The Philistine said to David, Come to me, and I will give your flesh to the birds of the sky, and to the animals of the field.
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The same verse in 3 English versions, stacked beneath the original-language interlinear above. Click any original word for its lexicon entry.
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The Philistine said to David, Come to me, and I will give your flesh to the birds of the sky, and to the animals of the field.
And the Philistine said to David, Come to me, and I will give thy flesh unto the fowls of the air, and to the beasts of the field.
And the Philistine said to David, “Come to me, and let me give your flesh to the bird of the heavens and to the beast of the field.”
unfoldingWord Literal Text — © unfoldingWord, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Word-aligned USFM3 via Door43 (git.door43.org/unfoldingWord/en_ult).
Every available English version of this verse, each an independent rendering of the whole verse.
The Philistine said to David, Come to me, and I will give your flesh to the birds of the sky, and to the animals of the field.
“Come here,” he called to David, “and I will give your flesh to the birds of the air and the beasts of the field!”
“Come here,” he called to David, “and I will give your flesh to the birds of the air and the beasts of the field!”
And the Philistine said to David, Come to me, and I will give thy flesh unto the fowls of the air, and to the beasts of the field.
And the Philistine said to David, Come to me, and I will give thy flesh unto the birds of the heavens, and to the beasts of the field.
And the Philistine said to David, Come to me, and I will give thy flesh unto the fowls of the air, and to the beasts of the field.
And the Philistim sayd to Dauid, Come to me, and I will giue thy flesh vnto the foules of the heauen, and to the beastes of the field.
And he said to David: Come to me, and I will give thy flesh to the birds of the air, and to the beasts of the earth.
and the Philistine saith unto David, `Come unto me, and I give thy flesh to the fowl of the heavens, and to the beast of the field.'
and the Philistine says to David, “Come to me, and I give your flesh to the bird of the heavens, and to the beast of the field.”
The Philistine said to David, “Come to me, and I will give your flesh to the birds of the heavens and to the beasts of the field.”
And the Philistine said to David, “Come to me, and let me give your flesh to the bird of the heavens and to the beast of the field.”
And the Philistine said to David, Come to me, and I will give thy flesh to the fowls of the heavens and to the beasts of the field.
The Philistine said to David, “Come to me, and I will give your flesh to the birds of the sky and to the animals of the field.”
And the Philistine said to David, Come to me, and I will give thy flesh to the fowls of the air, and to the beasts of the field.
Then the Philistine shouted at David, “Come over here, and I'll feed your flesh to the birds and the wild animals.”
And the Philistine said to David, Come here to me, and I will give your flesh to the birds of the air and the beasts of the field.
And the Philistine said to David: 'Come to me, and I will give thy flesh unto the fowls of the air, and to the beasts of the field.'
Literal Standard Version (2020), Covenant Press — licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API (eBible.org). Unlocked Literal Bible (unfoldingWord) — licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API (eBible.org). unfoldingWord Literal Text — © unfoldingWord, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Word-aligned USFM3 via Door43 (git.door43.org/unfoldingWord/en_ult). Free Bible Version, Dr. Jonathan Gallagher — licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API (eBible.org).
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These counts appear in no published source. They are computed here, from the morphology-tagged text and Lemma’s own curated glosses. What Lemma adds →
Grammatical profile
Verb forms
Repetition
A word recurs within this verse — often emphatic in Hebrew:
Hebrew & Septuagint length
In English translation the verse runs 27 words from the Hebrew and 28 from the Septuagint (LXX English) — closely comparable.
A rough comparison of the two English renderings, which tokenize alike — not a word-level alignment.
Word counts can differ between the Hebrew and the Greek without any difference in meaning — e.g. the Hebrew direct-object marker אֵת has no separate Greek word, and Greek often adds the article ὁ.
Topical passages linked to 1 Samuel 17:44 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge — connected by theme and wording, ordered by reader-vote popularity; previews shown in the World English Bible.
Cross-references courtesy of OpenBible.info (CC BY 4.0).
The same verse in the two great witnesses to the Old Testament, shown verse-for-verse.
These are two independent witnesses, not word-aligned to each other, and the Septuagint is shown in lemma (dictionary) form.
וַיֹּ֥אמֶר הַפְּלִשְׁתִּ֖י אֶל דָּוִ֑ד לְכָ֣ה אֵלַ֔י וְאֶתְּנָה֙ אֶת בְּשָׂ֣רְךָ֔ לְע֥וֹף הַשָּׁמַ֖יִם וּלְבֶהֱמַ֥ת הַשָּׂדֶֽה
The Philistine said to David, Come to me, and I will give your flesh to the birds of the sky, and to the animals of the field.
World English Bible · Public Domain
And the Philistine said to David, Come to me, and I will give your flesh to the birds of the air, and to the beasts of the earth.
LXX2012 (modern English Septuagint) · Public Domain
Hebrew: Westminster Leningrad Codex (CC BY 4.0). Greek: Septuagint (public domain); English from LXX2012 (modern English Septuagint) (Public Domain). How the Septuagint differs from the Hebrew →
The Targum is the ancient Jewish Aramaic paraphrase of the Hebrew Scriptures — an interpretive translation, not the Hebrew text itself. Onkelos (literal) and Pseudo-Jonathan (expansive) render the Torah, and Jonathan the Prophets. Coverage is partial: where no permissively-licensed English translation exists for a verse, only the Aramaic is shown. This is verse-level text, not a word-by-word alignment to the Hebrew.
וַאֲמַר פְּלִשְׁתָּאָה לְדָוִד אִיתָא לְוָתִי וְאֶתֵּן יַת בִּסְרָךְ לְעוֹפָא דִשְׁמַיָא וְלִבְעִירָא דְאַרְעָא:
(no public-domain English translation for this verse)
Targum Jonathan — Aramaic: “Mikraot Gedolot” (public domain). English: “Sefaria Community Translation” (CC0 1.0 (public-domain dedication)); “London "Chaldee Paraphrase," 1871” (public domain). Text via Sefaria.
Teaching starters — assembled from the data on this page, not authored interpretation. Every prompt links to the verse data it draws on. Edit before teaching.
1 Samuel, in the Historical, opens this verse with 13 words (12 distinct Hebrew lemmas). Its most distinctive word is ʻôwph (“bird”). A historical commentator’s framing appears above. Read the whole chapter for the surrounding context.
Commentary
Notes on 1 Samuel 17:44 from classic Christian and Jewish commentators (each source and its license shown beneath its notes). The classic Christian expositions comment on the surrounding passage and are grouped to its opening verse, so a note may address several verses; the Jewish commentaries on the Tanakh (Rashi and others) are per-verse, so they appear only where the commentator wrote on this verse.
Lemma curates 59 commentaries, every one of them public domain or Creative Commons licensed, each selected and text-cleaned for this edition rather than reprinted as found. About our sources →
Trapp's Complete Commentary
John Trapp
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Joseph Benson's Commentary
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Tyndale Open Study Notes
Tyndale Open Resources
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Adam Clarke's Commentary
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
John Gill's Exposition
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
unfoldingWord translationNotes
Door43 World Missions Community
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Rashi
Rabbi Shlomo Yitzchaki (Rashi)
Rashi on the Tanakh — English translations: “The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg” (CC BY 4.0); “Pentateuch with Rashi's commentary by M. Rosenbaum and A.M. Silbermann, 1929-1934” (public domain); “The Metsudah Tanach series, Lakewood, N.J” (CC BY 4.0); and “The Book of Joshua, Metsudah Publications, 1997” (CC BY 4.0). Text via Sefaria.