1 Samuel 2:10-17

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 

2:11 Then Elkanah went back home to Ramah. But the boy was serving the Lord under the supervision of ⁷  Eli the priest.

Eli’s Sons Misuse Their Sacred Office

2:12 The sons of Eli were wicked men. ⁸  They did not recognize the Lord’s authority. ⁹  2:13 Now the priests would always treat the people in the following way: ¹⁰  Whenever anyone was making a sacrifice, while the meat was boiling, the priest’s attendant would come with a three-pronged fork ¹¹  in his hand. 2:14 He would jab it into the basin, kettle, caldron, or pot, and everything that the fork brought up the priest would take for himself. This is what they used to do to all the Israelites ¹²  when they came there to Shiloh.

2:15 Even before they burned the fat, the priest’s attendant would come and say to the person who was making the sacrifice, “Hand over some meat for the priest to roast! He won’t take boiled meat from you, but only raw.” ¹³  2:16 If the individual said to him, “First let the fat be burned away, and then take for yourself whatever you wish,” he would say, “No! ¹⁴  Hand it over right now! If you don’t, I will take it forcibly!”

2:17 The sin of these young men was very great in the Lord’s sight, for they ¹⁵  treated the Lord’s offering with contempt.

[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.

[2:11]  ⁷ tn Heb “with [or “before”] the face of.”

[2:12]  ⁸ tn Heb “sons of worthlessness.”

[2:12]  ⁹ 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.

[2:13]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “the habit of the priests with the people [was this].”

[2:13]  ¹¹ sn The Hebrew word occurs only twice in the OT, here and again in v. 14. Its exact meaning is not entirely clear, although from the context it appears to be a sacrificial tool used for retrieving things from boiling water.

[2:14]  ¹² tn Heb “to all Israel.”

[2:15]  ¹³ tn Heb “living.”

[2:16]  ¹⁴ tc The translation follows the Qere and many medieval Hebrew mss (“no”) rather than the Kethib and MT, which read “to him.”

[2:17]  ¹⁵ tc Heb “the men,” which is absent from one medieval Hebrew ms, a Qumran ms, and the LXX.