1 Samuel 2:29

2:29 Why are you 1  scorning my sacrifice and my offering that I commanded for my dwelling place? 2  You have honored your sons more than you have me by having made yourselves fat from the best parts of all the offerings of my people Israel.’

1 Samuel 14:36

14:36 Saul said, “Let’s go down after the Philistines at night; we will rout 3  them until the break of day. 4  We won’t leave any of them alive!” 5  They replied, “Do whatever seems best to you.” 6  But the priest said, “Let’s approach God here.”

1 Samuel 15:9

15:9 However, Saul and the army spared Agag, along with the best of the flock, the cattle, the fatlings, 7  and the lambs, as well as everything else that was of value. 8  They were not willing to slaughter them. But they did slaughter everything that was despised 9  and worthless.

1 tc The MT has a plural “you” here, but the LXX and a Qumran ms have the singular. The singular may be the correct reading; the verb “you have honored” later in the verse is singular even in the MT. However, it is more probable that the Lord here refers to Eli and his sons. Note the plural in the second half of the verse (“you have made yourselves fat”).

2 tn Heb “which I commanded, dwelling place.” The noun is functioning as an adverbial accusative in relation to the verb. Since God’s dwelling place/sanctuary is in view, the pronoun “my” is supplied in the translation.

3 tn Heb “plunder.”

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

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

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

7 tn The Hebrew text is difficult here. We should probably read וְהַמַּשְׂמַנִּים (vÿhammasmannim, “the fat ones”) rather than the MT וְהַמִּשְׂנִים (vÿhammisnim, “the second ones”). However, if the MT is retained, the sense may be as the Jewish commentator Kimchi supposed: the second-born young, thought to be better than the firstlings. (For discussion see S. R. Driver, Notes on the Hebrew Text and the Topography of the Books of Samuel, 123-24.)

8 tn Heb “good.”

9 tc The MT has here the very odd form נְמִבְזָה (nÿmivzah), but this is apparently due to a scribal error. The translation follows instead the Niphal participle נִבְזָה (nivzah).