10:12 A man who was from there replied, “And who is their father?” Therefore this became a proverb: “Is even Saul among the prophets?”
14:20 Saul and all the army that was with him assembled and marched into battle, where they found 6 the Philistines in total panic killing one another with their swords. 7
17:1 8 The Philistines gathered their troops 9 for battle. They assembled at Socoh in Judah. They camped in Ephes Dammim, between Socoh and Azekah. 17:2 Saul and the Israelite army 10 assembled and camped in the valley of Elah, where they arranged their battle lines to fight against 11 the Philistines.
23:5 So David and his men went to Keilah and fought the Philistines. He took away their cattle and thoroughly defeated them. 12 David delivered the inhabitants of Keilah.
25:12 So David’s servants went on their way. When they had returned, they came and told David 13 all these things.
30:3 When David and his men came to the city, they found it burned. 14 Their wives, sons, and daughters had been taken captive.
1 tn Heb “like Egypt and Pharaoh hardened their heart.”
2 tn Heb “he”; the referent (God) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
3 tn Heb “and they sent them away and they went.”
4 tn Or perhaps “vaults.” This rare term also occurs in Judg 9:46, 49. Cf. KJV “high places”; ASV “coverts”; NAB “caverns”; NASB “cellars”; NIV, NCV, TEV “pits”; NRSV, NLT “tombs.”
5 tc The translation follows the LXX (“their sickle”) here, rather than the MT “plowshares,” which is due to dittography from the word earlier in the verse.
6 tn Heb “and look, there was”
7 tn Heb “the sword of a man against his companion, a very great panic.”
8 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.
9 tn Heb “camps.”
10 tn Heb “the men of Israel” (so KJV, NASB); NAB, NIV, NRSV “the Israelites.”
11 tn Heb “to meet.”
12 tn Heb “and struck them down with a great blow.”
13 tn Heb “him”; the referent (David) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
14 tn Heb “and David and his men came to the city, and look, it was burned with fire.”