1 Samuel 1:24

1:24 Once she had weaned him, she took him up with her, along with three bulls, an ephah ¹  of flour, and a container ²  of wine. She brought him to the Lord’s house at Shiloh, even though he was young. ³ 

1 Samuel 2:13

2:13 Now the priests would always treat the people in the following way: ⁴  Whenever anyone was making a sacrifice, while the meat was boiling, the priest’s attendant would come with a three-pronged fork ⁵  in his hand.

1 Samuel 2:15

2:15 Even before they burned the fat, the priest’s attendant would come and say to the person who was making the sacrifice, “Hand over some meat for the priest to roast! He won’t take boiled meat from you, but only raw.” ⁶ 

1 Samuel 2:33

2:33 Any one of you that I do not cut off from my altar, I will cause your ⁷  eyes to fail ⁸  and will cause you grief. ⁹  All of those born to your family ¹⁰  will die in the prime of life. ¹¹ 

1 Samuel 3:13

3:13 You ¹²  should tell him that I am about to judge his house forever because of ¹³  the sin that he knew about. For his sons were cursing God, ¹⁴  and he did not rebuke them.

1 Samuel 19:11

19:11 Saul sent messengers to David’s house to guard it and to kill him in the morning. Then David’s wife Michal told him, “If you do not save yourself ¹⁵  tonight, tomorrow you will be dead!”

1 Samuel 19:22

19:22 Finally Saul ¹⁶  himself went to Ramah. When he arrived at the large cistern that is in Secu, he asked, “Where are Samuel and David?” They said, “At Naioth in Ramah.”

1 Samuel 20:6

20:6 If your father happens to miss me, you should say, ‘David urgently requested me to let him go ¹⁷  to his city Bethlehem, ¹⁸  for there is an annual sacrifice there for his entire family.’

1 Samuel 20:8

20:8 You must be loyal ¹⁹  to your servant, for you have made a covenant with your servant in the Lord’s name. ²⁰  If I am guilty, ²¹  you yourself kill me! Why bother taking me to your father?”

1 Samuel 20:34

20:34 Jonathan got up from the table enraged. He did not eat any food on that second day of the new moon, for he was upset that his father had humiliated David. ²² 

1 Samuel 25:13

25:13 Then David instructed his men, “Each of you strap on your sword!” So each one strapped on his sword, and David also strapped on his sword. About four hundred men followed David up, while two hundred stayed behind with the equipment.

1 Samuel 25:21

25:21 Now David had been thinking, ²³  “In vain I guarded everything that belonged to this man in the desert. I didn’t take anything from him. But he has repaid my good with evil.

1 Samuel 26:8

26:8 Abishai said to David, “Today God has delivered your enemy into your hands. Now let me drive the spear ²⁴  right through him into the ground with one swift jab! ²⁵  A second jab won’t be necessary!”

1 Samuel 28:3

28:3 Now Samuel had died, and all Israel had lamented over him and had buried him in Ramah, his hometown. ²⁶  In the meantime Saul had removed the mediums ²⁷  and magicians ²⁸  from the land.

1 Samuel 30:6

30:6 David was very upset, for the men ²⁹  were thinking of stoning him; ³⁰  each man grieved bitterly ³¹  over his sons and daughters. But David drew strength from the Lord his God.

[1:24]  ¹ sn The ephah was a standard dry measure in OT times; it was the equivalent of one-tenth of the OT measure known as a homer. The ephah was equal to approximately one-half to two-thirds of a bushel.

[1:24]  ² tn The Hebrew term translated “container” may denote either a clay storage jar (cf. CEV “a clay jar full of wine”) or a leather container (cf. NAB, NIV, NRSV “a skin of wine”; NCV “a leather bag filled with (full of TEV) wine.”

[1:24]  ³ tc Heb “and the boy was a boy.” If the MT is correct the meaning apparently is that the boy was quite young at the time of these events. On the other hand, some scholars have suspected a textual problem, emending the text to read either “and the boy was with them” (so LXX) or “and the boy was with her” (a conjectural emendation). In spite of the difficulty it seems best to stay with the MT here.

[2:13]  ⁴ tn Heb “the habit of the priests with the people [was this].”

[2:13]  ⁵ sn The Hebrew word occurs only twice in the OT, here and again in v. 14. Its exact meaning is not entirely clear, although from the context it appears to be a sacrificial tool used for retrieving things from boiling water.

[2:15]  ⁷ tn Heb “living.”

[2:33]  ¹⁰ tc The LXX, a Qumran ms, and a few old Latin mss have the third person pronominal suffix “his” here.

[2:33]  ¹¹ tn Heb “to cause your eyes to fail.” Elsewhere this verb, when used of eyes, refers to bloodshot eyes resulting from weeping, prolonged staring, or illness (see Lev 26:16; Pss 69:3; 119:82; Lam 2:11; 4:17).

[2:33]  ¹² tn Heb “and to cause your soul grief.”

[2:33]  ¹³ tn Heb “and all the increase of your house.”

[2:33]  ¹⁴ tc The text is difficult. The MT literally says “they will die [as] men.” Apparently the meaning is that they will be cut off in the prime of their life without reaching old age. The LXX and a Qumran ms, however, have the additional word “sword” (“they will die by the sword of men”). This is an easier reading (cf. NAB, NRSV, TEV, CEV, NLT), but that fact is not in favor of its originality.

[3:13]  ¹³ tc The MT has וְהִגַּדְתִּי לוֹ (vÿhiggadti lo). The verb is Hiphil perfect 1st person common singular, and apparently the conjunction should be understood as vav consecutive (“I will say to him”). But the future reference makes more sense if Samuel is the subject. This would require dropping the final י (yod) and reading the 2nd person masculine singular וְהִגַּדְתָּ (vÿhiggadta). Although there is no external evidence to support it, this reading has been adopted in the present translation. The alternative is to understand the MT to mean “I said to him,” but for this we would expect the preterite with vav consecutive.

[3:13]  ¹⁴ tn The translation understands the preposition to have a causal sense. However, the preposition could also be understood as the beth pretii, indicating in a broad sense the price attached to this action. So GKC 380 §119.p.

[3:13]  ¹⁵ tc The translation follows the LXX θεόν (qeon, “God”) rather than the MT לָהֶם (lahem, “to them”). The MT seems to mean “they were bringing a curse on themselves” (cf. ASV, NASB). But this meaning is problematic in part because the verb qll means “to curse,” not “to bring a curse on,” and in part because it takes an accusative object rather than the equivalent of a dative. This is one of the so-called tiqqune sopherim, or “emendations of the scribes.” Why would the ancient copyists alter the original statement about Eli’s sons cursing God to the less objectionable statement that they brought a curse on themselves? Some argue that the scribes were concerned that such a direct and blasphemous affront against God could occur without an immediate response of judgment from God. Therefore they changed the text by deleting two letters א and י (alef and yod) from the word for “God,” with the result that the text then read “to them.” If this ancient scribal claim is accepted as accurate, it implies that the MT here is secondary. The present translation follows the LXX (κακολογοῦντες θεόν, kakologounte" qeon) and a few mss of the Old Latin in reading “God” rather than the MT “to them.” Cf. also NAB, NRSV, NLT.

[19:11]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “your life.”

[19:22]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “he” (also in v. 23). the referent (Saul) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[20:6]  ²² tn Heb “to run.”

[20:6]  ²³ map For location see Map5 B1; Map7 E2; Map8 E2; Map10 B4.

[20:8]  ²⁵ tn Heb “and you must do loyalty.”

[20:8]  ²⁶ tn Heb “for into a covenant of the Lord you have brought your servant with you.”

[20:8]  ²⁷ tn Heb “and if there is in me guilt.”

[20:34]  ²⁸ tn Heb “for he was upset concerning David for his father had humiliated him.” The referent of the pronoun “him” is not entirely clear, but the phrase “concerning David” suggests that it refers to David, rather than Jonathan.

[25:21]  ³¹ tn Heb “said.”

[26:8]  ³⁴ tn Here “the spear” almost certainly refers to Saul’s own spear, which according to the previous verse was stuck into the ground beside him as he slept. This is reflected in a number of English versions: TEV, CEV “his own spear”; NLT “that spear.” Cf. NIV, NCV “my spear,” in which case Abishai refers to his own spear rather than Saul’s, but this is unlikely since (1) Abishai would probably not have carried a spear along since such a weapon would be unwieldy when sneaking into the enemy camp; and (2) this would not explain the mention of Saul’s own spear stuck in the ground beside him in the previous verse.

[26:8]  ³⁵ tn Heb “let me strike him with the spear and into the ground one time.”

[28:3]  ³⁷ tn Heb “in Ramah, even in his city.”

[28:3]  ³⁸ tn The Hebrew term translated “mediums” actually refers to a pit used by a magician to conjure up underworld spirits (see 2 Kgs 21:6). In v. 7 the witch of Endor is called the owner of a ritual pit. See H. Hoffner, “Second Millennium Antecedents to the Hebrew ’OñBù,” JBL 86 (1967): 385-401. Here the term refers by metonymy to the owner of such a pit (see H. A. Hoffner, TDOT 1:133).

[28:3]  ³⁹ sn See Isa 8:19 for another reference to magicians who attempted to conjure up underworld spirits.

[30:6]  ⁴⁰ tn Heb “people.”

[30:6]  ⁴¹ tn Heb “said to stone him.”

[30:6]  ⁴² tn Heb “for bitter was the soul of all the people, each one.”