Troublesome Topic: THE UNWRITTEN RULES FOR ONE-ON-ONE COMBAT

I have come to believe that there were some unwritten rules governing one-on-one combat which all the cultures in that part of the world in ancient times adhered to.

In one-on-one contests, there were various ways someone could have an advantage over his opponent. For instance, they were not always equally armed, but that was by their own choi. The rules were not intended to make the contest perfectly fair and equal, only to rule out the most drastic abuses.

Here are the rules for one-on-one combat I think were in play in the ancient Near East.

Deceit or trickery would bring dishonor.

This was the biggest rule of them all.

No arrows allowed.

No arrows could be shot during a one-on-one conflict. It was dishonorable to shoot someone with an arrow who had challenged you to a one-on-one combat. However, it appears from I Sam 17:45 (David’s words to Goliath) that one or more javelins were included in the weapons that Goliath brought to this conflict. Although javelins were accepted in one-on-one combat because they were easier to dodge than an arrow, we never read of any great warrior using a javelin for his exploits. It appears that the use of a javelin in such situations brough less honor than the use of a sword or a spear.

No outside help was allowed.

It was a One-on-one contest with no outside help. If one of the combatants got in trouble, none of his comrades could come to his aid. The only seeming exception to this rule is that once it was obvious that one of them had won because the other one was down and unresponsive, then the victor’s armor bearer could come along behind him and make sure that the defeated man was fully dead. This would take a few moments, and the warrior himself needed to be able to move on to the next challenger. The challengers hoped that the opposing warrior who had just defeated one their comrades would become tired and, at some point, he would lose.

One interpretation of the story of Abner and Asahel, which is one of the stories in this series, is that when a soldier was retreating from a battle between two armies and an opposing soldier caught up with him, the situation changed into a one-on-one contest. The other interpretation is simply that no deceit or trickery was allowed in either type of combat.

No fighting at night

Battles by armies and contests between individuals lasted only until nightfall. If the contest was not finished by the end of one day, they started up again the next day, and so on.

II Sam 2:24-27 seems to indicate that Joab’s willingness to press the pursuit through the night was abnormal. Both sides were relieved when he was persuaded to call it off.

I Sam 30:17 seems to be an exception, until one looks into it carefully. It is usually translated “David attacked them from twilight till the evening of the next day.” However, the Hebrew word rendered “twilight” is used of any transitional time, be it dusk or dawn. It comes from a root word meaning “to breath or blow”, referring to the time of day that is cooled by a breeze. This word is only used 12 times in the Old Testament, two of which are clearly pointing to dawn, see Job 7:4, and Ps 119:147. I think I Sam 30:17 should be considered a third time it is referring to dawn, not dusk. Therefore, in this case, the passage seems to be saying, and I paraphrase, “David attacked them from dawn of one day till the end of that day, and again through all of the next day.” It is intended to tell us that the battle lasted 2 days. As in many other instances in the Bible, something is left unstated and must be assumed. It seems safe to assume that the part we would like clarified and they understood without it being stated was that they ceased fighting during the night. This passage does not change the no-fighting-at-night rule.

In the story of Gideon, the Midianites were thrown into confusion during the night (Judges 7:19) and started attacking each other (Judges 7:22). Whether the 300 Israelites soldiers with Gideon attacked the Midianites during the night or simply allowed them to keep killing each other, we are not told. I think a wise military commander with such a small fighting force would hear what was going on and choose to allow the Midianites to keep killing their fellow Midianites. He would want a “good thing” to keep going without putting his own men at risk by asking them to fight in the dark.

Then men of four different tribes of Israel were called out to join the fight against the Midianites and to not allow them to get away by blocking the fords crossing the Jordan river. Because all these movements were done on foot or on a four-footed beast, it would have required several days for the message to arrive at all its locations and more days for the men to assemble. Some of that travel could have happened at night, but it was usually unsafe for one person (such as a messenger) to travel alone at night because bandits and robbers were the only ones that moved about in the darkness. Therefore a large fighting force sometimes travelled through the night, but individuals did not. Once again the rule of not fighting at night was likely observed in this case as well.

Each man had to fight with what he brought with him.

If he carried several options on his person when he entered the conflict, he could change weapons in the middle of the contest, but if he only had one weapon, that is all he could use. If someone only had a spear and the shaft of his spear was cut in half by the opponent’s sword, he had to take the risk of bending down and grabbing the part of his spear that included the sharp point or fight the rest of the time with only the shortened wooden shaft. An armor bearer could not toss him a new spear or a different weapon. David only had one weapon, and an unconventional one at that, while Goliath had several options available to him. This rule may explain why Samson did not make a switch away from the jawbone of a donkey by bending down and grabbing a sword or spear from a dead opponent as the next challenger approached him.

Once a fighter was incapacitated, the conflict was over.

Another rule seems to be that once a fighter was incapacitated, the conflict was over. At that point, even if the fighter was still technically alive, because he was down and no longer able to fight, the contest was over and the rules no longer applied. This enabled a warrior’s armor bearer to come along behind him and make sure his vanquished opponents were fully dead. For this same reason, after Goliath was down, David was able to exchange his sling for the giant’s sword.