They replied, “The Philistine leaders number five. So send five gold sores and five gold mice, for it is the same plague that has afflicted both you and your leaders.
16:1 The Lord said to Samuel, “How long do you intend to mourn for Saul? I have rejected him as king over Israel. 12 Fill your horn with olive oil and go! I am sending you to Jesse in Bethlehem, 13 for I have selected a king for myself from among his sons.” 14
17:20 So David got up early in the morning and entrusted the flock to someone else who would watch over it. 19 After loading up, he went just as Jesse had instructed him. He arrived at the camp 20 as the army was going out to the battle lines shouting its battle cry.
17:26 David asked the men who were standing near him, “What will be done for the man who strikes down this Philistine and frees Israel from this humiliation? 21 For who is this uncircumcised Philistine, that he defies the armies of the living God?”
17:28 When David’s 22 oldest brother Eliab heard him speaking to the men, he became angry 23 with David and said, “Why have you come down here? To whom did you entrust those few sheep in the desert? I am familiar with your pride and deceit! 24 You have come down here to watch the battle!”
18:17 25 Then Saul said to David, “Here’s my oldest daughter, Merab. I want to give her to you in marriage. Only be a brave warrior 26 for me and fight the battles of the Lord.” For Saul thought, “There’s no need for me to raise my hand against him. Let it be the hand of the Philistines!”
19:4 So Jonathan spoke on David’s behalf 28 to his father Saul. He said to him, “The king should not sin against his servant David, for he has not sinned against you. On the contrary, his actions have been very beneficial 29 for you.
21:6 So the priest gave him holy bread, for there was no bread there other than the bread of the Presence. It had been removed from before the Lord in order to replace it with hot bread on the day it had been taken away.
‘Saul struck down his thousands,
But David his tens of thousands’?”
26:5 So David set out and went to the place where Saul was camped. David saw the place where Saul and Abner son of Ner, the general in command of his army, were sleeping. Now Saul was lying in the entrenchment, and the army was camped all around him.
29:3 The leaders of the Philistines asked, “What about these Hebrews?” Achish said to the leaders of the Philistines, “Isn’t this David, the servant of King Saul of Israel, who has been with me for quite some time? 36 I have found no fault with him from the day of his defection until the present time!” 37
29:6 So Achish summoned David and said to him, “As surely as the Lord lives, you are an honest man, and I am glad to have you 38 serving 39 with me in the army. 40 I have found no fault with you from the day that you first came to me until the present time. But in the opinion 41 of the leaders, you are not reliable. 42
1 tn Heb “if looking you look.” The expression can refer, as here, to looking favorably upon another, in this case with compassion.
2 tn Heb “handmaid.” The use of this term (translated two more times in this verse and once each in vv. 16, 17 simply as “servant” for stylistic reasons) is an expression of humility.
3 tn Heb “seed of men.”
4 tn Heb “a razor will not go up upon his head.”
5 tn Heb “they”; the referent (Eli’s sons) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
6 tn Heb “desired.”
7 tn Heb “the Ashtarot” (plural; also in the following verse). The words “images of” are supplied for clarity.
sn The Semitic goddess Astarte was associated with love and war in the ancient Near East. The presence of Ashtarot in Israel is a sign of pervasive pagan and idolatrous influences; hence Samuel calls for their removal. See 1 Sam 31:10, where the Philistines deposit the armor of the deceased Saul in the temple of the Ashtarot, and 1 Kgs 11:5, 33; 2 Kgs 23:13, where Solomon is faulted for worshiping the Ashtarot.
8 tn Following imperatives, the jussive verbal form with the prefixed conjunction indicates purpose/result.
9 tn The infinitive absolute precedes the verb for emphasis.
10 tn Heb “our way on which we have gone.”
11 tn Heb “anoint.”
12 tc The Lucianic recension of the Old Greek translation includes the following words: “And the Lord said to Samuel.”
13 map For location see Map5-B1; Map7-E2; Map8-E2; Map10-B4.
14 tn Heb “for I have seen among his sons for me a king.”
15 tn Heb “don’t look toward.”
16 tn Heb “for not that which the man sees.” The translation follows the LXX, which reads, “for not as man sees does God see.” The MT has suffered from homoioteleuton or homoioarcton. See P. K. McCarter, I Samuel (AB), 274.
17 tn Heb “to the eyes.”
18 tn Heb “he”; the referent (Jesse) has been specified in the translation both here and in v. 12 for clarity.
19 tn Heb “to a guard”; KJV, NASB, NRSV “with a keeper”; NIV “with a shepherd.” Since in contemporary English “guard” sounds like someone at a military installation or a prison, the present translation uses “to someone else who would watch over it.”
20 tn Or “entrenchment.”
21 tn Heb “and turns aside humiliation from upon Israel.”
22 tn Heb “his”; the referent (David) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
23 tn Heb “the anger of Eliab became hot.”
24 tn Heb “the wickedness of your heart.”
25 tc Much of the
26 tn Heb “son of valor.”
27 tn Heb “arose and went.”
28 tn Heb “spoke good with respect to David.”
29 tn Heb “good.”
30 tn Heb “runners.”
31 tn Heb “their hand is.”
32 tn Heb “to extend their hand to harm.”
33 tn Heb “anointed.”
34 tn Or “for.”
35 tn Heb “anointed.”
36 tn Heb “these days or these years.”
37 tn Heb “from the day of his falling [away] until this day.”
38 tn Heb “it is good in my eyes.” Cf. v. 7.
39 tn Heb “your going forth and your coming in.” The expression is a merism.
40 tn Heb “camp.”
41 tn Heb “eyes.”
42 tn Heb “good.”