1:23 So her husband Elkanah said to her, “Do what you think best. 3 Stay until you have weaned him. May the Lord fulfill his promise.” 4
So the woman stayed and nursed her son until she had weaned him.
2:27 A man of God came to Eli and said to him, “This is what the Lord says: ‘Did I not plainly 6 reveal myself to your ancestor’s 7 house when they were in Egypt in the house of Pharaoh?
4:6 When the Philistines heard the sound of the shout, they said, “What is this loud shout in the camp of the Hebrews?” Then they realized that the ark of the Lord had arrived at the camp.
4:16 The man said to Eli, “I am the one who came from the battle lines! Just today I fled from the battle lines!” Eli 8 asked, “How did things go, my son?”
9:3 The donkeys of Saul’s father Kish wandered off, 14 so Kish said to his son Saul, “Take one of the servants with you and go 15 look for the donkeys.” 16
9:5 When they came to the land of Zuph, Saul said to his servant who was with him, “Come on, let’s head back before my father quits worrying about the donkeys and becomes anxious about us!”
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?”
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!”
11:3 The elders of Jabesh said to him, “Leave us alone for seven days so that we can send messengers throughout the territory of Israel. If there is no one who can deliver us, we will come out voluntarily to you.”
12:12 “When you saw that King Nahash of the Ammonites was advancing against you, you said to me, ‘No! A king will rule over us’ – even though the Lord your God is your king!
12:20 Then Samuel said to the people, “Don’t be afraid. You have indeed sinned. 20 However, don’t turn aside from the Lord. Serve the Lord with all your heart.
13:11 But Samuel said, “What have you done?” Saul replied, “When I saw that the army had started to abandon me 21 and that you didn’t come at the appointed time and that the Philistines had assembled at Micmash,
13:13 Then Samuel said to Saul, “You have made a foolish choice! You have not obeyed 22 the commandment that the Lord your God gave 23 you. Had you done that, the Lord would have established your kingdom over Israel forever!
14:33 Now it was reported to Saul, “Look, the army is sinning against the Lord by eating even the blood.” He said, “All of you have broken the covenant! 26 Roll a large stone over here to me.”
14:40 Then he said to all Israel, “You will be on one side, and I and my son Jonathan will be on the other side.” The army replied to Saul, “Do whatever you think is best.”
14:43 So Saul said to Jonathan, “Tell me what you have done.” Jonathan told him, “I used the end of the staff that was in my hand to taste a little honey. I must die!” 28
15:20 Then Saul said to Samuel, “But I have obeyed 31 the Lord! I went on the campaign 32 the Lord sent me on. I brought back King Agag of the Amalekites after exterminating the Amalekites.
15:22 Then Samuel said,
“Does the Lord take pleasure in burnt offerings and sacrifices
as much as he does in obedience? 33
Certainly, 34 obedience 35 is better than sacrifice;
paying attention is better than 36 the fat of rams.
15:26 Samuel said to Saul, “I will not go back with you, for you have rejected the word of the Lord, and the Lord has rejected you from being king over Israel!”
16:2 Samuel replied, “How can I go? Saul will hear about it and kill me!” But the Lord said, “Take a heifer with you 37 and say, ‘I have come to sacrifice to the Lord.’
16:4 Samuel did what the Lord told him. 38 When he arrived in Bethlehem, 39 the elders of the city were afraid to meet him. They 40 said, “Do you come in peace?”
18:18 David said to Saul, “Who am I? Who are my relatives or the clan of my father 42 in Israel that I should become the king’s son-in-law?”
20:2 Jonathan 44 said to him, “By no means are you going to die! My father does nothing 45 large or small without making me aware of it. 46 Why would my father hide this matter from me? It just won’t happen!”
20:5 David said to Jonathan, “Tomorrow is the new moon, and I am certainly expected to join the king for a meal. 47 You must send me away so I can hide in the field until the third evening from now.
20:30 Saul became angry with Jonathan 48 and said to him, “You stupid traitor! 49 Don’t I realize that to your own disgrace and to the disgrace of your mother’s nakedness you have chosen this son of Jesse?
22:3 Then David went from there to Mizpah in Moab, where he said to the king of Moab, “Please let my father and mother stay 51 with you until I know what God is going to do for me.”
22:18 Then the king said to Doeg, “You turn and strike down the priests!” So Doeg the Edomite turned and struck down the priests. He killed on that day eighty-five 54 men who wore the linen ephod.
23:3 But David’s men said to him, “We are afraid while we are still here in Judah! What will it be like if we go to Keilah against the armies of the Philistines?”
Then the Lord said, “He will come down.”
23:19 Then the Ziphites went up to Saul at Gibeah and said, “Isn’t David hiding among us in the strongholds at Horesh on the hill of Hakilah, south of Jeshimon?
27:5 David said to Achish, “If I have found favor with you, let me be given a place in one of the country towns so that I can live there. Why should your servant settle in the royal city with you?”
28:1 In those days the Philistines gathered their troops 63 for war in order to fight Israel. Achish said to David, “You should fully understand that you and your men must go with me into the battle.” 64 28:2 David replied to Achish, “That being the case, you will come to know what your servant can do!” Achish said to David, “Then I will make you my bodyguard 65 from now on.” 66
28:8 So Saul disguised himself and put on other clothing and left, accompanied by two of his men. They came to the woman at night and said, “Use your ritual pit to conjure up for me the one I tell you.” 67
28:9 But the woman said to him, “Look, you are aware of what Saul has done; he has removed 68 the mediums and magicians 69 from the land! Why are you trapping me 70 so you can put me to death?”
30:23 But David said, “No! You shouldn’t do this, my brothers. Look at what the Lord has given us! 75 He has protected us and has delivered into our hands the raiding party that came against us.
1 tn Heb “why is your heart displeased?”
2 sn Like the number seven, the number ten is sometimes used in the OT as an ideal number (see, for example, Dan 1:20, Zech 8:23).
3 tn Heb “what is good in your eyes.”
4 tn Heb “establish his word.” This apparently refers to the promise inherent in Eli’s priestly blessing (see v. 17).
5 tc The translation follows the Qere and many medieval Hebrew
6 tn The infinitive absolute appears before the finite verb for emphasis.
7 tn Heb “to your father’s” (also in vv. 28, 30).
8 tn Heb “he”; the referent (Eli) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
9 tn Heb “and she did not set her heart.”
10 tn Heb “men.”
11 tn Heb “for his hand is severe upon.”
12 tn Heb “judge” (also in v. 6).
13 tn Heb “Listen to the voice of the people, to all which they say to you.”
14 tn Heb “became lost.”
15 tn Heb “and arise, go.”
16 tc The Syriac Peshitta includes the following words: “So Saul arose and went out. He took with him one of the boys and went out to look for his father’s donkeys.”
17 tn Heb “your word is good.”
18 tc The translation follows many medieval Hebrew
19 tn Heb “for we have added to all our sins an evil [thing] by asking for ourselves a king.”
20 tn Heb “you have done all this evil.”
21 tn Heb “dispersed from upon me.”
22 tn Or “kept.”
23 tn Heb “commanded.”
24 tn Or “the servant who was carrying his military equipment” (likewise in vv. 6, 7, 12, 13, 14).
25 tn Heb “and they mustered the troops, and look!”
26 tn Heb “You have acted deceptively.” In this context the verb refers to violating an agreement, in this case the dietary and sacrificial regulations of the Mosaic law. The verb form is second masculine plural; apparently Saul here addresses those who are eating the animals.
27 tn Heb “and there was no one answering from all the army.”
28 tn Heb “Look, I, I will die.” Apparently Jonathan is acquiescing to his anticipated fate of death. However, the words may be taken as sarcastic (“Here I am about to die!”) or as a question, “Must I now die?” (cf. NAB, NIV, NCV, NLT).
29 tn Heb “they brought them.”
30 tn Heb “anointed.”
31 tn Heb “listened to the voice of the
32 tn Heb “journey.”
33 tn Heb “as [in] listening to the voice of the
34 tn Heb “look.”
35 tn Heb “listening.”
36 tn The expression “is better” is understood here by ellipsis (see the immediately preceding statement).
37 tn Heb “in your hand.”
38 tn Heb “said.”
39 map For location see Map5-B1; Map7-E2; Map8-E2; Map10-B4.
40 tc In the MT the verb is singular (“he said”), but the translation follows many medieval Hebrew
41 tn Or “Go, and may the
42 tn Heb “Who are my relatives, the clan of my father?” The term חַי (khay), traditionally understood as “my life,” is here a rare word meaning “family, kinfolk” (see HALOT 309 s.v. III חַי). The phrase “clan of my father” may be a scribal gloss explaining the referent of this rare word.
43 tn Heb “he” (also in v. 23). the referent (Saul) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
44 tn Heb “he”; the referent (Jonathan) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
45 tc The translation follows the Qere, many medieval Hebrew
46 tn Heb “without uncovering my ear.”
47 tn Heb “and I must surely sit with the king to eat.” The infinitive absolute appears before the finite verb for emphasis.
48 tc Many medieval Hebrew
49 tn Heb “son of a perverse woman of rebelliousness.” But such an overly literal and domesticated translation of the Hebrew expression fails to capture the force of Saul’s unrestrained reaction. Saul, now incensed and enraged over Jonathan’s liaison with David, is actually hurling very coarse and emotionally charged words at his son. The translation of this phrase suggested by Koehler and Baumgartner is “bastard of a wayward woman” (HALOT 796 s.v. עוה), but this is not an expression commonly used in English. A better English approximation of the sentiments expressed here by the Hebrew phrase would be “You stupid son of a bitch!” However, sensitivity to the various public formats in which the Bible is read aloud has led to a less startling English rendering which focuses on the semantic value of Saul’s utterance (i.e., the behavior of his own son Jonathan, which he viewed as both a personal and a political betrayal [= “traitor”]). But this concession should not obscure the fact that Saul is full of bitterness and frustration. That he would address his son Jonathan with such language, not to mention his apparent readiness even to kill his own son over this friendship with David (v. 33), indicates something of the extreme depth of Saul’s jealousy and hatred of David.
50 tn Heb “trembled to meet.”
51 tn Heb “go forth.”
52 tc The MT has “to all of you.” If this reading is correct, we have here an example of a prepositional phrase functioning as the equivalent of a dative of advantage, which is not impossible from a grammatical point of view. However, the LXX, the Syriac Peshitta, and Vulgate all have “and.” A conjunction rather than a preposition should probably be read on the front of this phrase.
53 tn Heb “officers of a thousand and officers of a hundred.”
54 tc The number is confused in the Greek
55 tc The translation follows the LXX, which reads “I am guilty,” rather than the MT, which has “I have turned.”
56 tn The MT reading (“God has alienated him into my hand”) in v. 7 is a difficult and uncommon idiom. The use of this verb in Jer 19:4 is somewhat parallel, but not entirely so. Many scholars have therefore suspected a textual problem here, emending the word נִכַּר (nikkar, “alienated”) to סִכַּר (sikkar, “he has shut up [i.e., delivered]”). This is the idea reflected in the translations of the Syriac Peshitta and Vulgate, although it is not entirely clear whether they are reading something different from the MT or are simply paraphrasing what for them too may have been a difficult text. The LXX has “God has sold him into my hands,” apparently reading מַכַר (makar, “sold”) for MT’s נִכַּר. The present translation is a rather free interpretation.
57 tn Heb “with two gates and a bar.” Since in English “bar” could be understood as a saloon, it has been translated as an attributive: “two barred gates.”
58 tn Heb “up.”
59 tn Heb “your voice.”
60 tn Heb “I have lifted up your face.”
61 tn Here “the spear” almost certainly refers to Saul’s own spear, which according to the previous verse was stuck into the ground beside him as he slept. This is reflected in a number of English versions: TEV, CEV “his own spear”; NLT “that spear.” Cf. NIV, NCV “my spear,” in which case Abishai refers to his own spear rather than Saul’s, but this is unlikely since (1) Abishai would probably not have carried a spear along since such a weapon would be unwieldy when sneaking into the enemy camp; and (2) this would not explain the mention of Saul’s own spear stuck in the ground beside him in the previous verse.
62 tn Heb “let me strike him with the spear and into the ground one time.”
63 tn Heb “their camps.”
64 tc The translation follows the LXX (εἰς πόλεμον, eis polemon) and a Qumran
65 tn Heb “the guardian for my head.”
66 tn Heb “all the days.”
67 tn Heb “Use divination for me with the ritual pit and bring up for me the one whom I say to you.”
68 tn Heb “how he has cut off.”
69 tn See the note at v. 3.
70 tn Heb “my life.”
71 tn Heb “gods.” The modifying participle (translated “coming up”) is plural, suggesting that underworld spirits are the referent. But in the following verse Saul understands the plural word to refer to a singular being. The reference is to the spirit of Samuel.
72 tn Heb “listened to your voice.”
73 tn Heb “listened to your words that you spoke to me.”
74 tn Heb “I know that you are good in my eyes.”
75 tc This clause is difficult in the MT. The present translation accepts the text as found in the MT and understands this clause to be elliptical, with an understood verb such as “look” or “consider.” On the other hand, the LXX seems to reflect a slightly different Hebrew text, reading “after” where the MT has “my brothers.” The Greek translation yields the following translation: “You should not do this after the