1 Samuel 2:10

2:10 The Lord shatters¹ his adversaries;²

he thunders against them from³ the heavens.

The Lord executes judgment to the ends of the earth.

He will strengthen⁴ his king

and exalt the power⁵ of his anointed one.”⁶

1 Samuel 10:11

10:11 When everyone who had known him previously saw him prophesying with the prophets, the people all asked one another, “What on earth has happened to the son of Kish? Does even Saul belong with the prophets?”

1 Samuel 20:15

20:15 Don’t ever cut off your loyalty to my family, not even when the Lord has cut off every one of David’s enemies from the face of the earth

1 Samuel 20:31

20:31 For as long as⁷ this son of Jesse is alive on the earth, you and your kingdom will not be established. Now, send some men⁸ and bring him to me. For he is as good as dead!”⁹

¹tn 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.

²tc 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.

³tn The Hebrew preposition here has the sense of “from within.”

⁴tn 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.

⁵tn 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.”

⁶tc 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.

⁷tn Heb “all the days that.”

⁸tn The words “some men” are supplied in the translation for stylistic reasons.

⁹tn Heb “a son of death.”