1 Samuel 4:2

4:2 The Philistines arranged their forces to fight ¹  Israel. As the battle spread out, ²  Israel was defeated by ³  the Philistines, who ⁴  killed about four thousand men in the battle line in the field.

1 Samuel 13:3

13:3 Jonathan attacked the Philistine outpost ⁵  that was at Geba and the Philistines heard about it. Then Saul alerted ⁶  all the land saying, “Let the Hebrews pay attention!”

1 Samuel 14:11

14:11 When they ⁷  made themselves known to the Philistine garrison, the Philistines said, “Look! The Hebrews are coming out of the holes in which they hid themselves.”

1 Samuel 31:2

31:2 The Philistines stayed right on the heels ⁸  of Saul and his sons. They ⁹  struck down Saul’s sons Jonathan, Abinadab, and Malki-Shua.

¹ tn Heb “to meet.”

² tn The MT has וַתִּטֹּשׁ (vattittosh), from the root נטשׁ (ntsh). This verb normally means “to leave,” “to forsake,” or “to permit,” but such an idea does not fit this context very well. Many scholars have suspected that the text originally read either וַתֵּט (vattet, “and it spread out”), from the root נטה (nth), or וַתִּקֶשׁ (vattiqesh, “and it grew fierce”), from the root קשׂה (qsh). The former suggestion is apparently supported by the LXX ἔκλινεν (eklinen, “it inclined”) and is adopted in the translation.

³ tn Heb “before.”

⁴ tn Heb “the Philistines, and they killed.” The pronoun “they” has been translated as a relative pronoun (“who”) to make it clear to the English reader that the Philistines were the ones who did the killing.

⁵ tn Or perhaps “struck down the Philistine official.” See the note at 1 Sam 10:5. Cf. TEV “killed the Philistine commander.”

⁶ tn Heb “blew the ram’s horn in.”

⁹ tn Heb “the two of them.”

¹³ tn Heb “stuck close after.”

¹⁴ tn Heb “the Philistines.”