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 2:35

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 ⁷  and he will serve my chosen one for all time. ⁸ 

Mazmur 18:1

Psalm 18 ⁹ 

For the music director; by the Lord’s servant David, who sang ¹⁰  to the Lord the words of this song when ¹¹  the Lord rescued him from the power ¹²  of all his enemies, including Saul. ¹³ 

18:1 He said: ¹⁴ 

“I love ¹⁵  you, Lord, my source of strength! ¹⁶ 

[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.

[2:35]  ⁷ tn Heb “house.”

[2:35]  ⁸ tn Heb “and he will walk about before my anointed one all the days.”

[18:1]  ⁹ sn Psalm 18. In this long song of thanks, the psalmist (a Davidic king, traditionally understood as David himself) affirms that God is his faithful protector. He recalls in highly poetic fashion how God intervened in awesome power and delivered him from death. The psalmist’s experience demonstrates that God vindicates those who are blameless and remain loyal to him. True to his promises, God gives the king victory on the battlefield and enables him to subdue nations. A parallel version of the psalm appears in 2 Sam 22:1-51.

[18:1]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “spoke.”

[18:1]  ¹¹ tn Heb “in the day,” or “at the time.”

[18:1]  ¹² tn Heb “hand.”

[18:1]  ¹³ tn Heb “and from the hand of Saul.”

[18:1]  ¹⁴ tn A number of translations (e.g., NASB, NIV, NRSV) assign the words “he said” to the superscription, in which case the entire psalm is in first person. Other translations (e.g., NAB) include the introductory “he said” at the beginning of v. 1.

[18:1]  ¹⁵ tn The verb רָחַם (rakham) elsewhere appears in the Piel (or Pual) verbal stem with the basic meaning, “have compassion.” The verb occurs only here in the basic (Qal) stem. The basic stem of the verbal root also occurs in Aramaic with the meaning “love” (see DNWSI 2:1068-69; Jastrow 1467 s.v. רָחַם; G. Schmuttermayr, “rhm: eine lexikalische Studie,” Bib 51 [1970]: 515-21). Since this introductory statement does not appear in the parallel version in 2 Sam 22:1-51, it is possible that it is a later addition to the psalm, made when the poem was revised for use in worship.

[18:1]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “my strength.” “Strength” is metonymic here, referring to the Lord as the one who bestows strength to the psalmist; thus the translation “my source of strength.”