1 Samuel 8:12-17

8:12 He will appoint for himself leaders of thousands and leaders of fifties, ¹  as well as those who plow his ground, reap his harvest, and make his weapons of war and his chariot equipment. 8:13 He will take your daughters to be ointment makers, cooks, and bakers. 8:14 He will take your best fields and vineyards and give them to his own servants. 8:15 He will demand a tenth of your seed and of the produce of your vineyards and give it to his administrators ²  and his servants. 8:16 He will take your male and female servants, as well as your best cattle and your donkeys, and assign them for his own use. 8:17 He will demand a tenth of your flocks, and you yourselves will be his servants.

1 Samuel 8:1

Israel Seeks a King

8:1 In his old age Samuel appointed his sons as judges over Israel.

1 Samuel 4:7

4:7 The Philistines were scared because they thought that gods had come to the camp. ³  They said, “Too bad for ⁴  us! We’ve never seen anything like this!

1 Samuel 4:1

4:1 Samuel revealed the word of the Lord ⁵  to all Israel.

The Ark of the Covenant is Lost to the Philistines

Then the Israelites went out to fight the Philistines. ⁶  They camped at Ebenezer, ⁷  and the Philistines camped at Aphek.

1 Samuel 27:1

David Aligns Himself with the Philistines

27:1 David thought to himself, ⁸  “One of these days I’m going to be swept away by the hand of Saul! There is nothing better for me than to escape to the land of the Philistines. Then Saul will despair of searching for me through all the territory of Israel and I will escape from his hand.”

¹ 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.

² tn Or “eunuchs” (so NAB); NIV “officials”; KJV, NASB, NRSV, NLT “officers.”

³ tn The Hebrew text has a direct quote, “because they said, ‘Gods have come to the camp.’” Even though the verb translated “have come” is singular, the following subject should be taken as plural (“gods”), as v. 8 indicates. Some emend the verb to a plural form.

⁴ tn Traditionally “woe to.” They thought disaster was imminent.

⁵ 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.

⁶ tn Heb “and Israel went out to meet the Philistines for battle.”

⁷ 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.

⁸ tn Heb “said to his heart.”