1 Samuel 2:33

2:33 Any one of you that I do not cut off from my altar, I will cause your ¹  eyes to fail ²  and will cause you grief. ³  All of those born to your family ⁴  will die in the prime of life. ⁵ 

1 Samuel 12:19

12:19 All the people said to Samuel, “Pray to the Lord your God on behalf of us – your servants – so we won’t die, for we have added to all our sins by asking for a king.” ⁶ 

1 Samuel 14:39

14:39 For as surely as the Lord, the deliverer of Israel, lives, even if it turns out to be my own son Jonathan, he will certainly die!” But no one from the army said anything. ⁷ 

1 Samuel 14:43

14:43 So Saul said to Jonathan, “Tell me what you have done.” Jonathan told him, “I used the end of the staff that was in my hand to taste a little honey. I must die!” ⁸ 

1 Samuel 20:2

20:2 Jonathan ⁹  said to him, “By no means are you going to die! My father does nothing ¹⁰  large or small without making me aware of it. ¹¹  Why would my father hide this matter from me? It just won’t happen!”

1 Samuel 26:10

26:10 David went on to say, “As the Lord lives, the Lord himself will strike him down. Either his day will come and he will die, or he will go down into battle and be swept away.

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¹ tc The LXX, a Qumran ms, and a few old Latin mss have the third person pronominal suffix “his” here.

² tn Heb “to cause your eyes to fail.” Elsewhere this verb, when used of eyes, refers to bloodshot eyes resulting from weeping, prolonged staring, or illness (see Lev 26:16; Pss 69:3; 119:82; Lam 2:11; 4:17).

³ tn Heb “and to cause your soul grief.”

⁴ tn Heb “and all the increase of your house.”

⁵ tc The text is difficult. The MT literally says “they will die [as] men.” Apparently the meaning is that they will be cut off in the prime of their life without reaching old age. The LXX and a Qumran ms, however, have the additional word “sword” (“they will die by the sword of men”). This is an easier reading (cf. NAB, NRSV, TEV, CEV, NLT), but that fact is not in favor of its originality.

⁶ tn Heb “for we have added to all our sins an evil [thing] by asking for ourselves a king.”

⁷ tn Heb “and there was no one answering from all the army.”

⁸ tn Heb “Look, I, I will die.” Apparently Jonathan is acquiescing to his anticipated fate of death. However, the words may be taken as sarcastic (“Here I am about to die!”) or as a question, “Must I now die?” (cf. NAB, NIV, NCV, NLT).

⁹ tn Heb “he”; the referent (Jonathan) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

¹⁰ tc The translation follows the Qere, many medieval Hebrew mss, and the ancient versions in reading “he will not do,” rather than the Kethib of the MT (“do to him”).

¹¹ tn Heb “without uncovering my ear.”