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 4:10

4:10 So the Philistines fought. Israel was defeated; they all ran home. ⁵  The slaughter was very great; thirty thousand foot soldiers fell in battle.

1 Samuel 8:12

8:12 He will appoint for himself leaders of thousands and leaders of fifties, ⁶  as well as those who plow his ground, reap his harvest, and make his weapons of war and his chariot equipment.

1 Samuel 17:5

17:5 He had a bronze helmet on his head and was wearing scale body armor. The weight of his bronze body armor was five thousand shekels. ⁷ 

1 Samuel 17:18

17:18 Also take these ten portions of cheese to their commanding officer. ⁸  Find out how your brothers are doing ⁹  and bring back their pledge that they received the goods. ¹⁰ 

1 Samuel 18:8

18:8 This made Saul very angry. The statement displeased him and he thought, ¹¹  “They have attributed to David tens of thousands, but to me they have attributed only thousands. What does he lack, except the kingdom?”

1 Samuel 24:2

24:2 So Saul took three thousand select men from all Israel and went to find ¹²  David and his men in the region of ¹³  the rocks of the mountain goats. ¹⁴ 

1 Samuel 26:2

26:2 So Saul arose and

went down to the desert of Ziph, accompanied by three thousand select men of Israel, to look for David in the desert of Ziph.

1 Samuel 29:5

29:5 Isn’t this David, of whom they sang as they danced, ¹⁵ 

‘Saul has struck down his thousands,

but David his tens of thousands’?”

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 Heb “and they fled, each to his tents.”

⁹ tc The numbers of v. 12 are confused in the Greek and Syriac versions. For “fifties” the LXX has “hundreds.” The Syriac Peshitta has “heads of thousands and heads of hundreds and heads of fifties and heads of tens,” perhaps reflecting influence from Deut 1:15.

¹³ sn Although the exact weight of Goliath’s defensive body armor is difficult to estimate in terms of modern equivalency, it was obviously quite heavy. Driver, following Kennedy, suggests a modern equivalent of about 220 pounds (100 kg); see S. R. Driver, Notes on the Hebrew Text and the Topography of the Books of Samuel, 139. Klein, taking the shekel to be equal to .403 ounces, arrives at a somewhat smaller weight of about 126 pounds (57 kg); see R. W. Klein, 1 Samuel (WBC), 175. But by any estimate it is clear that Goliath presented himself as a formidable foe indeed.

¹⁷ tn Heb “officer of the thousand.”

¹⁸ tn Heb “and your brothers, observe with respect to welfare.”

¹⁹ tn Heb “and their pledge take.” This probably refers to some type of confirmation that the goods arrived safely. See R. W. Klein, 1 Samuel (WBC), 177. Cf. NIV “bring back some assurance”; NCV “some proof to show me they are all right”; NLT “bring me back a letter from them.”

²¹ tn Heb “said.” So also in vv. 11, 17.

²⁵ tn Heb “to search [for].”

²⁶ tn Heb “upon the face of.”

²⁷ tn Or “the region of the Rocks of the Mountain Goats,” if this expression is understood as a place name (cf. NASB, NIV, NRSV, TEV, CEV).

²⁹ tn Heb “in dances.”