1 Samuel 12:10

12:10 Then they cried out to the Lord and admitted, ¹  ‘We have sinned, for we have forsaken the Lord and have served the Baals and the images of Ashtoreth. ²  Now deliver us from the hand of our enemies so that we may serve you.’ ³ 

1 Samuel 13:12

13:12 I thought, ⁴  ‘Now the Philistines will come down on me at Gilgal and I have not sought the Lord’s favor.’ So I felt obligated ⁵  to offer the burnt offering.”

1 Samuel 17:12

17:12 ⁶ Now David was the son of this Ephrathite named Jesse from Bethlehem ⁷  in Judah. He had eight sons, and in Saul’s days he was old and well advanced in years. ⁸ 

1 Samuel 26:8

26:8 Abishai said to David, “Today God has delivered your enemy into your hands. Now let me drive the spear ⁹  right through him into the ground with one swift jab! ¹⁰  A second jab won’t be necessary!”

1 Samuel 28:3

28:3 Now Samuel had died, and all Israel had lamented over him and had buried him in Ramah, his hometown. ¹¹  In the meantime Saul had removed the mediums ¹²  and magicians ¹³  from the land.

¹ tn Heb “and said.”

² tn Heb “the Ashtarot” (plural). The words “images of” are supplied in both vv. 3 and 4 for clarity.

³ tn After the imperative, the prefixed verbal form with the prefixed conjunction indicates purpose/result.

⁴ tn Heb “said.”

⁵ tn Or “I forced myself” (so KJV, NASB, NRSV, CEV); NAB “So in my anxiety I offered”; NIV “I felt compelled.”

⁷ tc Some mss of the LXX lack vv. 12-31.

⁸ map For location see Map5-B1; Map7-E2; Map8-E2; Map10-B4.

⁹ tc The translation follows the Lucianic recension of the LXX and the Syriac Peshitta in reading “in years,” rather than MT “among men.”

¹⁰ tn Here “the spear” almost certainly refers to Saul’s own spear, which according to the previous verse was stuck into the ground beside him as he slept. This is reflected in a number of English versions: TEV, CEV “his own spear”; NLT “that spear.” Cf. NIV, NCV “my spear,” in which case Abishai refers to his own spear rather than Saul’s, but this is unlikely since (1) Abishai would probably not have carried a spear along since such a weapon would be unwieldy when sneaking into the enemy camp; and (2) this would not explain the mention of Saul’s own spear stuck in the ground beside him in the previous verse.

¹¹ tn Heb “let me strike him with the spear and into the ground one time.”

¹³ tn Heb “in Ramah, even in his city.”

¹⁴ tn The Hebrew term translated “mediums” actually refers to a pit used by a magician to conjure up underworld spirits (see 2 Kgs 21:6). In v. 7 the witch of Endor is called the owner of a ritual pit. See H. Hoffner, “Second Millennium Antecedents to the Hebrew ’OñBù,” JBL 86 (1967): 385-401. Here the term refers by metonymy to the owner of such a pit (see H. A. Hoffner, TDOT 1:133).

¹⁵ sn See Isa 8:19 for another reference to magicians who attempted to conjure up underworld spirits.