the Philistine, they were dismayed, and greatly afraid" (1 Samuel 17:8-11). The proposal carries explicit terms: the loser's people become slaves of the winner's. The full clash of armies will not be needed if a single representative can decide it.
The narrator names Goliath as the Philistine champion: "And there went out a champion out of the camp of the Philistines, named Goliath, of Gath, whose height was six cubits and a span" (1 Samuel 17:4). David, when he goes out, refuses to be measured against Goliath as warrior to warrior. "Then said David to the Philistine, You come to me with a sword, and with a spear, and with a javelin: but I come to you in the name of Yahweh of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied. This day Yahweh will deliver you into my hand; and I will strike you, and take your head from off you... that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel, and that all this assembly may know that Yahweh does not save with sword and spear: for the battle is Yahweh's, and he will give you⁺ into our hand" (1 Samuel 17:45-47). The form of the duel is preserved — one against one — but the principle is reversed. The contest is between Goliath's weapons and Yahweh's name.
The decisive moment matches David's word. "And David put his hand in his bag, and took a stone from there, and slang it, and struck the Philistine in his forehead; and the stone sank into his forehead, and he fell on his face to the earth. So David prevailed over the Philistine with a sling and with a stone, and struck the Philistine, and slew him; but there was no sword in the hand of David. Then David ran, and stood over the Philistine, and took his sword, and drew it out of its sheath, and slew him, and cut off his head with it. And when the Philistines saw that their champion was dead, they fled" (1 Samuel 17:49-51). The Philistines treat the championship contract as binding in fact even where they had not formally accepted its losing terms — when the champion is dead, the army flees. Sirach later sums the moment up: "In his youth he slew the giant, And took away the reproach from the people; When he slung his hand with the sling, And broke the pride of Goliath" (Sirach 47:4).
The Other Sons of the Giant
A series of later Philistine wars produces further single-combat episodes, each settling itself between named champions on each side. "And the Philistines had war again with Israel; and David went down, and his slaves with him, and fought against the Philistines. And David waxed faint; and Ishbibenob, who was of the sons of the giant, the weight of whose spear was three hundred [shekels] of bronze in weight, he being girded with a new [sword], thought to have slain David. But Abishai the son of Zeruiah helped him, and struck the Philistine, and killed him" (2 Samuel 21:15-17). The pattern repeats. "Sibbecai the Hushathite slew Saph, who was of the sons of the giant... Elhanan the son of Jari the Beth-lehemite slew Goliath the Gittite, the staff of whose spear was like a weaver's beam... And when he defied Israel, Jonathan the son of Shimei, David's brother, slew him. These four were born to the giant in Gath; and they fell by the hand of David, and by the hand of his slaves" (2 Samuel 21:18-22). The Chronicler preserves the same notice with a slight variant on the slain Goliath: "And there was again war with the Philistines; and Elhanan the son of Jair slew Lahmi the brother of Goliath the Gittite, the staff of whose spear was like a weaver's beam" (1 Chronicles 20:5). The sequence reads as the closing episodes of a long Philistine championship war, in which named giants on the Philistine side go down one by one to named men on David's side.
The Young Men at Helkath-hazzurim
A different version of the same convention appears in the civil war between the house of Saul and the house of David. At the pool of Gibeon, Abner — captain of Ish-bosheth's army — meets Joab face to face. "And Abner said to Joab, Let the young men, I pray you, arise and play before us. And Joab said, Let them arise" (2 Samuel 2:14). The "play" is a formal trial by selected combatants. "Then they arose and went over by number: twelve for Benjamin, and for Ishbaal the son of Saul, and twelve of the slaves of David. And they caught every one his fellow man by the head, and [thrust] his sword in his fellow man's side; so they fell down together: therefore that place was called Helkath-hazzurim, which is in Gibeon. And the battle was very intense that day: and Abner was beaten, and the men of Israel, before the slaves of David" (2 Samuel 2:15-17). Twelve from each side go out by count, kill each other to the last man, and the field is then settled by the larger battle that follows. The duel of representatives functions here as the prelude rather than the substitute, but it shares the form: men chosen by number to act for their armies.
In each case the convention is the same. A war is concentrated into a fight between selected men, who carry the army's stake on their bodies, and whose victory or defeat is taken by the host as its own.