1 Samuel 2:15

2:15 Even before they burned the fat, the priest’s attendant would come and say to the person who was making the sacrifice, “Hand over some meat for the priest to roast! He won’t take boiled meat from you, but only raw.” ¹ 

1 Samuel 2:22

2:22 Now Eli was very old when he heard about everything that his sons used to do to all the people of Israel ²  and how they used to have sex with ³  the women who were stationed at the entrance to the tent of meeting.

1 Samuel 4:4

4:4 So the army ⁴  sent to Shiloh, and they took from there the ark of the covenant of the Lord of hosts who sits between the cherubim. Now the two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phineas, were there with the ark of the covenant of God.

1 Samuel 5:4

5:4 But when they got up early the following day, Dagon was again lying on the ground before the ark of the Lord. The head of Dagon and his two hands were sheared off and were lying at the threshold. Only Dagon’s body was left intact. ⁵ 

1 Samuel 5:11

5:11 So they assembled ⁶  all the leaders of the Philistines and said, “Get the ark of the God of Israel out of here! Let it go back to its own place so that it won’t kill us ⁷  and our ⁸  people!” The terror ⁹  of death was throughout the entire city; God was attacking them very severely there. ¹⁰ 

1 Samuel 6:3

6:3 They replied, “If you are going to send the ark of ¹¹  the God of Israel back, don’t send it away empty. Be sure to return it with a guilt offering. Then you will be healed, and you will understand why his hand is not removed from you.”

1 Samuel 6:14-15

6:14 The cart was coming to the field of Joshua, who was from Beth Shemesh. It paused there near a big stone. Then they cut up the wood of the cart and offered the cows as a burnt offering to the Lord. 6:15 The Levites took down the ark of the Lord and the chest that was with it, which contained the gold objects. They placed them near the big stone. At that time the people of Beth Shemesh offered burnt offerings and made sacrifices to the Lord.

1 Samuel 6:18-19

6:18 The gold mice corresponded in number to all the Philistine cities of the five leaders, from the fortified cities to hamlet villages, to greater Abel, ¹²  where they positioned the ark of the Lord until this very day in the field of Joshua who was from Beth Shemesh.

6:19 But the Lord ¹³  struck down some of the people of Beth Shemesh because they had looked into the ark of the Lord; he struck down 50,070 ¹⁴  of the men. The people grieved because the Lord had struck the people with a hard blow.

1 Samuel 9:27

9:27 While they were going down to the edge of town, Samuel said to Saul, “Tell the servant to go on ahead of us.” So he did. ¹⁵  Samuel then said, ¹⁶  “You remain here awhile, so I can inform you of God’s message.”

1 Samuel 10:2

10:2 When you leave me today, you will find two men near Rachel’s tomb at Zelzah on Benjamin’s border. They will say to you, ‘The donkeys you have gone looking for have been found. Your father is no longer concerned about the donkeys but has become anxious about you two! ¹⁷  He is asking, “What should I do about my son?”’

1 Samuel 10:21

10:21 Then he brought the tribe of Benjamin near by its families, and the family of Matri was chosen by lot. At last Saul son of Kish was chosen by lot. But when they looked for him, he was nowhere to be found.

1 Samuel 11:7

11:7 He took a pair ¹⁸  of oxen and cut them up. Then he sent the pieces throughout the territory of Israel by the hand of messengers, who said, “Whoever does not go out after Saul and after Samuel should expect this to be done to his oxen!” Then the terror of the Lord fell on the people, and they went out as one army. ¹⁹ 

1 Samuel 12:10

12:10 Then they cried out to the Lord and admitted, ²⁰  ‘We have sinned, for we have forsaken the Lord and have served the Baals and the images of Ashtoreth. ²¹  Now deliver us from the hand of our enemies so that we may serve you.’ ²² 

1 Samuel 14:36

14:36 Saul said, “Let’s go down after the Philistines at night; we will rout ²³  them until the break of day. ²⁴  We won’t leave any of them alive!” ²⁵  They replied, “Do whatever seems best to you.” ²⁶  But the priest said, “Let’s approach God here.”

1 Samuel 15:6

15:6 Saul said to the Kenites, “Go on and leave! Go down from among the Amalekites! Otherwise I will sweep you away ²⁷  with them! After all, you were kind to all the Israelites when they came up from Egypt.” So the Kenites withdrew from among the Amalekites.

1 Samuel 21:5

21:5 David said to the priest, “Certainly women have been kept away from us, just as on previous occasions when I have set out. The soldiers’ ²⁸  equipment is holy, even on an ordinary journey. How much more so will they be holy today, along with their equipment!”

1 Samuel 23:26

23:26 Saul went on one side of the mountain, while David and his men went on the other side of the mountain. David was hurrying to get away from Saul, but Saul and his men were surrounding David and his men so they could capture them.

1 Samuel 26:12

26:12 So David took the spear and the jug of water by Saul’s head, and they got out of there. No one saw them or was aware of their presence or woke up. All of them were asleep, for the Lord had caused a deep sleep to fall on them.

1 Samuel 27:11

27:11 Neither man nor woman would David leave alive so as to bring them back to Gath. He was thinking, “This way they can’t tell on us, saying, ‘This is what David did.’” Such was his practice the entire time ²⁹  that he lived in the country of the Philistines.

1 Samuel 31:7

31:7 When the men of Israel who were in the valley and across the Jordan saw that the men of Israel had fled and that Saul and his sons were dead, they abandoned the cities and fled. The Philistines came and occupied them.

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¹ tn Heb “living.”

² tn Heb “to all Israel.”

³ tn Heb “lie with.”

⁴ tn Or “people.”

⁵ tc Heb “only Dagon was left.” We should probably read the word גֵּו (gev, “back”) before Dagon, understanding it to have the sense of the similar word גְּוִיָּה (gÿviyyah, “body”). This variant is supported by the following evidence: The LXX has ἡ ῥάχις (Jh rJacis, “the back” or “trunk”); the Syriac Peshitta has wegusmeh (“and the body of”); the Targum has gupyeh (“the body of”); the Vulgate has truncus (“the trunk of,” cf. NAB, NASB, NRSV, NLT). On the strength of this evidence the present translation employs the phrase “Dagon’s body.”

⁶ tn Heb “and they sent and gathered.”

⁷ tn Heb “me.”

⁸ tn Heb “my.”

⁹ tn Or “panic.”

¹⁰ tn Heb “the hand of God was very heavy there.”

¹¹ tc The LXX and a Qumran ms add “the covenant of the Lord.”

¹² tc A few Hebrew mss and the LXX read “villages; the large rock…[is witness] until this very day.”

¹³ tn Heb “he”; the referent (the Lord) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

¹⁴ tc The number 50,070 is surprisingly large, although it finds almost unanimous textual support in the MT and in the ancient versions. Only a few medieval Hebrew mss lack “50,000,” reading simply “70” instead. However, there does not seem to be sufficient external evidence to warrant reading 70 rather than 50,070, although that is done by a number of recent translations (e.g., NAB, NIV, NRSV, NLT). The present translation (reluctantly) follows the MT and the ancient versions here.

¹⁵ tc This statement is absent in the LXX (with the exception of Origen), an Old Latin ms, and the Syriac Peshitta.

¹⁶ tn The words “Samuel then said” are supplied in the translation for clarification and for stylistic reasons.

¹⁷ sn In the Hebrew text the pronoun you is plural, suggesting that Saul’s father was concerned about his son and the servant who accompanied him.

¹⁸ tn Heb “yoke.”

¹⁹ tn Heb “like one man.”

²⁰ tn Heb “and said.”

²¹ tn Heb “the Ashtarot” (plural). The words “images of” are supplied in both vv. 3 and 4 for clarity.

sn The Semitic goddess Astarte was associated with love and war in the ancient Near East. See the note on the same term in 7:3.

²² tn After the imperative, the prefixed verbal form with the prefixed conjunction indicates purpose/result.

²³ tn Heb “plunder.”

²⁴ tn Heb “until the light of the morning.”

²⁵ tn Heb “and there will not be left among them a man.”

²⁶ tn Heb “all that is good in your eyes.” So also in v. 40.

²⁷ tc The translation follows the Syriac Peshitta and Vulgate which assume a reading אֶסִפְךָ (’esfÿka, “I sweep you away,” from the root ספה [sfh]) rather than the MT אֹסִפְךָ (’osifÿka, “I am gathering you,” from the root אסף[’sf]).

²⁸ tn Heb “servants’.”

²⁹ tn Heb “all the days.”