1 Samuel 7:3

7:3 Samuel said to all the people of Israel, “If you are really turning to the Lord with all your hearts, remove from among you the foreign gods and the images of Ashtoreth. 1  Give your hearts to the Lord and serve only him. Then he will deliver you 2  from the hand of the Philistines.”

1 Samuel 14:34

14:34 Then Saul said, “Scatter out among the army and say to them, ‘Each of you bring to me your ox and sheep and slaughter them in this spot and eat. But don’t sin against the Lord by eating the blood.” So that night each one brought his ox and slaughtered it there. 3 

1 Samuel 16:1

Samuel Anoints David as King

16:1 The Lord said to Samuel, “How long do you intend to mourn for Saul? I have rejected him as king over Israel. 4  Fill your horn with olive oil and go! I am sending you to Jesse in Bethlehem, 5  for I have selected a king for myself from among his sons.” 6 

1 Samuel 30:22

30:22 But all the evil and worthless men among those who had gone with David said, “Since they didn’t go with us, 7  we won’t give them any of the loot we retrieved! They may take only their wives and children. Let them lead them away and be gone!”

1 tn Heb “the Ashtarot” (plural; also in the following verse). The words “images of” are supplied for clarity.

sn The Semitic goddess Astarte was associated with love and war in the ancient Near East. The presence of Ashtarot in Israel is a sign of pervasive pagan and idolatrous influences; hence Samuel calls for their removal. See 1 Sam 31:10, where the Philistines deposit the armor of the deceased Saul in the temple of the Ashtarot, and 1 Kgs 11:5, 33; 2 Kgs 23:13, where Solomon is faulted for worshiping the Ashtarot.

2 tn Following imperatives, the jussive verbal form with the prefixed conjunction indicates purpose/result.

3 tn Heb “and all the army brought near, each his ox by his hand, and they slaughtered there.”

4 tc The Lucianic recension of the Old Greek translation includes the following words: “And the Lord said to Samuel.”

5 map For location see Map5-B1; Map7-E2; Map8-E2; Map10-B4.

6 tn Heb “for I have seen among his sons for me a king.”

7 tc Heb “with me.” The singular is used rather than the plural because the group is being treated as a singular entity, in keeping with Hebrew idiom. It is not necessary to read “with us,” rather than the MT “with me,” although the plural can be found here in a few medieval Hebrew mss. See also the LXX, Syriac Peshitta, and Vulgate, although these versions may simply reflect an understanding of the idiom as found in the MT rather than a different textual reading.