7:12 Samuel took a stone and placed it between Mizpah and Shen. 1 He named it Ebenezer, 2 saying, “Up to here the Lord has helped us.”
9:24 So the cook picked up the leg and brought it and set it in front of Saul. Samuel 4 said, “What was kept is now set before you! Eat, for it has been kept for you for this meeting time, from the time I said, ‘I have invited the people.’” So Saul ate with Samuel that day.
17:8 Goliath 5 stood and called to Israel’s troops, 6 “Why do you come out to prepare for battle? Am I not the Philistine, and are you not the servants of Saul? Choose 7 for yourselves a man so he may come down 8 to me!
22:11 Then the king arranged for a meeting with the priest Ahimelech son of Ahitub and all the priests of his father’s house who were at Nob. They all came to the king.
24:8 Afterward David got up and went out of the cave. He called out after Saul, “My lord, O king!” When Saul looked behind him, David kneeled down and bowed with his face to the ground.
1 tn Cf. NAB, NRSV, NLT “Jeshanah.”
2 sn The name Ebenezer (אֶבֶן הָעָזֶר) means “stone of help” in Hebrew (cf. TEV); NLT adds the meaning parenthetically after the name.
1 tc The MT has “him” (אֹתוֹ, ’oto) here, in addition to the “him” at the end of the verse. The ancient versions attest to only one occurrence of the pronoun, although it is possible that this is due to translation technique rather than to their having a Hebrew text with the pronoun used only once. The present translation assumes textual duplication in the MT and does not attempt to represent the pronoun twice. However, for a defense of the MT here, with the suggested translation “for him just now – you will find him,” see S. R. Driver, Notes on the Hebrew Text and the Topography of the Books of Samuel, 72-73.
1 tn Heb “he” (also in v. 25); the referent (Samuel) has been specified in both places in the translation for clarity.
1 tn Heb “he”; the referent (Goliath) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
2 tn The Hebrew text adds “and said to them.”
3 tc The translation follows the ancient versions in reading “choose,” (from the root בחר, bkhr), rather than the MT. The verb in MT (ברה, brh) elsewhere means “to eat food”; the sense of “to choose,” required here by the context, is not attested for this root. The MT apparently reflects an early scribal error.
4 tn Following the imperative, the prefixed verbal form (either an imperfect or jussive) with the prefixed conjunction indicates purpose/result here.
1 tn Heb “and he was before him as before.”