1 Samuel 1:5

1:5 But he would give a double ¹  portion to Hannah, because he especially loved her. ²  Now the Lord had not enabled her to have children. ³ 

1 Samuel 1:2

1:2 He had two wives; the name of the first was Hannah and the name of the second was Peninnah. Now Peninnah had children, but Hannah was childless.

1 Samuel 1:24

1:24 Once she had weaned him, she took him up with her, along with three bulls, an ephah ⁴  of flour, and a container ⁵  of wine. She brought him to the Lord’s house at Shiloh, even though he was young. ⁶ 

1 Samuel 2:36

2:36 Everyone who remains in your house will come to bow before him for a little money ⁷  and for a scrap of bread. Each will say, ‘Assign me to a priestly task so I can eat a scrap of bread.’”

1 Samuel 6:4

6:4 They inquired, “What is the guilt offering that we should send to him?”

They replied, “The Philistine leaders number five. So send five gold sores and five gold mice, for it is the same plague that has afflicted both you and your leaders.

1 Samuel 6:7

6:7 So now go and make a new cart. Get two cows that have calves and that have never had a yoke placed on them. Harness the cows to the cart and take their calves from them back to their stalls.

1 Samuel 6:12

6:12 Then the cows went directly on the road to Beth Shemesh. They went along, mooing as they went; they turned neither to the right nor to the left. The leaders of the Philistines were walking along behind them all the way to the border of Beth Shemesh.

1 Samuel 7:12

7:12 Samuel took a stone and placed it between Mizpah and Shen. ⁸  He named it Ebenezer, ⁹  saying, “Up to here the Lord has helped us.”

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 ¹⁰  right through him into the ground with one swift jab! ¹¹  A second jab won’t be necessary!”

[1:5]  ¹ tn The exact sense of the Hebrew word אַפָּיִם (’appayim, “two faces”) is not certain here. It is most likely used with the preceding expression (“one portion of two faces”) to mean a portion double than normally received. Although evidence for this use of the word derives primarily from Aramaic rather than from Hebrew usage, it provides an understanding that fits the context here better than other suggestions for the word do. The meaning “double” is therefore adopted in the present translation. Other possibilities for the meaning of the word include the following: “heavily” (cf. Vulg., tristis) and “worthy” or “choice” (cf. KJV and Targum). Some scholars have followed the LXX here, emending the word to אֶפֶס (’efes) and translating it as “but” or “however.” This seems unnecessary. The translators of the LXX may simply have been struggling to make sense of the word rather than following a Hebrew text that was different from the MT here.

[1:5]  ² tn Heb “for Hannah he loved.” Repetition of the proper name would seem redundant in contemporary English, so the pronoun (“her”) has been used here for clarity. The translation also adds the adverb “especially” to clarify the meaning of the text. Without this addition one might get the impression that only Hannah, not Peninnah, was loved by her husband. But the point of the text is that Hannah was his favorite.

[1:5]  ³ tn Heb “and the Lord had closed her womb.” So also in v. 6. The disjunctive clause provides supplemental information that is pertinent to the story.

[1:24]  ⁴ 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]  ⁵ 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]  ⁶ 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.

[2:36]  ⁷ tn Heb “a piece of silver” (so KJV, NAB, NASB, NIV, NRSV).

[7:12]  ¹⁰ tn Cf. NAB, NRSV, NLT “Jeshanah.”

[7:12]  ¹¹ sn The name Ebenezer (אֶבֶן הָעָזֶר) means “stone of help” in Hebrew (cf. TEV); NLT adds the meaning parenthetically after the name.

[26:8]  ¹³ 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]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “let me strike him with the spear and into the ground one time.”