1 Samuel 2:25

2:25 If a man sins against a man, one may appeal to God on his behalf. But if a man sins against the Lord, who then will intercede for him?” But Eli’s sons ¹  would not listen to their father, for the Lord had decided ²  to kill them.

1 Samuel 6:19

6:19 But the Lord ³  struck down some of the people of Beth Shemesh because they had looked into the ark of the Lord; he struck down 50,070 ⁴  of the men. The people grieved because the Lord had struck the people with a hard blow.

1 Samuel 9:1

Samuel Meets with Saul

9:1 There was a Benjaminite man named Kish son of Abiel, the son of Zeror, the son of Becorath, the son of Aphiah of Benjamin. He was a prominent person.

1 Samuel 14:34

14:34 Then Saul said, “Scatter out among the army and say to them, ‘Each of you bring to me your ox and sheep and slaughter them in this spot and eat. But don’t sin against the Lord by eating the blood.” So that night each one brought his ox and slaughtered it there. ⁵ 

1 Samuel 20:41

20:41 When the servant had left, David got up from beside the mound, ⁶  knelt ⁷  with his face to the ground, and bowed three times. Then they kissed each other and they both wept, especially David.

1 Samuel 30:17

30:17 But David struck them down from twilight until the following evening. None of them escaped, with the exception of four hundred young men who got away on camels. ⁸ 

¹ tn Heb “they”; the referent (Eli’s sons) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

² tn Heb “desired.”

³ tn Heb “he”; the referent (the Lord) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

⁴ tc The number 50,070 is surprisingly large, although it finds almost unanimous textual support in the MT and in the ancient versions. Only a few medieval Hebrew mss lack “50,000,” reading simply “70” instead. However, there does not seem to be sufficient external evidence to warrant reading 70 rather than 50,070, although that is done by a number of recent translations (e.g., NAB, NIV, NRSV, NLT). The present translation (reluctantly) follows the MT and the ancient versions here.

⁵ tn Heb “and all the army brought near, each his ox by his hand, and they slaughtered there.”

⁷ 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.

⁸ tn Heb “fell.”

⁹ tn Heb “who rode on camels and fled.”