1 Samuel 6:3

6:3 They replied, “If you are going to send the ark of ¹  the God of Israel back, don’t send it away empty. Be sure to return it with a guilt offering. Then you will be healed, and you will understand why his hand is not removed from you.”

1 Samuel 9:24

9:24 So the cook picked up the leg and brought it and set it in front of Saul. Samuel ²  said, “What was kept is now set before you! Eat, for it has been kept for you for this meeting time, from the time I said, ‘I have invited the people.’” So Saul ate with Samuel that day.

1 Samuel 20:8

20:8 You must be loyal ³  to your servant, for you have made a covenant with your servant in the Lord’s name. ⁴  If I am guilty, ⁵  you yourself kill me! Why bother taking me to your father?”

1 Samuel 23:7

23:7 When Saul was told that David had come to Keilah, Saul said, “God has delivered ⁶  him into my hand, for he has boxed himself into a corner by entering a city with two barred gates.” ⁷ 

[6:3]  ¹ tc The LXX and a Qumran ms add “the covenant of the Lord.”

[9:24]  ² tn Heb “he” (also in v. 25); the referent (Samuel) has been specified in both places in the translation for clarity.

[20:8]  ³ tn Heb “and you must do loyalty.”

[20:8]  ⁴ tn Heb “for into a covenant of the Lord you have brought your servant with you.”

[20:8]  ⁵ tn Heb “and if there is in me guilt.”

[23:7]  ⁶ 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]  ⁷ 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.”