1 Samuel 2:9

2:9 He watches over 1  his holy ones, 2 

but the wicked are made speechless in the darkness,

for it is not by one’s own strength that one prevails.

1 Samuel 8:16

8:16 He will take your male and female servants, as well as your best cattle and your donkeys, and assign them for his own use.

1 Samuel 12:22

12:22 The Lord will not abandon his people because he wants to uphold his great reputation. 3  The Lord was pleased to make you his own people.

1 Samuel 17:38

17:38 Then Saul clothed David with his own fighting attire and put a bronze helmet on his head. He also put body armor on him.

1 Samuel 18:1

Saul Comes to Fear David

18:1 When David 4  had finished talking with Saul, Jonathan and David became bound together in close friendship. 5  Jonathan loved David as much as he did his own life. 6 

1 Samuel 20:17

20:17 Jonathan once again took an oath with David, because he loved him. In fact Jonathan loved him as much as he did his own life. 7 

1 Samuel 23:20

23:20 Now at your own discretion, 8  O king, come down. Delivering him into the king’s hand will be our responsibility.”

1 Samuel 25:33

25:33 Praised be your good judgment! May you yourself be rewarded 9  for having prevented me this day from shedding blood and taking matters into my own hands!

1 Samuel 27:12

27:12 So Achish trusted David, thinking to himself, 10  “He is really hated 11  among his own people in 12  Israel! From now on 13  he will be my servant.”

1 tn Heb “guards the feet of.” The expression means that God watches over and protects the godly in all of their activities and movements. The imperfect verbal forms in v. 9 are understood as indicating what is typically true. Another option is to translate them with the future tense. See v. 10b.

2 tc The translation follows the Qere and many medieval Hebrew mss in reading the plural (“his holy ones”) rather than the singular (“his holy one”) of the Kethib.

3 tn Heb “on account of his great name.”

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

5 tn Heb “the soul of Jonathan was bound with the soul of David.”

6 tn Heb “like his [own] soul.”

sn On the nature of Jonathan’s love for David, see J. A. Thompson, “The Significance of the Verb Love in the David-Jonathan Narratives in 1 Samuel,” VT 24 (1974): 334-38.

7 tn Heb “for [with] the love of his [own] life he loved him.”

8 tn Heb “to all the desire of your soul.”

9 tn Heb “blessed.”

10 tn Heb “saying.”

11 tn Heb “he really stinks.” The expression is used figuratively here to describe the rejection and ostracism that David had experienced as a result of Saul’s hatred of him.

12 tc Many medieval Hebrew mss lack the preposition “in.”

13 tn Heb “permanently.”