1 Samuel 13:14

13:14 But now your kingdom will not continue! The Lord has sought out ¹  for himself a man who is loyal to him ²  and the Lord has appointed ³  him to be leader over his people, for you have not obeyed what the Lord commanded you.”

1 Samuel 21:2

21:2 David replied to Ahimelech the priest, “The king instructed me to do something, but he said to me, ‘Don’t let anyone know the reason I am sending you or the instructions I have given you.’ ⁴  I have told my soldiers ⁵  to wait at a certain place. ⁶ 

[13:14]  ¹ tn This verb form, as well as the one that follows (“appointed”), indicates completed action from the standpoint of the speaker. This does not necessarily mean that the Lord had already conducted his search and made his choice, however. The forms may be used for rhetorical effect to emphasize the certainty of the action. The divine search for a new king is as good as done, emphasizing that the days of Saul’s dynasty are numbered.

[13:14]  ² tn Heb “according to his heart.” The idiomatic expression means to be like-minded with another, as its use in 1 Sam 14:7 indicates.

[13:14]  ³ tn Heb “commanded.”

[21:2]  ⁴ tn Heb “let not a man know anything about the matter [for] which I am sending you and [about] which I commanded you.”

[21:2]  ⁵ tn Heb “servants.”

[21:2]  ⁶ tn The Hebrew expression here refers to a particular, but unnamed, place. It occurs in the OT only here, in 2 Kgs 6:8, and in Ruth 4:1, where Boaz uses it to refer to Naomi’s unnamed kinsman-redeemer. A contracted form of the expression appears in Dan 8:13.