2:9 He watches over 1 his holy ones, 2
but the wicked are made speechless in the darkness,
for it is not by one’s own strength that one prevails.
12:4 They replied, “You have not wronged us or oppressed us. You have not taken anything from the hand of anyone.”
17:4 Then a champion 4 came out from the camp of the Philistines. His name was Goliath; he was from Gath. He was close to seven feet tall. 5
1 tn Heb “guards the feet of.” The expression means that God watches over and protects the godly in all of their activities and movements. The imperfect verbal forms in v. 9 are understood as indicating what is typically true. Another option is to translate them with the future tense. See v. 10b.
2 tc The translation follows the Qere and many medieval Hebrew
3 tn Heb “see.”
5 tn Heb “the man of the space between the two [armies].” See v. 23.
6 tc Heb “his height was six cubits and a span” (cf. KJV, NASB, NRSV). A cubit was approximately eighteen inches, a span nine inches. So, according to the Hebrew tradition, Goliath was about nine feet, nine inches tall (cf. NIV, CEV, NLT “over nine feet”; NCV “nine feet, four inches”; TEV “nearly 3 metres”). However, some Greek witnesses, Josephus, and a manuscript of 1 Samuel from Qumran read “four cubits and a span” here, that is, about six feet, nine inches (cf. NAB “six and a half feet”). This seems more reasonable; it is likely that Goliath’s height was exaggerated as the story was retold. See P. K. McCarter, I Samuel (AB), 286, 291.
7 tn Heb “all the men of Israel.”
9 tn Or “fled.”