2:10 The Lord shatters 2 his adversaries; 3
he thunders against them from 4 the heavens.
The Lord executes judgment to the ends of the earth.
He will strengthen 5 his king
and exalt the power 6 of his anointed one.” 7
7:10 As Samuel was offering burnt offerings, the Philistines approached to do battle with Israel. 11 But on that day the Lord thundered loudly against the Philistines. He caused them to panic, and they were defeated by 12 Israel.
9:11 As they were going up the ascent to the town, they met some girls coming out to draw water. They said to them, “Is this where the seer is?”
9:22 Then Samuel brought 15 Saul and his servant into the room and gave them a place at the head of those who had been invited. There were about thirty people present.
11:2 But Nahash the Ammonite said to them, “The only way I will make a treaty with you is if you let me gouge out the right eye of every one of you and in so doing humiliate all Israel!”
14:13 Jonathan crawled up on his hands and feet, with his armor bearer following behind him. Jonathan struck down the Philistines, 20 while his armor bearer came along behind him and killed them. 21
25:18 So Abigail quickly took two hundred loaves of bread, two containers 25 of wine, five prepared sheep, five seahs 26 of roasted grain, a hundred bunches of raisins, and two hundred lumps of pressed figs. She loaded them on donkeys
1 tn The disjunctive clause is contrastive here. The words “with them” have been supplied in the translation for stylistic reasons.
2 tn The imperfect verbal forms in this line and in the next two lines are understood as indicating what is typically true. Another option is to translate them with the future tense. See v. 10b.
3 tc The present translation follows the Qere, many medieval Hebrew manuscripts, the Syriac Peshitta, and the Vulgate in reading the plural (“his adversaries,” similarly many other English versions) rather than the singular (“his adversary”) of the Kethib.
4 tn The Hebrew preposition here has the sense of “from within.”
5 tn The imperfect verbal forms in this and the next line are understood as indicating what is anticipated and translated with the future tense, because at the time of Hannah’s prayer Israel did not yet have a king.
6 tn Heb “the horn,” here a metaphor for power or strength. Cf. NCV “make his appointed king strong”; NLT “increases the might of his anointed one.”
7 tc The LXX greatly expands v. 10 with an addition that seems to be taken from Jer 9:23-24.
sn The anointed one is the anticipated king of Israel, as the preceding line makes clear.
8 tc The MT has וְהִגַּדְתִּי לוֹ (vÿhiggadti lo). The verb is Hiphil perfect 1st person common singular, and apparently the conjunction should be understood as vav consecutive (“I will say to him”). But the future reference makes more sense if Samuel is the subject. This would require dropping the final י (yod) and reading the 2nd person masculine singular וְהִגַּדְתָּ (vÿhiggadta). Although there is no external evidence to support it, this reading has been adopted in the present translation. The alternative is to understand the MT to mean “I said to him,” but for this we would expect the preterite with vav consecutive.
9 tn The translation understands the preposition to have a causal sense. However, the preposition could also be understood as the beth pretii, indicating in a broad sense the price attached to this action. So GKC 380 §119.p.
10 tc The translation follows the LXX θεόν (qeon, “God”) rather than the MT לָהֶם (lahem, “to them”). The MT seems to mean “they were bringing a curse on themselves” (cf. ASV, NASB). But this meaning is problematic in part because the verb qll means “to curse,” not “to bring a curse on,” and in part because it takes an accusative object rather than the equivalent of a dative. This is one of the so-called tiqqune sopherim, or “emendations of the scribes.” Why would the ancient copyists alter the original statement about Eli’s sons cursing God to the less objectionable statement that they brought a curse on themselves? Some argue that the scribes were concerned that such a direct and blasphemous affront against God could occur without an immediate response of judgment from God. Therefore they changed the text by deleting two letters א and י (alef and yod) from the word for “God,” with the result that the text then read “to them.” If this ancient scribal claim is accepted as accurate, it implies that the MT here is secondary. The present translation follows the LXX (κακολογοῦντες θεόν, kakologounte" qeon) and a few
11 tn Heb “approached for battle against Israel.”
12 tn Heb “before.”
13 tn Heb “according to all the deeds which they have done.”
14 tn Heb “listen to their voice.”
15 tn Heb “took and brought.”
16 tc Two medieval Hebrew
tn Heb “they”; the referents (Saul and his servant) have been specified in the translation for clarity.
17 tn Heb “him”; the referent (Saul) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
18 tn Heb “anointed [one].”
19 tn Heb “that you have not found anything in my hand.”
20 tn Heb “and they fell before Jonathan.”
21 tn Heb “and the one carrying his equipment was killing after him.”
22 tn Heb “according to these words.”
23 tc The LXX includes here the following words not found in the MT: “Should I not go and smite him, and remove today reproach from Israel? For who is this uncircumcised one?”
24 tn This Hebrew word occurs only here and its exact meaning is not entirely clear. It refers to a receptacle of some sort and apparently was a common part of a shepherd’s equipment. Here it serves as a depository for the stones that David will use in his sling.
25 tn Heb “skins.”
26 sn The seah was a dry measure equal to one-third of an ephah, or not quite eleven quarts.
27 tc The translation follows the MT, which vocalizes the verb as a Qal. The LXX, however, treats the verb as a Hiphil, “they brought.”