1 Samuel 7:2

Further Conflict with the Philistines

7:2 It was quite a long time – some twenty years in all – that the ark stayed at Kiriath Jearim. All the people ¹  of Israel longed for ²  the Lord.

1 Samuel 13:8

13:8 He waited for seven days, the time period indicated by Samuel. ³  But Samuel did not come to Gilgal, and the army began to abandon Saul. ⁴ 

¹ tn Heb “house” (also in the following verse).

² tn Heb “mourned after”; NIV “mourned and sought after”; KJV, NRSV “lamented after”; NAB “turned to”; NCV “began to follow…again.”

³ tn This apparently refers to the instructions given by Samuel in 1 Sam 10:8. If so, several years had passed. On the relationship between chs. 10 and 13, see V. P. Long, The Art of Biblical History (FCI), 201-23.

⁴ tn Heb “dispersed from upon him”; NAB, NRSV “began to slip away.”