1 Samuel 17:3

on a mountain, &c. Rather, upon the mountain … upon the mountain … and the ravine was between them. The E. V. obliterates the features of the scene. The ravine(Heb. gâî) was the stream-bed at the bottom of the valley(Heb. êmek). The Israelites encamped on the eastern, the Philistines on the western slopes of the valley. "In the middle of the broad open valley we found a deep trench with vertical sides, impassable except at certain places a valley in a valley, and a natural barrier between the two hosts.… Here then we may picture to ourselves the two hosts, covering the low rocky hills opposite to each other, and half hidden among the lentisk bushes; between them was the rich expanse of ripening barley and the red banks of the torrent with its white shingly bed; behind all were the distant blue hill-walls of Judah, whence Saul had just come down." Conder, Tent Work, 11. 161.