1 Samuel 2:10

2:10 The Lord shatters ¹  his adversaries; ² 

he thunders against them from ³  the heavens.

The Lord executes judgment to the ends of the earth.

He will strengthen ⁴  his king

and exalt the power ⁵  of his anointed one.” ⁶ 

1 Samuel 15:6

15:6 Saul said to the Kenites, “Go on and leave! Go down from among the Amalekites! Otherwise I will sweep you away ⁷  with them! After all, you were kind to all the Israelites when they came up from Egypt.” So the Kenites withdrew from among the Amalekites.

1 Samuel 15:9

15:9 However, Saul and the army spared Agag, along with the best of the flock, the cattle, the fatlings, ⁸  and the lambs, as well as everything else that was of value. ⁹  They were not willing to slaughter them. But they did slaughter everything that was despised ¹⁰  and worthless.

1 Samuel 15:15

15:15 Saul said, “They were brought ¹¹  from the Amalekites; the army spared the best of the flocks and cattle to sacrifice to the Lord our God. But everything else we slaughtered.”

1 Samuel 18:25

18:25 Saul replied, “Here is what you should say to David: ‘There is nothing that the king wants as a price for the bride except a hundred Philistine foreskins, so that he can be avenged of his ¹²  enemies.’” (Now Saul was thinking that he could kill David by the hand of the Philistines.)

[2:10]  ¹ tn The imperfect verbal forms in this line and in the next two lines are understood as indicating what is typically true. Another option is to translate them with the future tense. See v. 10b.

[2:10]  ² tc The present translation follows the Qere, many medieval Hebrew manuscripts, the Syriac Peshitta, and the Vulgate in reading the plural (“his adversaries,” similarly many other English versions) rather than the singular (“his adversary”) of the Kethib.

[2:10]  ³ tn The Hebrew preposition here has the sense of “from within.”

[2:10]  ⁴ tn The imperfect verbal forms in this and the next line are understood as indicating what is anticipated and translated with the future tense, because at the time of Hannah’s prayer Israel did not yet have a king.

[2:10]  ⁵ tn Heb “the horn,” here a metaphor for power or strength. Cf. NCV “make his appointed king strong”; NLT “increases the might of his anointed one.”

[2:10]  ⁶ tc The LXX greatly expands v. 10 with an addition that seems to be taken from Jer 9:23-24.

[2:10]  sn The anointed one is the anticipated king of Israel, as the preceding line makes clear.

[15:6]  ⁷ tc The translation follows the Syriac Peshitta and Vulgate which assume a reading אֶסִפְךָ (’esfÿka, “I sweep you away,” from the root ספה [sfh]) rather than the MT אֹסִפְךָ (’osifÿka, “I am gathering you,” from the root אסף[’sf]).

[15:9]  ⁸ tn The Hebrew text is difficult here. We should probably read וְהַמַּשְׂמַנִּים (vÿhammasmannim, “the fat ones”) rather than the MT וְהַמִּשְׂנִים (vÿhammisnim, “the second ones”). However, if the MT is retained, the sense may be as the Jewish commentator Kimchi supposed: the second-born young, thought to be better than the firstlings. (For discussion see S. R. Driver, Notes on the Hebrew Text and the Topography of the Books of Samuel, 123-24.)

[15:9]  ⁹ tn Heb “good.”

[15:9]  ¹⁰ tc The MT has here the very odd form נְמִבְזָה (nÿmivzah), but this is apparently due to a scribal error. The translation follows instead the Niphal participle נִבְזָה (nivzah).

[15:15]  ¹¹ tn Heb “they brought them.”

[18:25]  ¹² tn Heb “the king’s.”