1 Samuel 2:5

2:5 Those who are well-fed hire themselves out to earn food,

but the hungry no longer lack.

Even the barren woman gives birth to seven,

but the one with many children withers away.


tc Against BHS but with the MT, the preposition (עַד, ’ad) should be taken with what follows rather than with what precedes. For this sense of the preposition see Job 25:5.

sn The number seven is used here in an ideal sense. Elsewhere in the OT having seven children is evidence of fertility as a result of God’s blessing on the family. See, for example, Jer 15:9, Ruth 4:15.

tn Or “languishes.”