1 Samuel 8:5
8:5 They said to him, “Look, you are old, and your sons don’t follow your ways. So now appoint over us a king to lead 1 us, just like all the other nations have.”
1 Samuel 8:12
8:12 He will appoint for himself leaders of thousands and leaders of fifties, 2 as well as those who plow his ground, reap his harvest, and make his weapons of war and his chariot equipment.
1 Samuel 10:19
10:19 But today you have rejected your God who saves you from all your trouble and distress. You have said, “No! 3 Appoint a king over us.” Now take your positions before the Lord by your tribes and by your clans.’”
1 tn Heb “judge” (also in v. 6).
2 tc The numbers of v. 12 are confused in the Greek and Syriac versions. For “fifties” the LXX has “hundreds.” The Syriac Peshitta has “heads of thousands and heads of hundreds and heads of fifties and heads of tens,” perhaps reflecting influence from Deut 1:15.
3 tc The translation follows many medieval Hebrew mss, the LXX, the Syriac Peshitta, and Vulgate in reading לֹא (lo’, “not”) rather than the MT לוֹ (lo; “to him”). Some witnesses combine the variants, resulting in a conflated text. For example, a few medieval Hebrew mss have לֹא לוֹ (lo lo’; “to him, ‘No.’”). A few others have לֹא לִי (li lo’; “to me, ‘No.’”).