1 Samuel 2:9

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.

1 Samuel 2:32

2:32 You will see trouble in my dwelling place! ³  Israel will experience blessings, ⁴  but there will not be an old man in your ⁵  house for all time. ⁶ 

1 Samuel 25:10

25:10 But Nabal responded to David’s servants, “Who is David, and who is this son of Jesse? This is a time when many servants are breaking away from their masters!

1 Samuel 25:30

25:30 The Lord will do for my lord everything that he promised you, ⁷  and he will make ⁸  you a leader over Israel.

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 mss in reading the plural (“his holy ones”) rather than the singular (“his holy one”) of the Kethib.

³ tn Heb “you will see [the] trouble of [the] dwelling place.” Since God’s dwelling place/sanctuary is in view, the pronoun is supplied in the translation (see v. 29).

⁴ tn Heb “in all which he does good with Israel.”

⁵ tc The LXX and a Qumran manuscript have the first person pronoun “my” here.

⁶ tn Heb “all the days.”

⁵ tn Heb “according to all which he spoke, the good concerning you.”

⁶ tn Heb “appoint.”