11:6 The Spirit of God rushed upon Saul when he heard these words, and he became very angry.
25:23 When Abigail saw David, she got down quickly from the donkey, threw herself down before David, and bowed to the ground.
20:30 Saul became angry with Jonathan 5 and said to him, “You stupid traitor! 6 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?
20:41 When the servant had left, David got up from beside the mound, 8 knelt 9 with his face to the ground, and bowed three times. Then they kissed each other and they both wept, especially David.
24:8 Afterward David got up and went out of the cave. He called out after Saul, “My lord, O king!” When Saul looked behind him, David kneeled down and bowed with his face to the ground.
Then Saul realized it was Samuel, and he bowed his face toward the ground and kneeled down.
17:28 When David’s 11 oldest brother Eliab heard him speaking to the men, he became angry 12 with David and said, “Why have you come down here? To whom did you entrust those few sheep in the desert? I am familiar with your pride and deceit! 13 You have come down here to watch the battle!”
1 tn The exact sense of the Hebrew word אַפָּיִם (’appayim, “two faces”) is not certain here. It is most likely used with the preceding expression (“one portion of two faces”) to mean a portion double than normally received. Although evidence for this use of the word derives primarily from Aramaic rather than from Hebrew usage, it provides an understanding that fits the context here better than other suggestions for the word do. The meaning “double” is therefore adopted in the present translation. Other possibilities for the meaning of the word include the following: “heavily” (cf. Vulg., tristis) and “worthy” or “choice” (cf. KJV and Targum). Some scholars have followed the LXX here, emending the word to אֶפֶס (’efes) and translating it as “but” or “however.” This seems unnecessary. The translators of the LXX may simply have been struggling to make sense of the word rather than following a Hebrew text that was different from the MT here.
2 tn Heb “for Hannah he loved.” Repetition of the proper name would seem redundant in contemporary English, so the pronoun (“her”) has been used here for clarity. The translation also adds the adverb “especially” to clarify the meaning of the text. Without this addition one might get the impression that only Hannah, not Peninnah, was loved by her husband. But the point of the text is that Hannah was his favorite.
3 tn Heb “and the
4 tn Heb “Here is your maidservant, for a lowly servant to wash.”
7 tc Many medieval Hebrew
8 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.
10 tn Heb “for he was upset concerning David for his father had humiliated him.” The referent of the pronoun “him” is not entirely clear, but the phrase “concerning David” suggests that it refers to David, rather than Jonathan.
13 tc The translation follows the LXX in reading “the mound,” rather than the MT’s “the south.” It is hard to see what meaning the MT reading “from beside the south” would have as it stands, since such a location lacks specificity. The NIV treats it as an elliptical expression, rendering the phrase as “from the south side of the stone (rock NCV).” This is perhaps possible, but it seems better to follow the LXX rather than the MT here.
14 tn Heb “fell.”
16 tn Heb “listen to the voice of the
19 tn Heb “his”; the referent (David) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
20 tn Heb “the anger of Eliab became hot.”
21 tn Heb “the wickedness of your heart.”