1 Samuel 11:8

11:8 When Saul counted them at Bezek, the Israelites were 300,000 ¹  strong and the men of Judah numbered 30,000. ² 

1 Samuel 15:4

15:4 So Saul assembled ³  the army ⁴  and mustered them at Telaim. There were 200,000 foot soldiers and 10,000 men of Judah.

1 Samuel 17:1

David Kills Goliath

17:1 ⁵ The Philistines gathered their troops ⁶  for battle. They assembled at Socoh in Judah. They camped in Ephes Dammim, between Socoh and Azekah.

1 Samuel 27:6

27:6 So Achish gave him Ziklag on that day. (For that reason Ziklag has belonged to the kings of Judah until this very day.)

1 Samuel 27:10

27:10 When Achish would ask, “Where ⁷  did you raid today?” David would say, “The Negev of Judah” or “The Negev of Jeharmeel” or “The Negev of the Kenites.”

1 Samuel 30:14

30:14 We conducted a raid on the Negev of the Kerethites, on the area of Judah, and on the Negev of Caleb. We burned Ziklag.” ⁸ 

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¹ tc The LXX and two Old Latin mss read 600,000 here, rather than the MT’s 300,000.

² tc The LXX, two Old Latin mss, and a Qumran ms read 70,000 here, rather than the MT’s 30,000.

³ tn Heb “caused the people to hear.”

⁴ tn Heb “people.”

⁵ tc The content of 1 Sam 17–18, which includes the David and Goliath story, differs considerably in the LXX as compared to the MT, suggesting that this story circulated in ancient times in more than one form. The LXX for chs. 17–18 is much shorter than the MT, lacking almost half of the material (39 of a total of 88 verses). Many scholars (e.g., McCarter, Klein) think that the shorter text of the LXX is preferable to the MT, which in their view has been expanded by incorporation of later material. Other scholars (e.g., Wellhausen, Driver) conclude that the shorter Greek text (or the Hebrew text that underlies it) reflects an attempt to harmonize certain alleged inconsistencies that appear in the longer version of the story. Given the translation characteristics of the LXX elsewhere in this section, it does not seem likely that these differences are due to deliberate omission of these verses on the part of the translator. It seems more likely that the Greek translator has faithfully rendered here a Hebrew text that itself was much shorter than the MT in these chapters. Whether or not the shorter text represented by the LXX is to be preferred over the MT in 1 Sam 17–18 is a matter over which textual scholars are divided. For a helpful discussion of the major textual issues in this unit see D. Barthélemy, D. W. Gooding, J. Lust, and E. Tov, The Story of David and Goliath (OBO). Overall it seems preferable to stay with the MT, at least for the most part. However, the major textual differences between the LXX and the MT will be mentioned in the notes that accompany the translation so that the reader may be alert to the major problem passages.

⁶ tn Heb “camps.”

⁷ tc The translation follows the LXX (ἐπι τίνα, epi tina) and Vulgate (in quem) which assume אֶל מִי (’el mi, “to whom”) rather than the MT אַל (’al, “not”). The MT makes no sense here. Another possibility is that the text originally had אַן (’an, “where”), which has been distorted in the MT to אַל. Cf. the Syriac Peshitta and the Targum, which have “where.”

⁸ tn The Hebrew text adds “with fire.”