1 Samuel 1:8

1:8 Finally her husband Elkanah said to her, “Hannah, why do you weep and not eat? Why are you so sad? ¹  Am I not better to you than ten ²  sons?”

1 Samuel 18:8

18:8 This made Saul very angry. The statement displeased him and he thought, ³  “They have attributed to David tens of thousands, but to me they have attributed only thousands. What does he lack, except the kingdom?”

1 Samuel 21:11

21:11 The servants of Achish said to him, “Isn’t this David, the king of the land? Isn’t he the one that they sing about when they dance, saying,

‘Saul struck down his thousands,

But David his tens of thousands’?”

¹ tn Heb “why is your heart displeased?”

² sn Like the number seven, the number ten is sometimes used in the OT as an ideal number (see, for example, Dan 1:20, Zech 8:23).

³ tn Heb “said.” So also in vv. 11, 17.