4:10 So the Philistines fought. Israel was defeated; they all ran home. 1 The slaughter was very great; thirty thousand foot soldiers fell in battle.
4:12 On that day 2 a Benjaminite ran from the battle lines and came to Shiloh. His clothes were torn and dirt was on his head.
14:20 Saul and all the army that was with him assembled and marched into battle, where they found 3 the Philistines in total panic killing one another with their swords. 4
17:1 5 The Philistines gathered their troops 6 for battle. They assembled at Socoh in Judah. They camped in Ephes Dammim, between Socoh and Azekah. 17:2 Saul and the Israelite army 7 assembled and camped in the valley of Elah, where they arranged their battle lines to fight against 8 the Philistines.
17:48 The Philistine drew steadily closer to David to attack him, while David quickly ran toward the battle line to attack the Philistine. 9
1 tn Heb “and they fled, each to his tents.”
2 tn Or perhaps, “the same day.” On this use of the demonstrative pronoun see Joüon 2:532 §143.f.
3 tn Heb “and look, there was”
4 tn Heb “the sword of a man against his companion, a very great panic.”
5 tc The content of 1 Sam 17–18, which includes the David and Goliath story, differs considerably in the LXX as compared to the MT, suggesting that this story circulated in ancient times in more than one form. The LXX for chs. 17–18 is much shorter than the MT, lacking almost half of the material (39 of a total of 88 verses). Many scholars (e.g., McCarter, Klein) think that the shorter text of the LXX is preferable to the MT, which in their view has been expanded by incorporation of later material. Other scholars (e.g., Wellhausen, Driver) conclude that the shorter Greek text (or the Hebrew text that underlies it) reflects an attempt to harmonize certain alleged inconsistencies that appear in the longer version of the story. Given the translation characteristics of the LXX elsewhere in this section, it does not seem likely that these differences are due to deliberate omission of these verses on the part of the translator. It seems more likely that the Greek translator has faithfully rendered here a Hebrew text that itself was much shorter than the MT in these chapters. Whether or not the shorter text represented by the LXX is to be preferred over the MT in 1 Sam 17–18 is a matter over which textual scholars are divided. For a helpful discussion of the major textual issues in this unit see D. Barthélemy, D. W. Gooding, J. Lust, and E. Tov, The Story of David and Goliath (OBO). Overall it seems preferable to stay with the MT, at least for the most part. However, the major textual differences between the LXX and the MT will be mentioned in the notes that accompany the translation so that the reader may be alert to the major problem passages.
6 tn Heb “camps.”
7 tn Heb “the men of Israel” (so KJV, NASB); NAB, NIV, NRSV “the Israelites.”
8 tn Heb “to meet.”
9 tc Most LXX
10 tn Heb “him”; the referent (David) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
11 tn Heb “an officer of a thousand.”
12 tn Heb “and he went out and came in before the people.” See v. 16.