The rooted dislike and contempt felt by the Israelites towards the Dog is seen in numerous passages. Even in that sentence from Job which has just been quoted, wherein the writer passionately deplores the low condition into which he has fallen, and contrasts it with his former high estate, he complains that he is despised by those whose fathers he held even in less esteem than the dogs which guarded his herds. There are several references to the Dog in the books of Samuel, in all of which the name of the animal is mentioned contemptuously. For example, when David accepted the challenge of Goliath, and went to meet his gigantic enemy without the ordinary protection of mail, and armed only with a sling and his shepherd's staff, Goliath said to him, "Am I a dog, that thou comest to me with staves?" (1 Sam. xvii. 43.) And in the same book, chapter xxiv. 14, David remonstrates with Saul for pursuing so insignificant a person as himself, and said, "After whom is the King of Israel come out? after a dead dog, after a flea." The same metaphor is recorded in the second book of the same writer. Once it was employed by Mephibosheth, the lame son of Jonathan, when extolling the generosity of David, then King of Israel in the place of his grandfather Saul: "And he bowed himself, and said, 'What is thy servant, that thou shouldest look upon such a dead dog as I am?" (2 Sam. ix. 8.) In the same book, chapter xvi. 9, Abishai applies this contemptuous epithet to Shimei, who was exulting over the troubled monarch with all the insolence of a cowardly nature, "Why should this dead dog curse my lord the king?" Abner also makes use of a similar expression, "Am I a dog's head?" And we may also refer to the familiar passage in 2 Kings viii. 13. Elisha had prophesied to Hazael that he would become king on the death of Ben-hadad, and that he would work terrible mischief in the land. Horrified at these predictions, or at all events pretending to be so, he replied, "But what, is thy servant a dog, that he should do this great thing?"