Among all these soldiers there were seven hundred chosen men who were left-handed. Every one of them could sling a stone at a hair and not miss.
ExplanationCommentary
Verse 16. Right. Septuagint “ambidextrous.” Moderns generally translate the Hebrew “left-handed.” But we have seen that such a meaning is improbable. Calmet. 3:15.—Side. The inhabitants of Palestine formerly applied themselves very much to this exercise, and by them it was propagated over other parts of the world. Plin. vii. 56. Strabo (iii.) observes that eh people of the Balearic islands became famous for slinging, only after the Phœnicians had taken possession of their country, which is the present Majorca and Minorca. They could hit the mark without failing, and penetrate every sort of armour. Florus iii. Their bullets of lead were sent with such violence, as sometimes to melt in the air, according to Ovid and Seneca, q. 2. 56. The slingers commonly stood 600 paces from the mark of white, which they seldom missed. Veget. ii. 23. The stones which they used weighted a pound among the Romans. The sling would frequently carry farther than a bow. Xenophon, Anab. v. Yet the exploits of bowmen are not less extraordinary than what is here recorded. Philostorgius (ii. 12,) assures us that the Indians, after they have been drinking, will shoot at a child, and only touch the ends of his hair. Domitian would shoot from a great distance, and make the arrow pass between the extended fingers of a child, and at other times would divest himself with piercing an animal with two arrows, so that they would stick out like horns. Sueton. Soranus could send an arrow into the air, and pierce it with another as it fell. The emperor Hadrian writes of him,
“Emissumque arcu dum pendet in aere telum,
Ac redit ex alto, fixi fregique sagitta.” Calmet.