1 Samuel 2:5

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

but the hungry no longer lack.

Even 1  the barren woman gives birth to seven, 2 

but the one with many children withers away. 3 

1 Samuel 14:28

14:28 Then someone from the army informed him, “Your father put the army under a strict oath 4  saying, ‘Cursed be the man who eats food today!’ That is why the army is tired.”

1 Samuel 20:34

20:34 Jonathan got up from the table enraged. He did not eat any food on that second day of the new moon, for he was upset that his father had humiliated David. 5 

1 Samuel 30:12

30:12 They gave him a slice of pressed figs and two bunches of raisins to eat. This greatly refreshed him, 6  for he had not eaten food or drunk water for three days and three nights.

1 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.

2 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.

3 tn Or “languishes.”

4 tn Heb “your father surely put the army under an oath.” The infinitive absolute is used before the finite verb to emphasize the solemn nature of the oath.

5 tn Heb “for he was upset concerning David for his father had humiliated him.” The referent of the pronoun “him” is not entirely clear, but the phrase “concerning David” suggests that it refers to David, rather than Jonathan.

6 tn Heb “his spirit returned to him.”