1 Samuel 2:21

2:21 So the Lord graciously attended to Hannah, and she was able to conceive and gave birth to three sons and two daughters. The boy Samuel grew up at the Lord’s sanctuary. ¹ 

1 Samuel 4:16

4:16 The man said to Eli, “I am the one who came from the battle lines! Just today I fled from the battle lines!” Eli ²  asked, “How did things go, my son?”

1 Samuel 12:8

12:8 When Jacob entered Egypt, your ancestors cried out to the Lord. The Lord sent Moses and Aaron, and they led your ancestors out of Egypt and settled them in this place.

1 Samuel 14:19

14:19 While ³  Saul spoke to the priest, the panic in the Philistines’ camp was becoming greater and greater. So Saul said to the priest, “Withdraw your hand!”

1 Samuel 15:32

Samuel Puts Agag to Death

15:32 Then Samuel said, “Bring me King Agag of the Amalekites.” So Agag came to him trembling, ⁴  thinking to himself, ⁵  “Surely death is bitter!” ⁶ 

1 Samuel 17:39

17:39 David strapped on his sword over his fighting attire and tried to walk around, but he was not used to them. ⁷  David said to Saul, “I can’t walk in these things, for I’m not used to them.” So David removed them.

1 Samuel 19:18

19:18 Now David had run away and escaped. He went to Samuel in Ramah and told him everything that Saul had done to him. Then he and Samuel went and stayed at Naioth.

1 Samuel 20:36

20:36 He said to his servant, “Run, find the arrows that I am about to shoot.” As the servant ran, Jonathan ⁸  shot the arrow beyond him.

1 Samuel 21:1

21:1 (21:2) David went to Ahimelech the priest in Nob. Ahimelech was shaking with fear when he met ⁹  David, and said to him, “Why are you by yourself with no one accompanying you?”

1 Samuel 21:7

21:7 (One of Saul’s servants was there that day, detained before the Lord. His name was Doeg the Edomite, who was in charge of Saul’s shepherds.)

1 Samuel 22:5

22:5 Then Gad the prophet said to David, “Don’t stay in the stronghold. Go to the land of Judah.” So David left and went to the forest of Hereth.

1 Samuel 23:24

23:24 So they left and went to Ziph ahead of Saul. Now David and his men were in the desert of Maon, in the Arabah to the south of Jeshimon.

1 Samuel 28:24

28:24 Now the woman ¹⁰  had a well-fed calf ¹¹  at her home that she quickly slaughtered. Taking some flour, she kneaded bread and baked it without leaven.

[2:21]  ¹ tn Heb “with the Lord.” Cf. NAB, TEV “in the service of the Lord”; NIV, NRSV, NLT “in the presence of the Lord”; CEV “at the Lord’s house in Shiloh.”

[4:16]  ² tn Heb “he”; the referent (Eli) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[14:19]  ³ tn Or perhaps “until.”

[15:32]  ⁴ tn The MT reading מַעֲדַנֹּת (ma’adannot, literally, “bonds,” used here adverbially, “in bonds”) is difficult. The word is found only here and in Job 38:31. Part of the problem lies in determining the root of the word. Some scholars have taken it to be from the root ענד (’nd, “to bind around”), but this assumes a metathesis of two of the letters of the root. Others take it from the root עדן (’dn) with the meaning “voluptuously,” but this does not seem to fit the context. It seems better to understand the word to be from the root מעד (m’d, “to totter” or “shake”). In that case it describes the fear that Agag experienced in realizing the mortal danger that he faced as he approached Samuel. This is the way that the LXX translators understood the word, rendering it by the Greek participle τρέμον (tremon, “trembling”).

[15:32]  ⁵ tn Heb “and Agag said.”

[15:32]  ⁶ tc The text is difficult here. With the LXX, two Old Latin mss, and the Syriac Peshitta it is probably preferable to delete סָר (sar, “is past”) of the MT; it looks suspiciously like a dittograph of the following word מַר (mar, “bitter”). This further affects the interpretation of Agag’s comment. In the MT he comes to Samuel confidently assured that the danger is over (cf. KJV, NASB, NIV “Surely the bitterness of death is past,” along with NLT, CEV). However, it seems more likely that Agag realized that his fortunes had suddenly taken a turn for the worse and that the clemency he had enjoyed from Saul would not be his lot from Samuel. The present translation thus understands Agag to approach not confidently but in the stark realization that his death is imminent (“Surely death is bitter!”). Cf. NAB “So it is bitter death!”; NRSV “Surely this is the bitterness of death”; TEV “What a bitter thing it is to die!”

[17:39]  ⁷ tn Heb “he had not tested.”

[20:36]  ⁸ tn Heb “he”; the referent (Jonathan) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[21:1]  ⁹ tn Heb “trembled to meet.”

[28:24]  ¹⁰ sn Masoretic mss of the Hebrew Bible mark this word as the half-way point in the book of Samuel, treating 1 and 2 Samuel as a single book. Similar notations are found at the midway point for all of the books of the Hebrew Bible.

[28:24]  ¹¹ tn Heb “a calf of the stall.”