1 Samuel 10:1

Then Samuel took a small container of olive oil and poured it on Saul’s ¹  head. Samuel ²  kissed him and said, “The Lord has chosen you ³  to lead his people Israel! You will rule over the Lord’s people and you will deliver them from the power of the enemies who surround them. This will be your sign that the Lord has chosen ⁴  you as leader over his inheritance. ⁵ 

Ex 19:5,6; De 32:9; Jos 5:14,15; 1Sa 2:10; 1Sa 8:9,19; 1Sa 9:16; 1Sa 13:14; 1Sa 16:13; 1Sa 24:6; 1Sa 26:11; 2Sa 5:2; 2Sa 19:39; 1Ki 19:18; 2Ki 9:3-6; 2Ki 20:5; Ps 2:12; Ps 78:71; Ps 135:4; Jer 10:16; Ho 13:2; Ac 13:21; 1Th 5:26; Heb 2:10; Re 5:8

¹ tn Heb “his”; the referent (Saul) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

² tn Heb “he”; the referent (Samuel) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

³ tn Heb “Is it not that the Lord has anointed you?” The question draws attention to the fact and is a rhetorical way of affirming the Lord’s choice of Saul. The translation reflects the rhetorical force of the question.

⁴ tn That is, “anointed.”

⁵ tc The MT reads simply “Is it not that the Lord has anointed you over his inheritance for a leader?” The translation follows the LXX. The MT apparently suffers from parablepsis, whereby a scribe’s eye jumped from the first occurrence of the expression “the Lord has anointed you” to the second occurrence of this expression at the end of v. 1. This mistake caused the accidental omission of the intervening material in the LXX, which appears to preserve the original Hebrew text here.