1 Samuel 3:19--4:1

3:19 Samuel continued to grow, and the Lord was with him. None of his prophecies fell to the ground unfulfilled. ¹  3:20 All Israel from Dan to Beer Sheba realized that Samuel was confirmed as a prophet of the Lord. 3:21 Then the Lord again appeared in Shiloh, for it was in Shiloh that the Lord had revealed himself to Samuel ²  through the word of the Lord. ³  4:1 Samuel revealed the word of the Lord ⁴  to all Israel.

The Ark of the Covenant is Lost to the Philistines

Then the Israelites went out to fight the Philistines. ⁵  They camped at Ebenezer, ⁶  and the Philistines camped at Aphek.

¹ tn Heb “and he did not cause to fall from all his words to the ground.”

² tc The LXX has a lengthy addition here: “And Samuel was acknowledged to be a prophet of the Lord in all Israel, from one end to the other. Eli was very old and, as for his sons, their way kept getting worse and worse before the Lord.” The Hebraic nature of the Greek syntax used here suggests that the LXX translator was accurately rendering a Hebrew variant and not simply expanding the text on his own initiative.

³ tn The chapter division at this point is inappropriate. 1 Sam 4:1a is best understood as the conclusion to chap. 3 rather than the beginning of chap. 4.

⁴ tn Heb “and the word of Samuel was.” The present translation understands Samuel to be the speaker of the divine word (“Samuel” is a subjective genitive in this case), although the statement could mean that he was the recipient of the divine word (“Samuel” is an objective genitive in this case) who in turn reported it to Israel.

⁵ tn Heb “and Israel went out to meet the Philistines for battle.”

⁶ tn Heb “the stone, the help.” The second noun is in apposition to the first one and apparently is the name by which the stone was known. Contrast the expression used in 5:1 and 7:12, where the first word lacks the definite article, unlike 4:1.