1 Samuel 1:6

1:6 Her rival wife used to upset her and make her worry, ¹  for the Lord had not enabled her to have children.

1 Samuel 1:10

1:10 She was very upset ²  as she prayed to the Lord, and she was weeping uncontrollably. ³ 

1 Samuel 1:19

1:19 They got up early the next morning and after worshiping the Lord, they returned to their home at Ramah. Elkanah had marital relations with ⁴  his wife Hannah, and the Lord remembered ⁵  her.

1 Samuel 2:12

Eli’s Sons Misuse Their Sacred Office

2:12 The sons of Eli were wicked men. ⁶  They did not recognize the Lord’s authority. ⁷ 

1 Samuel 4:3

4:3 When the army ⁸  came back to the camp, the elders of Israel said, “Why did the Lord let us be defeated today by ⁹  the Philistines? Let’s take with us the ark of the covenant of the Lord from Shiloh. When it is with us, it will save us ¹⁰  from the hand of our enemies.

1 Samuel 6:9

6:9 But keep an eye on it. If it should go up by the way of its own border to Beth Shemesh, then he has brought this great calamity on us. But if that is not the case, then we will know that it was not his hand that struck us; rather, it just happened to us by accident.”

1 Samuel 6:19

6:19 But the Lord ¹¹  struck down some of the people of Beth Shemesh because they had looked into the ark of the Lord; he struck down 50,070 ¹²  of the men. The people grieved because the Lord had struck the people with a hard blow.

1 Samuel 8:21

8:21 So Samuel listened to everything the people said and then reported it to the Lord. ¹³ 

1 Samuel 9:15

9:15 Now the day before Saul arrived, the Lord had told ¹⁴  Samuel:

1 Samuel 10:17

10:17 Then Samuel called the people together before the Lord at Mizpah.

1 Samuel 15:31

15:31 So Samuel followed Saul back, and Saul worshiped the Lord.

1 Samuel 18:14

18:14 Now David achieved success in all he did, ¹⁵  for the Lord was with him.

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)

¹⁶ Then David ¹⁷  got up and left, while Jonathan went back to the city.

1 Samuel 22:21

22:21 Abiathar told David that Saul had killed the priests of the Lord.

1 Samuel 23:21

23:21 Saul replied, “May you be blessed by the Lord, for you have had compassion on me.

1 Samuel 25:38

25:38 After about ten days the Lord struck Nabal down and he died.

[1:6]  ¹ tn Heb “and her rival wife grieved her, even [with] grief so as to worry her.”

[1:10]  ² tn Heb “she [was in] bitterness of soul.”

[1:10]  ³ tn Heb “and weeping, she was weeping.” The infinitive absolute emphasizes the extent of her sorrow. The imperfect verbal form emphasizes the continuation of the action in past time.

[1:19]  ⁴ tn Heb “Elkanah knew his wife.” The Hebrew expression is a euphemism for sexual relations.

[1:19]  ⁵ sn The Lord “remembered” her in the sense of granting her earlier request for a child. The Hebrew verb is often used in the OT for considering the needs or desires of people with favor and kindness.

[2:12]  ⁶ tn Heb “sons of worthlessness.”

[2:12]  ⁷ tn Heb “they did not know the Lord.” The verb here has the semantic nuance “recognize the authority of.” Eli’s sons obviously knew who the Lord was; they served in his sanctuary. But they did not recognize his moral authority.

[4:3]  ⁸ tn Or “people.”

[4:3]  ⁹ tn Heb “before.”

[4:3]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “and it will come in our midst and it will save.” After the cohortative (see “let’s take”), the prefixed verbal forms with the prefixed conjunction indicate purpose or result. The translation understands the ark to be the subject of the third masculine singular verbs, although it is possible to understand the Lord as the subject. In the latter case, one should translate, “when he is with us, he will save us.”

[6:19]  ¹¹ tn Heb “he”; the referent (the Lord) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[6:19]  ¹² tc The number 50,070 is surprisingly large, although it finds almost unanimous textual support in the MT and in the ancient versions. Only a few medieval Hebrew mss lack “50,000,” reading simply “70” instead. However, there does not seem to be sufficient external evidence to warrant reading 70 rather than 50,070, although that is done by a number of recent translations (e.g., NAB, NIV, NRSV, NLT). The present translation (reluctantly) follows the MT and the ancient versions here.

[8:21]  ¹³ tn Heb “and Samuel heard all the words of the people and he spoke them into the ears of the Lord.”

[9:15]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “uncovered the ear of.”

[18:14]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “in all his ways.”

[20:42]  ¹⁶ 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]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “he”; the referent (David) has been specified in the translation for clarity.