Discovery Box1 Samuel 2:5-6 
Context2:5 Those who are well-fed hire themselves out to earn food,
but the hungry no longer lack.
Even 1 the barren woman gives birth to seven, 2
but the one with many children withers away. 3
2:6 The Lord both kills and gives life;
he brings down to the grave 4 and raises up.
1 tc Against BHS but with the MT, the preposition (עַד, ’ad) should be taken with what follows rather than with what precedes. For this sense of the preposition see Job 25:5.
2 sn The number seven is used here in an ideal sense. Elsewhere in the OT having seven children is evidence of fertility as a result of God’s blessing on the family. See, for example, Jer 15:9, Ruth 4:15.
3 tn Or “languishes.”
4 tn Heb “Sheol”; NAB “the nether world”; CEV “the world of the dead.”
