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FOOTMAN.—This word is used in two different senses: 1. A foot-soldier, always in plur. ‘footmen,’ foot-soldiers, infantry. Footmen probably composed the whole of the Isr. forces (1Sa_4:10; 1Sa_15:4) before the time of David. 2. A runner on foot: 1Sa_22:17 (AVm [Note: Authorized Version margin.] ‘or guard, Heb. runners’; RV [Note: Revised Version.] ‘guard,’ RVm [Note: Revised Version margin.] ‘Heb. runners’). ‘Runners’ would be the literal, and at the same time the most appropriate, rendering. The king had a body of runners about him, not so much to guard his person as to run his errands and do his bidding. They formed a recognized part of the royal state (1Sa_8:11, 2Sa_15:1); they served as executioners (1Sa_22:17, 2Ki_10:25); and, accompanying the king or his general into battle, they brought back official tidings of its progress or event (2Sa_18:18). In Jer_12:5 both the Heb. and the Eng. (footmen) seem to be used in the more general sense of racers on foot.