6:10 So the men did as instructed. 3 They took two cows that had calves and harnessed them to a cart; they also removed their calves to their stalls.
6:13 Now the residents of Beth Shemesh were harvesting wheat in the valley. When they looked up and saw the ark, they were pleased at the sight.
14:11 When they 4 made themselves known to the Philistine garrison, the Philistines said, “Look! The Hebrews are coming out of the holes in which they hid themselves.”
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.
25:12 So David’s servants went on their way. When they had returned, they came and told David 7 all these things.
‘Saul has struck down his thousands,
but David his tens of thousands’?”
30:11 Then they found an Egyptian in the field and brought him to David. They gave him bread to eat and water to drink.
1 tn The Hebrew text has a direct quote, “because they said, ‘Gods have come to the camp.’” Even though the verb translated “have come” is singular, the following subject should be taken as plural (“gods”), as v. 8 indicates. Some emend the verb to a plural form.
2 tn Traditionally “woe to.” They thought disaster was imminent.
3 tn Heb “and the men did so.”
4 tn Heb “the two of them.”
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 “him”; the referent (David) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
8 tn Heb “in dances.”