1 Samuel 2:33

2:33 Any one of you that I do not cut off from my altar, I will cause your ¹  eyes to fail ²  and will cause you grief. ³  All of those born to your family ⁴  will die in the prime of life. ⁵ 

1 Samuel 3:14

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.’”

1 Samuel 7:2

Further Conflict with the Philistines

7:2 It was quite a long time – some twenty years in all – that the ark stayed at Kiriath Jearim. All the people ⁶  of Israel longed for ⁷  the Lord.

1 Samuel 7:17

7:17 Then he would return to Ramah, because his home was there. He also judged ⁸  Israel there and built an altar to the Lord there.

1 Samuel 8:5

8:5 They said to him, “Look, you are old, and your sons don’t follow your ways. So now appoint over us a king to lead ⁹  us, just like all the other nations have.”

1 Samuel 10:14

10:14 Saul’s uncle asked him and his servant, “Where did you go?” Saul ¹⁰  replied, “To look for the donkeys. But when we realized they were lost, ¹¹  we went to Samuel.”

1 Samuel 11:1

Saul Comes to the Aid of Jabesh

11:1 ¹² Nahash ¹³  the Ammonite marched ¹⁴  against Jabesh Gilead. All the men of Jabesh Gilead said to Nahash, “Make a treaty with us and we will serve you.”

1 Samuel 12:20

12:20 Then Samuel said to the people, “Don’t be afraid. You have indeed sinned. ¹⁵  However, don’t turn aside from the Lord. Serve the Lord with all your heart.

1 Samuel 13:7

13:7 Some of the Hebrews crossed over the Jordan River ¹⁶  to the land of Gad and Gilead. But Saul stayed at Gilgal; the entire army that was with him was terrified.

1 Samuel 13:19

13:19 A blacksmith could not be found in all the land of Israel, for the Philistines had said, “This will prevent the Hebrews from making swords and spears.”

1 Samuel 13:21

13:21 They charged ¹⁷  two-thirds of a shekel ¹⁸  to sharpen plowshares and cutting instruments, and a third of a shekel ¹⁹  to sharpen picks and axes, and to set ox goads.

1 Samuel 14:14-15

14:14 In this initial skirmish Jonathan and his armor bearer struck down about twenty men in an area that measured half an acre.

14:15 Then fear overwhelmed ²⁰  those who were in the camp, those who were in the field, all the army in the garrison, and the raiding bands. They trembled and the ground shook. This fear was caused by God. ²¹ 

1 Samuel 14:28

14:28 Then someone from the army informed him, “Your father put the army under a strict oath ²²  saying, ‘Cursed be the man who eats food today!’ That is why the army is tired.”

1 Samuel 14:33

14:33 Now it was reported to Saul, “Look, the army is sinning against the Lord by eating even the blood.” He said, “All of you have broken the covenant! ²³  Roll a large stone over here to me.”

1 Samuel 14:40

14:40 Then he said to all Israel, “You will be on one side, and I and my son Jonathan will be on the other side.” The army replied to Saul, “Do whatever you think is best.”

1 Samuel 15:21

15:21 But the army took from the plunder some of the sheep and cattle – the best of what was to be slaughtered – to sacrifice to the Lord your God in Gilgal.”

1 Samuel 18:1

Saul Comes to Fear David

18:1 When David ²⁴  had finished talking with Saul, Jonathan and David became bound together in close friendship. ²⁵  Jonathan loved David as much as he did his own life. ²⁶ 

1 Samuel 18:22-23

18:22 Then Saul instructed his servants, “Tell David secretly, ‘The king is pleased with you, and all his servants like you. So now become the king’s son-in-law.” 18:23 So Saul’s servants spoke these words privately ²⁷  to David. David replied, “Is becoming the king’s son-in-law something insignificant to you? I’m just a poor and lightly-esteemed man!”

1 Samuel 18:26

18:26 So his servants told David these things and David agreed ²⁸  to become the king’s son-in-law. Now the specified time had not yet expired ²⁹ 

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 19:22

19:22 Finally Saul ³⁰  himself went to Ramah. When he arrived at the large cistern that is in Secu, he asked, “Where are Samuel and David?” They said, “At Naioth in Ramah.”

1 Samuel 19:24

19:24 He even stripped off his clothes and prophesied before Samuel. He lay there ³¹  naked all that day and night. (For that reason it is asked, “Is Saul also among the prophets?”)

1 Samuel 23:2-3

23:2 So David asked the Lord, “Should I go and strike down these Philistines?” The Lord said to David, “Go, strike down the Philistines and deliver Keilah.”

23:3 But David’s men said to him, “We are afraid while we are still here in Judah! What will it be like if we go to Keilah against the armies of the Philistines?”

1 Samuel 23:19

23:19 Then the Ziphites went up to Saul at Gibeah and said, “Isn’t David hiding among us in the strongholds at Horesh on the hill of Hakilah, south of Jeshimon?

1 Samuel 25:10-11

25:10 But Nabal responded to David’s servants, “Who is David, and who is this son of Jesse? This is a time when many servants are breaking away from their masters! 25:11 Should I take my bread and my water and my meat that I have slaughtered for my shearers and give them to these men? I don’t even know where they came from!”

1 Samuel 26:3

26:3 Saul camped by the road on the hill of Hakilah near Jeshimon, but David was staying in the desert. When he realized that Saul had come to the desert to find ³²  him,

1 Samuel 26:6

26:6 David said to Ahimelech the Hittite and Abishai son of Zeruiah, Joab’s brother, “Who will go down with me to Saul in the camp?” Abishai replied, “I will go down with you.”

1 Samuel 27:2-3

27:2 So David left and crossed over to King Achish son of Maoch of Gath accompanied by his six hundred men. 27:3 David settled with Achish in Gath, along with his men and their families. ³³  David had with him his two wives, Ahinoam the Jezreelite and Abigail the Carmelite, Nabal’s widow.

1 Samuel 28:18

28:18 Since you did not obey the Lord ³⁴  and did not carry out his fierce anger against the Amalekites, the Lord has done this thing to you today.

1 Samuel 29:2

29:2 When the leaders of the Philistines were passing in review at the head of their units of hundreds and thousands, ³⁵  David and his men were passing in review in the rear with Achish.

1 Samuel 30:26

30:26 When David came to Ziklag, he sent some of the plunder to the elders of Judah who were his friends, saying, “Here’s a gift ³⁶  for you from the looting of the Lord’s enemies!”

[2:33]  ¹ tc The LXX, a Qumran ms, and a few old Latin mss have the third person pronominal suffix “his” here.

[2:33]  ² 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]  ³ tn Heb “and to cause your soul grief.”

[2:33]  ⁴ tn Heb “and all the increase of your house.”

[2:33]  ⁵ 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.

[7:2]  ⁶ tn Heb “house” (also in the following verse).

[7:2]  ⁷ tn Heb “mourned after”; NIV “mourned and sought after”; KJV, NRSV “lamented after”; NAB “turned to”; NCV “began to follow…again.”

[7:17]  ⁸ tn Or perhaps “settled disputes for” (cf. NLT “would hear cases there”; NRSV “administered justice there”).

[8:5]  ⁹ tn Heb “judge” (also in v. 6).

[10:14]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “he”; the referent (Saul) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[10:14]  ¹¹ tn Heb “And we saw that they were not.”

[11:1]  ¹² tc 4QSam^a and Josephus (Ant. 6.68-71) attest to a longer form of text at this point. The addition explains Nahash’s practice of enemy mutilation, and by so doing provides a smoother transition to the following paragraph than is found in the MT. The NRSV adopts this reading, with the following English translation: “Now Nahash, king of the Ammonites, had been grievously oppressing the Gadites and the Reubenites. He would gouge out the right eye of each of them and would not grant Israel a deliverer. No one was left of the Israelites across the Jordan whose right eye Nahash, king of the Ammonites, had not gouged out. But there were seven thousand men who had escaped from the Ammonites and had entered Jabesh-gilead.” This reading should not be lightly dismissed; it may in fact provide a text superior to that of the MT and the ancient versions. But the external evidence for it is so limited as to induce caution; the present translation instead follows the MT. However, for a reasonable case for including this reading in the text see the discussions in P. K. McCarter, I Samuel (AB), 199, and R. W. Klein, 1 Samuel (WBC), 103.

[11:1]  ¹³ sn The name “Nahash” means “serpent” in Hebrew.

[11:1]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “went up and camped”; NIV, NRSV “went up and besieged.”

[12:20]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “you have done all this evil.”

[13:7]  ¹⁶ tn The word “River” is not in the Hebrew text, but has been supplied in the translation for clarity.

[13:21]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “the price was.” The meaning of the Hebrew word פְּצִירָה (pÿtsirah) is uncertain. This is the only place it occurs in the OT. Some propose the meaning “sharpening,” but “price” is a more likely meaning if the following term refers to a weight (see the following note on the word “shekel”). See P. K. McCarter, I Samuel (AB), 238.

[13:21]  ¹⁸ tn This word, which appears only here in the OT, probably refers to a stone weight. Stones marked פִּים (pim) have been found in excavations of Palestinian sites. The average weight of such stones is 0.268 ounces, which is equivalent to about two-thirds of a shekel. This probably refers to the price charged by the Philistines for the services listed. See P. K. McCarter, I Samuel (AB), 238; DNWSI 2:910; and G. I. Davies, Ancient Hebrew Inscriptions, 259.

[13:21]  ¹⁹ tc Heb “and for a third, a pick.” The Hebrew text suffers from haplography at this point. The translation follows the textual reconstruction offered by P. K. McCarter, I Samuel (AB), 235.

[14:15]  ²⁰ tn Heb “fell upon.”

[14:15]  ²¹ tn Heb “and it was by the fear of God.” The translation understands this to mean that God was the source or cause of the fear experienced by the Philistines. This seems to be the most straightforward reading of the sentence. It is possible, however, that the word “God” functions here simply to intensify the accompanying word “fear,” in which one might translate “a very great fear” (cf. NAB, NRSV). It is clear that on some occasions that the divine name carries such a superlative nuance. For examples see Joüon 2:525 §141.n.

[14:28]  ²² tn Heb “your father surely put the army under an oath.” The infinitive absolute is used before the finite verb to emphasize the solemn nature of the oath.

[14:33]  ²³ tn Heb “You have acted deceptively.” In this context the verb refers to violating an agreement, in this case the dietary and sacrificial regulations of the Mosaic law. The verb form is second masculine plural; apparently Saul here addresses those who are eating the animals.

[18:1]  ²⁴ tn Heb “he”; the referent (David) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[18:1]  ²⁵ tn Heb “the soul of Jonathan was bound with the soul of David.”

[18:1]  ²⁶ tn Heb “like his [own] soul.”

[18:1]  sn On the nature of Jonathan’s love for David, see J. A. Thompson, “The Significance of the Verb Love in the David-Jonathan Narratives in 1 Samuel,” VT 24 (1974): 334-38.

[18:23]  ²⁷ tn Heb “in the ears of.”

[18:26]  ²⁸ tn Heb “and it was acceptable in the eyes of David.”

[18:26]  ²⁹ tn Heb “the days were not fulfilled.”

[19:22]  ³⁰ tn Heb “he” (also in v. 23). the referent (Saul) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[19:24]  ³¹ tn Heb “and he fell down.”

[26:3]  ³² tn Heb “after.”

[27:3]  ³³ tn Heb “a man and his house.”

[28:18]  ³⁴ tn Heb “listen to the voice of the Lord.”

[29:2]  ³⁵ tn Heb “passing by with respect to hundreds and thousands.” This apparently describes a mustering of troops for the purpose of inspection and readiness.

[30:26]  ³⁶ tn Heb “blessing.”