1 Samuel 2:9

He watches over ¹  his holy ones, ²  but the wicked are made speechless in the darkness, for it is not by one’s own strength that one prevails.

De 33:3; 1Sa 17:49,50; Job 5:16; Job 5:24; Ps 33:16,17; Ps 37:23,24; Ps 37:28; Ps 91:11,12; Ps 94:18; Ps 97:10; Ps 121:3,5,8; Pr 2:8; Pr 16:9; Ec 5:17; Ec 9:11; Jer 8:14; Jer 9:23; Zep 1:15; Zec 4:6; Mt 8:12; Mt 22:12,13; Ro 3:19; 1Pe 1:5; 2Pe 2:17; Jude 1:1,3; Jude 1:13

¹ tn Heb “guards the feet of.” The expression means that God watches over and protects the godly in all of their activities and movements. The imperfect verbal forms in v. 9 are understood as indicating what is typically true. Another option is to translate them with the future tense. See v. 10b.

² tc The translation follows the Qere and many medieval Hebrew mss in reading the plural (“his holy ones”) rather than the singular (“his holy one”) of the Kethib.