1 Samuel 1:8

1:8 Finally her husband Elkanah said to her, “Hannah, why do you weep and not eat? Why are you so sad? ¹  Am I not better to you than ten ²  sons?”

1 Samuel 2:21

2:21 So the Lord graciously attended to Hannah, and she was able to conceive and gave birth to three sons and two daughters. The boy Samuel grew up at the Lord’s sanctuary. ³ 

1 Samuel 3:13

3:13 You ⁴  should tell him that I am about to judge his house forever because of ⁵  the sin that he knew about. For his sons were cursing God, ⁶  and he did not rebuke them.

1 Samuel 4:17

4:17 The messenger replied, “Israel has fled from ⁷  the Philistines! The army has suffered a great defeat! Your two sons, Hophni and Phineas, are dead! The ark of God has been captured!”

1 Samuel 8:5

8:5 They said to him, “Look, you are old, and your sons don’t follow your ways. So now appoint over us a king to lead ⁸  us, just like all the other nations have.”

1 Samuel 8:11

8:11 He said, “Here are the policies of the king who will rule over you: He will conscript your sons and put them in his chariot forces and in his cavalry; they will run in front of his chariot.

1 Samuel 12:2

12:2 Now look! This king walks before you. As for me, I am old and gray, though my sons are here with you. I have walked before you from the time of my youth till the present day.

1 Samuel 16:5

16:5 He replied, “Yes, in peace. I have come to sacrifice to the Lord. Consecrate yourselves and come with me to the sacrifice.” So he consecrated Jesse and his sons and invited them to the sacrifice.

1 Samuel 17:12

17:12 ⁹ Now David was the son of this Ephrathite named Jesse from Bethlehem ¹⁰  in Judah. He had eight sons, and in Saul’s days he was old and well advanced in years. ¹¹ 

1 Samuel 28:19

28:19 The Lord will hand you and Israel over to the Philistines! ¹²  Tomorrow both you and your sons will be with me. ¹³  The Lord will also hand the army ¹⁴  of Israel over to the Philistines!”

1 Samuel 30:6

30:6 David was very upset, for the men ¹⁵  were thinking of stoning him; ¹⁶  each man grieved bitterly ¹⁷  over his sons and daughters. But David drew strength from the Lord his God.

1 Samuel 31:12

31:12 all their warriors set out and traveled throughout the night. They took Saul’s corpse and the corpses of his sons from the city wall of Beth Shan and went ¹⁸  to Jabesh, where they burned them.

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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 “with the Lord.” Cf. NAB, TEV “in the service of the Lord”; NIV, NRSV, NLT “in the presence of the Lord”; CEV “at the Lord’s house in Shiloh.”

⁴ 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.

⁵ 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.

⁶ 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 mss of the Old Latin in reading “God” rather than the MT “to them.” Cf. also NAB, NRSV, NLT.

⁷ tn Heb “before.”

⁸ tn Heb “judge” (also in v. 6).

⁹ tc Some mss of the LXX lack vv. 12-31.

¹⁰ map For location see Map5-B1; Map7-E2; Map8-E2; Map10-B4.

¹¹ tc The translation follows the Lucianic recension of the LXX and the Syriac Peshitta in reading “in years,” rather than MT “among men.”

¹² tn Heb “And the Lord will give also Israel along with you into the hand of the Philistines.”

¹³ tc With the exception of the Lucianic recension, the LXX has here “and tomorrow you and your sons with you will fall.”

¹⁴ tn Heb “camp.”

¹⁵ tn Heb “people.”

¹⁶ tn Heb “said to stone him.”

¹⁷ tn Heb “for bitter was the soul of all the people, each one.”

¹⁸ tc The translation follows the MT, which vocalizes the verb as a Qal. The LXX, however, treats the verb as a Hiphil, “they brought.”