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 ¹  and he will serve my chosen one for all time. ² 

1 Samuel 9:19

9:19 Samuel replied to Saul, “I am the seer! Go up in front of me to the high place! Today you will eat with me and in the morning I will send you away. I will tell you everything that you are thinking. ³ 

1 Samuel 13:3

13:3 Jonathan attacked the Philistine outpost ⁴  that was at Geba and the Philistines heard about it. Then Saul alerted ⁵  all the land saying, “Let the Hebrews pay attention!”

1 Samuel 16:7

16:7 But the Lord said to Samuel, “Don’t be impressed by ⁶  his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. God does not view things the way men do. ⁷  People look on the outward appearance, ⁸  but the Lord looks at the heart.”

1 Samuel 20:30

20:30 Saul became angry with Jonathan ⁹  and said to him, “You stupid traitor! ¹⁰  Don’t I realize that to your own disgrace and to the disgrace of your mother’s nakedness you have chosen this son of Jesse?

1 Samuel 22:8

22:8 For all of you have conspired against me! No one informs me ¹¹  when my own son makes an agreement with this son of Jesse! Not one of you feels sorry for me or informs me that my own son has commissioned my own servant to hide in ambush against me, as is the case today!”

1 Samuel 23:7

23:7 When Saul was told that David had come to Keilah, Saul said, “God has delivered ¹²  him into my hand, for he has boxed himself into a corner by entering a city with two barred gates.” ¹³ 

1 Samuel 24:10

24:10 Today your own eyes see how the Lord delivered you – this very day – into my hands in the cave. Some told me to kill you, but I had pity ¹⁴  on you and said, ‘I will not extend my hand against my lord, for he is the Lord’s chosen one.’ ¹⁵ 

[2:35]  ¹ tn Heb “house.”

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

[9:19]  ³ tn Heb “all that is in your heart.”

[13:3]  ⁴ tn Or perhaps “struck down the Philistine official.” See the note at 1 Sam 10:5. Cf. TEV “killed the Philistine commander.”

[13:3]  ⁵ tn Heb “blew the ram’s horn in.”

[16:7]  ⁶ tn Heb “don’t look toward.”

[16:7]  ⁷ tn Heb “for not that which the man sees.” The translation follows the LXX, which reads, “for not as man sees does God see.” The MT has suffered from homoioteleuton or homoioarcton. See P. K. McCarter, I Samuel (AB), 274.

[16:7]  ⁸ tn Heb “to the eyes.”

[20:30]  ⁹ tc Many medieval Hebrew mss include the words “his son” here.

[20:30]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “son of a perverse woman of rebelliousness.” But such an overly literal and domesticated translation of the Hebrew expression fails to capture the force of Saul’s unrestrained reaction. Saul, now incensed and enraged over Jonathan’s liaison with David, is actually hurling very coarse and emotionally charged words at his son. The translation of this phrase suggested by Koehler and Baumgartner is “bastard of a wayward woman” (HALOT 796 s.v. עוה), but this is not an expression commonly used in English. A better English approximation of the sentiments expressed here by the Hebrew phrase would be “You stupid son of a bitch!” However, sensitivity to the various public formats in which the Bible is read aloud has led to a less startling English rendering which focuses on the semantic value of Saul’s utterance (i.e., the behavior of his own son Jonathan, which he viewed as both a personal and a political betrayal [= “traitor”]). But this concession should not obscure the fact that Saul is full of bitterness and frustration. That he would address his son Jonathan with such language, not to mention his apparent readiness even to kill his own son over this friendship with David (v. 33), indicates something of the extreme depth of Saul’s jealousy and hatred of David.

[22:8]  ¹¹ tn Heb “uncovers my ear.”

[23:7]  ¹² tn The MT reading (“God has alienated him into my hand”) in v. 7 is a difficult and uncommon idiom. The use of this verb in Jer 19:4 is somewhat parallel, but not entirely so. Many scholars have therefore suspected a textual problem here, emending the word נִכַּר (nikkar, “alienated”) to סִכַּר (sikkar, “he has shut up [i.e., delivered]”). This is the idea reflected in the translations of the Syriac Peshitta and Vulgate, although it is not entirely clear whether they are reading something different from the MT or are simply paraphrasing what for them too may have been a difficult text. The LXX has “God has sold him into my hands,” apparently reading מַכַר (makar, “sold”) for MT’s נִכַּר. The present translation is a rather free interpretation.

[23:7]  ¹³ tn Heb “with two gates and a bar.” Since in English “bar” could be understood as a saloon, it has been translated as an attributive: “two barred gates.”

[24:10]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “it had pity,” apparently with the understood subject being “my eye,” in accordance with a common expression.

[24:10]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “anointed.”