1 Samuel 20:8

20:8 You must be loyal ¹  to your servant, for you have made a covenant with your servant in the Lord’s name. ²  If I am guilty, ³  you yourself kill me! Why bother taking me to your father?”

1 Samuel 20:13-17

20:13 But if my father intends to do you harm, may the Lord do all this and more to Jonathan, if I don’t let you know ⁴  and send word to you so you can go safely on your way. ⁵  May the Lord be with you, as he was with my father. 20:14 While I am still alive, extend to me the loyalty of the Lord, or else I will die! 20:15 Don’t ever cut off your loyalty to my family, not even when the Lord has cut off every one of David’s enemies from the face of the earth 20:16 and called David’s enemies to account.” So Jonathan made a covenant ⁶  with the house of David. ⁷  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. ⁸ 

1 Samuel 20:30-34

20:30 Saul became angry with Jonathan ⁹  and said to him, “You stupid traitor! ¹⁰  Don’t I realize that to your own disgrace and to the disgrace of your mother’s nakedness you have chosen this son of Jesse? 20:31 For as long as ¹¹  this son of Jesse is alive on the earth, you and your kingdom will not be established. Now, send some men ¹²  and bring him to me. For he is as good as dead!” ¹³ 

20:32 Jonathan responded to his father Saul, “Why should he be put to death? What has he done?” 20:33 Then Saul threw his spear at Jonathan ¹⁴  in order to strike him down. So Jonathan was convinced ¹⁵  that his father had decided to kill David. 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. ¹⁶ 

1 Samuel 20:42

20:42 Jonathan said to David, “Go in peace, for the two of us have sworn together in the name of the Lord saying, ‘The Lord will be between me and you and between my descendants and your descendants forever.’”

(21:1)

¹⁷ Then David ¹⁸  got up and left, while Jonathan went back to the city.

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¹ tn Heb “and you must do loyalty.”

² tn Heb “for into a covenant of the Lord you have brought your servant with you.”

³ tn Heb “and if there is in me guilt.”

⁴ tn Heb “uncover your ear.”

⁵ tn Heb “in peace.”

⁶ tn Heb “cut.” The object of the verb (“covenant”) must be supplied.

⁷ tn The word order is different in the Hebrew text, which reads “and Jonathan cut with the house of David, and the Lord will seek from the hand of the enemies of David.” The translation assumes that the main clauses of the verse have been accidentally transposed in the course of transmission. The first part of the verse (as it stands in MT) belongs with v. 17, while the second part of the verse actually continues v. 15.

⁸ tn Heb “for [with] the love of his [own] life he loved him.”

⁹ tc Many medieval Hebrew mss include the words “his son” here.

¹⁰ tn Heb “son of a perverse woman of rebelliousness.” But such an overly literal and domesticated translation of the Hebrew expression fails to capture the force of Saul’s unrestrained reaction. Saul, now incensed and enraged over Jonathan’s liaison with David, is actually hurling very coarse and emotionally charged words at his son. The translation of this phrase suggested by Koehler and Baumgartner is “bastard of a wayward woman” (HALOT 796 s.v. עוה), but this is not an expression commonly used in English. A better English approximation of the sentiments expressed here by the Hebrew phrase would be “You stupid son of a bitch!” However, sensitivity to the various public formats in which the Bible is read aloud has led to a less startling English rendering which focuses on the semantic value of Saul’s utterance (i.e., the behavior of his own son Jonathan, which he viewed as both a personal and a political betrayal [= “traitor”]). But this concession should not obscure the fact that Saul is full of bitterness and frustration. That he would address his son Jonathan with such language, not to mention his apparent readiness even to kill his own son over this friendship with David (v. 33), indicates something of the extreme depth of Saul’s jealousy and hatred of David.

¹¹ tn Heb “all the days that.”

¹² tn The words “some men” are supplied in the translation for stylistic reasons.

¹³ tn Heb “a son of death.”

¹⁴ tn Heb “him”; the referent (Jonathan) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

¹⁵ tn Heb “knew.”

¹⁶ 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.

¹⁷ sn Beginning with 20:42b, the verse numbers through 21:15 in the English Bible differ from the verse numbers in the Hebrew text (BHS), with 20:42b ET = 21:1 HT, 21:1 ET = 21:2 HT, 21:2 ET = 21:3 HT, etc., through 21:15 ET = 21:16 HT. With 22:1 the verse numbers in the ET and HT are again the same.

¹⁸ tn Heb “he”; the referent (David) has been specified in the translation for clarity.