Pas-Dammim

Pas-dammim is a place-name in Judah associated with David's wars against the Philistines. The name appears in two forms across the two passages that mention it: "Pasdammim" in Chronicles' record of David's mighty men, and "Ephes-dammim" in the opening of the Goliath narrative.

Location and Setting

The fuller geographic note comes at the gathering of the Philistine armies before the duel with Goliath: "Now the Philistines gathered together their armies to battle; and they were gathered together at Socoh, which belongs to Judah, and encamped between Socoh and Azekah, in Ephes-dammim" (1 Samuel 17:1). The site sits in Judahite territory between Socoh and Azekah, in the band of country where Israel and Philistia met. The verse calls it Ephes-dammim and locates it as the Philistine camp.

A Battle of David's Mighty Men

The same place returns in the roll of David's heroes, this time spelled Pasdammim. The Chronicler reports a separate engagement in which the Philistines gathered for battle on a plot of ground sown with barley: "He was with David at Pasdammim, and there the Philistines were gathered together to battle, where was a plot of ground full of barley; and the people fled from before the Philistines" (1 Chronicles 11:13). The detail of the barley field places the action in cultivated country; the people break before the Philistines, and the verse stops there — set up as the threshold for the mighty-man exploit that follows in the chapter.

One Site, Two Spellings

Across the two passages the place is the same; the spelling varies. The Goliath narrative carries "Ephes-dammim" (1 Samuel 17:1); Chronicles carries "Pasdammim" (1 Chronicles 11:13). Both anchor a Philistine battle in Judahite hill-country, and both attach to David — once as the boy who comes to the camp at Socoh, once as the captain whose mighty men hold the barley plot.