And the Philistine said to David, Am I a dog that you come to me with sticks? — Goliath's question (*ha'anochi kelev*) expresses contempt for David's choice of weapons, the *maqlot* (sticks, branches) that characterize the sling seeming beneath a warrior's dignity. His rhetorical superiority, his ability to name the disparity in what David has brought to combat, becomes the moment of his blindness. The *akallelcha* (I will curse you) invokes divine sanction for his coming violence, an attempt to align his power with supernatural force. Yet his cursing is performed in the names of *elohe ha'Philishtim*, the gods of Philistia, gods whose authority is about to be revealed as empty.

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