Charles Ellicott Commentary 1 Samuel 17:12

"Now David was the son of that Ephrathite of Beth-lehem-judah, whose name was Jesse; and he had eight sons: and the man was an old man in the days of Saul, stricken [in years] among men." — 1 Samuel 17:12 (ASV)

Now David was the son of that Ephra-thite. —This verse, and the following verses to the end of 1 Samuel 17:31, are omitted entirely, along with 1 Samuel 17:55–58, in the Vatican Septuagint. This omission was, no doubt, due to the difficulty connected with this mention of David, where he is apparently introduced for the first time into the history. The Septuagint translation often added to or subtracted from the text when they encountered anything they could not readily understand. The passage, as we find it, is undoubtedly genuine; the probable explanation of what puzzled the Septuagint is given below.

It is, however, better (with the Syriac Version) to place all the words after “Beth-lehem-judah” down to the end of 1 Samuel 17:14 in a parenthesis. 1 Samuel 17:15, after the parenthesis descriptive of Jesse and his three elder sons, takes up the account of David again, thus: “But David went,” etc.

Went among men for an old man. —This rendering follows the translation of Jerome’s Vulgate, “Senex et grandævus inter viros,” rather than the Hebrew. The literal translation of ba-baănashim would be went among men. It is best to assume that the verb ba- here is used elliptically for ba-bayamin, meaning “was advanced in days,” that is, “was an old man.” Keil renders baanashim “among the weak,” that is, “Jesse had come to be reckoned among the weak” (or the aged). Maurer and others believe the present Hebrew reading is corrupt; the sense, however, is clear.

Jesse is represented in this parenthesis, descriptive of David’s father, for some reason known only to the compiler, as already an old man. Possibly this notice is inserted to explain why the father of the future hero-king of Israel was not among Saul’s warriors.