1 Samuel 1:22

1:22 but Hannah did not go up with them. ¹  Instead she told her husband, “Once the boy is weaned, I will bring him and appear before the Lord, and he will remain there from then on.”

1 Samuel 2:30

2:30 Therefore the Lord, the God of Israel, says, ‘I really did say ²  that your house and your ancestor’s house would serve ³  me forever.’ But now the Lord says, ‘May it never be! ⁴  For I will honor those who honor me, but those who despise me will be cursed!

1 Samuel 3:13-14

3:13 You ⁵  should tell him that I am about to judge his house forever because of ⁶  the sin that he knew about. For his sons were cursing God, ⁷  and he did not rebuke them. 3:14 Therefore I swore an oath to the house of Eli, ‘The sin of the house of Eli can never be forgiven by sacrifice or by grain offering.’”

1 Samuel 13:13

13:13 Then Samuel said to Saul, “You have made a foolish choice! You have not obeyed ⁸  the commandment that the Lord your God gave ⁹  you. Had you done that, the Lord would have established your kingdom over Israel forever!

1 Samuel 20:15

20:15 Don’t ever cut off your loyalty to my family, not even when the Lord has cut off every one of David’s enemies from the face of the earth

1 Samuel 20:23

20:23 With regard to the matter that you and I discussed, the Lord is the witness between us forever!” ¹⁰ 

1 Samuel 20:42

20:42 Jonathan said to David, “Go in peace, for the two of us have sworn together in the name of the Lord saying, ‘The Lord will be between me and you and between my descendants and your descendants forever.’”

David Goes to Nob

(21:1)

¹¹ Then David ¹²  got up and left, while Jonathan went back to the city.

1 Samuel 27:12

27:12 So Achish trusted David, thinking to himself, ¹³  “He is really hated ¹⁴  among his own people in ¹⁵  Israel! From now on ¹⁶  he will be my servant.”

[1:22]  ¹ tn The disjunctive clause is contrastive here. The words “with them” have been supplied in the translation for stylistic reasons.

[2:30]  ² tn The infinitive absolute appears before the finite verb for emphasis.

[2:30]  ³ tn Heb “walk about before.”

[2:30]  ⁴ tn Heb “may it be far removed from me.”

[3:13]  ⁵ tc The MT has וְהִגַּדְתִּי לוֹ (vÿhiggadti lo). The verb is Hiphil perfect 1st person common singular, and apparently the conjunction should be understood as vav consecutive (“I will say to him”). But the future reference makes more sense if Samuel is the subject. This would require dropping the final י (yod) and reading the 2nd person masculine singular וְהִגַּדְתָּ (vÿhiggadta). Although there is no external evidence to support it, this reading has been adopted in the present translation. The alternative is to understand the MT to mean “I said to him,” but for this we would expect the preterite with vav consecutive.

[3:13]  ⁶ tn The translation understands the preposition to have a causal sense. However, the preposition could also be understood as the beth pretii, indicating in a broad sense the price attached to this action. So GKC 380 §119.p.

[3:13]  ⁷ tc The translation follows the LXX θεόν (qeon, “God”) rather than the MT לָהֶם (lahem, “to them”). The MT seems to mean “they were bringing a curse on themselves” (cf. ASV, NASB). But this meaning is problematic in part because the verb qll means “to curse,” not “to bring a curse on,” and in part because it takes an accusative object rather than the equivalent of a dative. This is one of the so-called tiqqune sopherim, or “emendations of the scribes.” Why would the ancient copyists alter the original statement about Eli’s sons cursing God to the less objectionable statement that they brought a curse on themselves? Some argue that the scribes were concerned that such a direct and blasphemous affront against God could occur without an immediate response of judgment from God. Therefore they changed the text by deleting two letters א and י (alef and yod) from the word for “God,” with the result that the text then read “to them.” If this ancient scribal claim is accepted as accurate, it implies that the MT here is secondary. The present translation follows the LXX (κακολογοῦντες θεόν, kakologounte" qeon) and a few mss of the Old Latin in reading “God” rather than the MT “to them.” Cf. also NAB, NRSV, NLT.

[13:13]  ⁸ tn Or “kept.”

[13:13]  ⁹ tn Heb “commanded.”

[20:23]  ¹⁰ tc Heb “the Lord [is] between me and between you forever.” The translation assumes that the original text read עֵד עַד־עוֹלָם (’ed ’ad-’olam), “a witness forever,” with the noun “a witness” accidentally falling out of the text by haplography. See P. K. McCarter, I Samuel (AB), 338.

[20:42]  ¹¹ sn Beginning with 20:42b, the verse numbers through 21:15 in the English Bible differ from the verse numbers in the Hebrew text (BHS), with 20:42b ET = 21:1 HT, 21:1 ET = 21:2 HT, 21:2 ET = 21:3 HT, etc., through 21:15 ET = 21:16 HT. With 22:1 the verse numbers in the ET and HT are again the same.

[20:42]  ¹² tn Heb “he”; the referent (David) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[27:12]  ¹³ tn Heb “saying.”

[27:12]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “he really stinks.” The expression is used figuratively here to describe the rejection and ostracism that David had experienced as a result of Saul’s hatred of him.

[27:12]  ¹⁵ tc Many medieval Hebrew mss lack the preposition “in.”

[27:12]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “permanently.”