1 Samuel 9:21

9:21 Saul replied, “Am I not a Benjaminite, from the smallest of Israel’s tribes, and is not my family clan the smallest of all the tribes of Benjamin? Why do you speak to me in this way?”

1 Samuel 11:5

11:5 Now Saul was walking behind the¹ oxen as he came from the field. Saul asked, “What has happened to the people? Why are they weeping?” So they told him about² the men of Jabesh.

1 Samuel 14:28

14:28 Then someone from the army informed him, “Your father put the army under a strict oath³ saying, ‘Cursed be the man who eats food today!’ That is why the army is tired.”

1 Samuel 19:17

19:17 Saul said to Michal, “Why have you deceived me this way by sending my enemy away? Now he has escaped!” Michal replied to Saul, “He said to me, ‘Help me get away or else I will kill you!’”⁴

1 Samuel 20:2

20:2 Jonathan⁵ said to him, “By no means are you going to die! My father does nothing⁶ large or small without making me aware of it.⁷ Why would my father hide this matter from me? It just won’t happen!”

1 Samuel 20:8

20:8 You must be loyal⁸ to your servant, for you have made a covenant with your servant in the Lord’s name.⁹ If I am guilty,¹⁰ you yourself kill me! Why bother taking me to your father?”

1 Samuel 20:27

20:27 But the next morning, the second day of the new moon, David’s place was still vacant. So Saul said to his son Jonathan, “Why has Jesse’s son not come to the meal yesterday or today?”

1 Samuel 21:1

21:1 (21:2) David went to Ahimelech the priest in Nob. Ahimelech was shaking with fear when he met¹¹ David, and said to him, “Why are you by yourself with no one accompanying you?”

1 Samuel 26:15

26:15 David said to Abner, “Aren’t you a man? After all, who is like you in Israel? Why then haven’t you protected your lord the king? One of the soldiers came to kill your lord the king.

1 Samuel 27:5

27:5 David said to Achish, “If I have found favor with you, let me be given a place in one of the country towns so that I can live there. Why should your servant settle in the royal city with you?”

1 Samuel 28:9

28:9 But the woman said to him, “Look, you are aware of what Saul has done; he has removed¹² the mediums and magicians¹³ from the land! Why are you trapping me¹⁴ so you can put me to death?”

¹tn Or perhaps, “his oxen.” On this use of the definite article see Joüon 2:506-7 §137.f.

²tn Heb “the matters of.”

³tn Heb “your father surely put the army under an oath.” The infinitive absolute is used before the finite verb to emphasize the solemn nature of the oath.

⁴tn Heb “Send me away! Why should I kill you?” The question has the force of a threat in this context. See P. K. McCarter, I Samuel (AB), 325, 26.

⁵tn Heb “he”; the referent (Jonathan) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

⁶tc The translation follows the Qere, many medieval Hebrew mss, and the ancient versions in reading “he will not do,” rather than the Kethib of the MT (“do to him”).

⁷tn Heb “without uncovering my ear.”

⁸tn Heb “and you must do loyalty.”

⁹tn Heb “for into a covenant of the Lord you have brought your servant with you.”

¹⁰tn Heb “and if there is in me guilt.”

¹¹tn Heb “trembled to meet.”

¹²tn Heb “how he has cut off.”

¹³tn See the note at v. 3.

¹⁴tn Heb “my life.”