1 Samuel 1:16

1:16 Don’t consider your servant a wicked woman, 1  for until now I have spoken from my deep pain and anguish.”

1 Samuel 2:9

2:9 He watches over 2  his holy ones, 3 

but the wicked are made speechless in the darkness,

for it is not by one’s own strength that one prevails.

1 Samuel 10:27

10:27 But some wicked men 4  said, “How can this man save us?” They despised him and did not even bring him a gift. But Saul said nothing about it. 5 

1 tn Heb “daughter of worthlessness.”

2 tn Heb “guards the feet of.” The expression means that God watches over and protects the godly in all of their activities and movements. The imperfect verbal forms in v. 9 are understood as indicating what is typically true. Another option is to translate them with the future tense. See v. 10b.

3 tc The translation follows the Qere and many medieval Hebrew mss in reading the plural (“his holy ones”) rather than the singular (“his holy one”) of the Kethib.

4 tn Heb “sons of worthlessness” (see 2:12).

5 tc In place of the MT (“and it was like one being silent”) the LXX has “after about a month,” taking the expression with the first part of the following chapter rather than with 10:27. Some Hebrew support for this reading appears in the corrected hand of a Qumran ms of Samuel, which has here “about a month.” However, it seems best to stay with the MT here even though it is difficult.