1 Samuel 1:11

1:11 She made a vow saying, “O Lord of hosts, if you will look with compassion ¹  on the suffering of your female servant, ²  remembering me and not forgetting your servant, and give a male child ³  to your servant, then I will dedicate him to the Lord all the days of his life. His hair will never be cut.” ⁴ 

1 Samuel 4:13

4:13 When he arrived in Shiloh, Eli was sitting in his chair watching by the side of ⁵  the road, for he was very worried ⁶  about the ark of God. As the man entered the city to give his report, ⁷  the whole city cried out.

1 Samuel 7:3

7:3 Samuel said to all the people of Israel, “If you are really turning to the Lord with all your hearts, remove from among you the foreign gods and the images of Ashtoreth. ⁸  Give your hearts to the Lord and serve only him. Then he will deliver you ⁹  from the hand of the Philistines.”

1 Samuel 17:25

17:25 The men of Israel said, “Have you seen this man who is coming up? He does so ¹⁰  to defy Israel. But the king will make the man who can strike him down very wealthy! He will give him his daughter in marriage, and he will make his father’s house exempt from tax obligations in Israel.”

1 Samuel 17:46

17:46 This very day the Lord will deliver you into my hand! I will strike you down and cut off your head. This day I will give the corpses of the Philistine army to the birds of the sky and the wild animals of the land. Then all the land will realize that Israel has a God

1 Samuel 18:17

18:17 ¹¹ 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 ¹²  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!”

1 Samuel 18:21

18:21 Saul said, “I will give her to him so that she may become a snare to him and the hand of the Philistines may be against him.” So Saul said to David, “Today is the second time for you to become my son-in-law.” ¹³ 

1 Samuel 21:9

David Goes to Gath

21:9 The priest replied, “The sword of Goliath the Philistine, whom you struck down in the valley of Elah, is wrapped in a garment behind the ephod. If you wish, take it for yourself. Other than that, there’s nothing here.” David said, “There’s nothing like it! Give it to me!”

1 Samuel 24:4

24:4 David’s men said to him, “This is the day about which the Lord said to you, ‘I will give your enemy into your hand, and you can do to him whatever seems appropriate to you.’” ¹⁴  So David got up and quietly cut off an edge of Saul’s robe.

1 Samuel 30:22

30:22 But all the evil and worthless men among those who had gone with David said, “Since they didn’t go with us, ¹⁵  we won’t give them any of the loot we retrieved! They may take only their wives and children. Let them lead them away and be gone!”

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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 tc Read with many medieval Hebrew mss, the Qere, and much versional evidence יַד (yad, “hand”) rather than MT יַךְ (yakh).

⁶ tn Heb “his heart was trembling.”

⁷ tn Heb “and the man came to report in the city.”

⁸ 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.

⁹ tn Following imperatives, the jussive verbal form with the prefixed conjunction indicates purpose/result.

¹⁰ tn Heb “he is coming up.”

¹¹ tc Much of the ms evidence for the LXX lacks vv. 17-19.

¹² tn Heb “son of valor.”

¹³ tc The final sentence of v. 21 is absent in most LXX mss.

¹⁴ tn Heb “is good in your eyes.”

¹⁵ tc Heb “with me.” The singular is used rather than the plural because the group is being treated as a singular entity, in keeping with Hebrew idiom. It is not necessary to read “with us,” rather than the MT “with me,” although the plural can be found here in a few medieval Hebrew mss. See also the LXX, Syriac Peshitta, and Vulgate, although these versions may simply reflect an understanding of the idiom as found in the MT rather than a different textual reading.