1 Samuel 17:18 Explained in Context

Selected verse

Verse 18. And carry these ten cheeses unto the captain of their thousand, and look how thy brethren fare, and take their pledge.

King James Version — public domain in the United States · Bible text and permissions

Quick Meaning

Adds cheeses for the captain and asks David to bring back news.

Read It With

1 Samuel 17:12–17:19

The line at 1 Samuel 17:18 adds cheeses for the captain and asks David to bring back news. Its place in 1 Samuel 17:12–17:19 matters because David moves between Saul and his father's sheep, Jesse sends provisions to his sons and their captain, and Goliath continues his forty-day challenge.

Why This Verse Appears Here

Here the narrator adds cheeses for the captain and asks David to bring back news, moving 1 Samuel 17:12–17:19 through the sequence summarized this way: David moves between Saul and his father's sheep, Jesse sends provisions to his sons and their captain, and Goliath continues his forty-day challenge.

What Remains True

Adds cheeses for the captain and asks David to bring back news. Within 1 Samuel 17:12–17:19, this contribution supports the unit's enduring claim: Accountability requires hearing the full movement—David moves between Saul and his father's sheep, Jesse sends provisions to his sons and their captain, and Goliath continues his forty-day challenge. The errand does not reduce David to a secret hero already seeking fame, excuse exposing a young person to battle, or erase the chapter's second-introduction problem.

How It Can Shape Life

Adds cheeses for the captain and asks David to bring back news. The proportionate response is therefore the one traced from the complete unit: Make dignity and material care visible by sharing resources fairly, recognizing overlooked labor and need, and refusing to measure a person's worth by status or apparent strength. The errand does not reduce David to a secret hero already seeking fame, excuse exposing a young person to battle, or erase the chapter's second-introduction problem.

Continue in Context

The full thought-unit study remains the final contextual authority for this Verse Lens.

Read 1 Samuel 17:12–17:19 — Jesse sends David from Bethlehem to the battle

Sources used for this Verse Lens

How certain is this explanation? strong

These are the sources used directly for this lens. Language, grammar, disagreements, and the complete source shelf remain attached to the full thought-unit research record.

Biblical text

King James (Authorized) Version — eng-kjv2006

eBible.org and CrossWire Bible Society

USFM archive eng-kjv2006_usfm.zip; source files dated 2026-08-19; downloaded 2026-08-24; archive SHA-256 aec1b3b26c622fd3d963d2bbac963016b9513246ffbfa20da00bb100372ea007; normalized corpus SHA-256 09aef51d90488aa7b9722b3fd9a93f4b25f6bf2064c5fd798fb39673c300ddf2.

Supports: Exact displayed KJV words, verse order, paragraph metadata, supplied-word markup, and complete unit coverage.

Exact location: 1 Samuel 17:12–17:19, pinned eng-kjv2006 USFM-derived repository corpus

Open source ↗

hebrew text and morphology

Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible: 1 Samuel

Open Scriptures

Open Scriptures, release 2.2

Supports: Masoretic Hebrew wording and morphology, with the two KJV-Hebrew versification shifts stated rather than silently offset.

Exact location: Open Scriptures MorphHB v2.2, commit 6a5db284c715c18b239422e57bb89684e6a19f00, wlc/1Sam.xml, OSIS 17:12–17:19; KJV 20:42 spans Hebrew 20:42–21:1, KJV 21:1–15 maps to Hebrew 21:2–16, KJV 23:29 maps to Hebrew 24:1, and KJV 24:1–22 maps to Hebrew 24:2–23

Open source ↗

translation and translator notes

NET Bible First Edition Notes: 1 Samuel

Biblical Studies Press

Biblical Studies Press, 2006

Supports: Only the translator notes actually printed for these verses, used for lexical, grammatical, textual, historical, and older-English controls.

Exact location: NET Bible First Edition Notes, 1 Samuel PDF, printed pp. 504–543, exact tc/tn/sn entries attached to 17:12–17:19

Open source ↗

Open the complete thought-unit research record