And the king said, Inquire thou whose son the stripling is.
Enquire thou whose son the stripling is, х haa`aalem (H5958), a youth of marriageable age; Septuagint, ho neaniskos]. The Vatican copy of the Septuagint omits the four concluding verses of this chapter, as well as the entire paragraph comprised between 1 Samuel 17:12-31. Both of these passage are regarded by Michaelis, Professor Dathe, and many English critics (among whom is Kennicott, 'Dissertation,' 2:, pp. 419-428), as an interpolation. In the view of these writers the omission of the passage in the middle of the chapter leaves the narrative apparently in its natural connection, David's remark to Saul (1 Samuel 17:32) bearing a direct reference to the panic-stricken state of the army, described in 1 Samuel 17:11. David was at that time serving as minstrel to the king (1 Samuel 16:23); and as he had also been promoted, through the royal favour, to the post of armour-bearer to Saul (1 Samuel 16:21), we are prepared to find him near the person of his sovereign when the battle was set in array.
Moreover, in volunteering to fight the giant, David, according to this textual hypothesis, appears to sustain the character given of him, on his being recommended to the king as "a mighty valiant man, and a man of war" (1 Samuel 16:18); and the ready compliance of Saul with his proposal to encounter the Philistine is thus easily accounted for; whereas it appears irreconcilable with the idea of his being a stranger and a raw shepherd youth, who had just arrived a little before in the camp. But the rejection of a long passage as interpolated, though a common and convenient expedient of early writers for getting rid of a difficulty in the original text, is not a principle much favoured by modern critics, especially when the internal evidence in favour of the genuineness of the portions objected to is so strong as in this chapter. Since little countenance is given to the theory of Horsley, who would transfer the passage in 1 Samuel 16:14-23 to the end of 1 Samuel 18:5, on the ground that not only Saul, but Abner also, were strangers to David's person, although, as the Hebrew text stands, he had resided at court as an attendant on the king some time before the engagement with Goliath. This circumstance, however strange it may seem, is capable of satisfactory explanation, without the necessity of admitting that any portion of the text is either spurious or dislocated.
(1) The interval of a few years from the cessation of his early services to Saul, until his memorable engagement with Goliath, may have produced so great a change on David's appearance that the minstrel boy could not be recognized in the bearded face and homely dress of the grown shepherd.
(2) The cold and formal etiquette of an Eastern court, which placed the young musician at a humble distance from the immediate presence of the king, might keep Saul comparatively a stranger to his features; and Abner might have been absent during his attendance at court on some military expedition, so that he had no opportunity of seeing David.
(3) The king's moody temper, not to say frequent fits of insanity, would alone be sufficient to explain the circumstance of his not recognizing a youth who, during the time of his mental aberration, had been much near him, trying to soothe his distempered soul. Or,
(4) The rumour of Samuel's commission to anoint another king, and his journey to Beth-lehem for that object, together with the fact that David had come from that village, and the suspicion, after the conquest of Goliath, which procured him so much glory throughout the nation, that David was destined for the throne (1 Samuel 18:8), might have so excited his jealousy that he dissembled, and, pretending not to know David, kept his vigilant eye upon him, with a view to accomplish the destruction of this young and formidable rival. Any of these probabilities may account for Saul's inquiry at Abner (1 Samuel 17:25); and all of them combined are sufficient to remove the difficulties of this chapter, without calling in question the integrity of the text.