1 Samuel 2:30-36

2:30 Therefore the Lord, the God of Israel, says, ‘I really did say ¹  that your house and your ancestor’s house would serve ²  me forever.’ But now the Lord says, ‘May it never be! ³  For I will honor those who honor me, but those who despise me will be cursed! 2:31 In fact, days are coming when I will remove your strength ⁴  and the strength ⁵  of your father’s house. There will not be an old man in your house! 2:32 You will see trouble in my dwelling place! ⁶  Israel will experience blessings, ⁷  but there will not be an old man in your ⁸  house for all time. ⁹  2:33 Any one of you that I do not cut off from my altar, I will cause your ¹⁰  eyes to fail ¹¹  and will cause you grief. ¹²  All of those born to your family ¹³  will die in the prime of life. ¹⁴  2:34 This will be a confirming sign for you that will be fulfilled through your two sons, ¹⁵  Hophni and Phinehas: in a single day they both will die! 2:35 Then I will raise up for myself a faithful priest. He will do what is in my heart and soul. I will build for him a secure dynasty ¹⁶  and he will serve my chosen one for all time. ¹⁷  2:36 Everyone who remains in your house will come to bow before him for a little money ¹⁸  and for a scrap of bread. Each will say, ‘Assign me to a priestly task so I can eat a scrap of bread.’”

1 Samuel 3:12-14

3:12 On that day I will carry out ¹⁹  against Eli everything that I spoke about his house – from start to finish! 3:13 You ²⁰  should tell him that I am about to judge his house forever because of ²¹  the sin that he knew about. For his sons were cursing God, ²²  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.’”

[2:30]  ¹ tn The infinitive absolute appears before the finite verb for emphasis.

[2:30]  ² tn Heb “walk about before.”

[2:30]  ³ tn Heb “may it be far removed from me.”

[2:31]  ⁴ tn Heb “chop off your arm.” The arm here symbolizes strength and activity.

[2:31]  ⁵ tn Heb “arm.”

[2:32]  ⁶ tn Heb “you will see [the] trouble of [the] dwelling place.” Since God’s dwelling place/sanctuary is in view, the pronoun is supplied in the translation (see v. 29).

[2:32]  ⁷ tn Heb “in all which he does good with Israel.”

[2:32]  ⁸ tc The LXX and a Qumran manuscript have the first person pronoun “my” here.

[2:32]  ⁹ tn Heb “all the days.”

[2:33]  ¹⁰ tc The LXX, a Qumran ms, and a few old Latin mss have the third person pronominal suffix “his” here.

[2:33]  ¹¹ tn Heb “to cause your eyes to fail.” Elsewhere this verb, when used of eyes, refers to bloodshot eyes resulting from weeping, prolonged staring, or illness (see Lev 26:16; Pss 69:3; 119:82; Lam 2:11; 4:17).

[2:33]  ¹² tn Heb “and to cause your soul grief.”

[2:33]  ¹³ tn Heb “and all the increase of your house.”

[2:33]  ¹⁴ tc The text is difficult. The MT literally says “they will die [as] men.” Apparently the meaning is that they will be cut off in the prime of their life without reaching old age. The LXX and a Qumran ms, however, have the additional word “sword” (“they will die by the sword of men”). This is an easier reading (cf. NAB, NRSV, TEV, CEV, NLT), but that fact is not in favor of its originality.

[2:34]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “and this to you [is] the sign which will come to both of your sons.”

[2:35]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “house.”

[2:35]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “and he will walk about before my anointed one all the days.”

[2:36]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “a piece of silver” (so KJV, NAB, NASB, NIV, NRSV).

[3:12]  ¹⁹ tn Or “fulfill.”

[3:13]  ²⁰ 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]  ²¹ 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]  ²² 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.