שמואל א, פרק י״ד, פסוק ט״ו

A sudden and unexpected strike by just two men manages to completely shatter the confidence of the Philistine army, plunging them into unexplained terror. The panic quickly spreads through the various military ranks, creating total chaos. This widespread fear begins with a fundamental misunderstanding of the battlefield. Because the two attackers strike midway between the forward guard posts and the main camp, the soldiers in the central camp mistakenly assume that the border guards have already been wiped out. This assumption sparks massive panic in the main camp, which then radiates backward, infecting the forward guard posts as well [מלבי״ם].

The fear grips everyone, including the encamped army, the active raiding forces [ביאור שטיינזלץ], and the military captains. Highlighting their panic serves to magnify the wonder of the event, as these are brave men of war [מצודת דוד] armed with swords and spears [רד״ק], who naturally do not frighten easily. The sheer intensity of their fright is described as the earth quaking [מצודת ציון, ביאור שטיינזלץ]. However, this is generally understood not as a literal physical earthquake, but rather as a dramatic exaggeration [מצודת דוד] or a metaphor illustrating how the entire Philistine camp shakes and trembles [רד״ק].

Regarding the ultimate nature of this terror, commentators offer two primary approaches. One perspective suggests it is a linguistic expression meant to describe a massive, overwhelming fear, as biblical language sometimes uses the name of God simply to magnify the scale of an event [מצודת דוד, רלב״ג, ביאור שטיינזלץ]. The second approach argues that this describes the actual source of the panic. According to this view, it is not a natural fear at all, but a supernatural terror cast upon the army by God [מלבי״ם, רלב״ג, רד״ק]. It is this direct divine intervention that ultimately drives the soldiers to fight one another, since logically, there is no reason for an entire army to panic over the presence of only two fighters [רלב״ג, רד״ק].