I went out to meet the Philistine: The Greek word rendered meet has connotations of meeting face to face, of confronting. The word translated Philistine is literally “foreigner” (so Revised Standard Version footnote), but is constantly used in the Greek Old Testament to translate the Hebrew word for “Philistine.” The reference here is to the Philistine champion Goliath; see 1 Sam 17. It will be helpful to add the term “giant” as in “Philistine giant,” or say something like “huge Philistine champion.”

And he cursed me by his idols: This is specifically mentioned in 1 Sam 17.43, where Goliath “cursed David by his gods.” Cursed involves calling on his gods to do harm to David, and in a number of languages this line will be expressed as “and he asked his gods to cause me harm.”

An alternative translation model for this verse is:

I went out to confront the huge Philistine champion,
and he asked his gods to harm me.

Quoted with permission from Bullard, Roger A. and Hatton, Howard A. A Handbook on The Shorter Books of the Deuterocanon. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 2006. For this and other handbooks for translators see