1 Samuel 2:30

2:30 Therefore the Lord, the God of Israel, says, ‘I really did say ¹  that your house and your ancestor’s house would serve ²  me forever.’ But now the Lord says, ‘May it never be! ³  For I will honor those who honor me, but those who despise me will be cursed!

1 Samuel 26:21

26:21 Saul replied, “I have sinned. Come back, my son David. I won’t harm you, for you treated my life with value ⁴  this day. I have behaved foolishly and have made a very terrible mistake!” ⁵ 

1 Samuel 26:2

26:2 So Saul arose and

went down to the desert of Ziph, accompanied by three thousand select men of Israel, to look for David in the desert of Ziph.

1 Samuel 1:13

1:13 Now Hannah was speaking from her heart. Although her lips were moving, her voice was inaudible. Eli therefore thought she was drunk.

Psalms 116:15

116:15 The Lord values

the lives of his faithful followers. ⁶ 

Psalms 116:1

Psalm 116 ⁷ 

116:1 I love the Lord

because he heard my plea for mercy, ⁸ 

Psalms 2:4

2:4 The one enthroned ⁹  in heaven laughs in disgust; ¹⁰ 

the Lord taunts ¹¹  them.

Psalms 2:7

2:7 The king says, ¹²  “I will announce the Lord’s decree. He said to me: ¹³ 

‘You are my son! ¹⁴  This very day I have become your father!

[2:30]  ¹ tn The infinitive absolute appears before the finite verb for emphasis.

[2:30]  ² tn Heb “walk about before.”

[2:30]  ³ tn Heb “may it be far removed from me.”

[26:21]  ⁴ tn Heb “my life was valuable in your eyes.”

[26:21]  ⁵ tn Heb “and I have erred very greatly.”

[116:15]  ⁶ tn Heb “precious in the eyes of the Lord [is] the death of his godly ones.” The point is not that God delights in or finds satisfaction in the death of his followers! The psalmist, who has been delivered from death, affirms that the life-threatening experiences of God’s followers get God’s attention, just as a precious or rare object would attract someone’s eye. See Ps 72:14 for a similar expression of this belief.

[116:1]  ⁷ sn Psalm 116. The psalmist thanks the Lord for delivering him from a life threatening crisis and promises to tell the entire covenant community what God has done for him.

[116:1]  ⁸ tn Heb “I love because the Lord heard my voice, my pleas.” It is possible that “the Lord” originally appeared directly after “I love” and was later accidentally misplaced. The translation assumes the prefixed verbal form is a preterite. The psalmist recalls that God heard his cry for help (note the perfect in v. 2a and the narrative in vv. 3-4).

[2:4]  ⁹ tn Heb “sitting.” The Hebrew verb יָשַׁב (yashav) is here used metonymically of “sitting enthroned” (see Pss 9:7; 29:10; 55:19; 102:12; 123:1).

[2:4]  ¹⁰ tn As the next line indicates, this refers to derisive laughter. The Hebrew imperfect verbal forms in vv. 4-5 describe the action from the perspective of an eyewitness who is watching the divine response as it unfolds before his eyes.

[2:4]  ¹¹ tn Or “scoffs at”; “derides”; “mocks.”

[2:7]  ¹² tn The words “the king says” are supplied in the translation for clarification. The speaker is the Lord’s chosen king.

[2:7]  ¹³ tn Or “I will relate the decree. The Lord said to me” (in accordance with the Masoretic accentuation).

[2:7]  ¹⁴ sn ‘You are my son!’ The Davidic king was viewed as God’s “son” (see 2 Sam 7:14; Ps 89:26-27). The idiom reflects ancient Near Eastern adoption language associated with covenants of grant, by which a lord would reward a faithful subject by elevating him to special status, referred to as “sonship.” Like a son, the faithful subject received an “inheritance,” viewed as an unconditional, eternal gift. Such gifts usually took the form of land and/or an enduring dynasty. See M. Weinfeld, “The Covenant of Grant in the Old Testament and in the Ancient Near East,” JAOS 90 (1970): 184-203, for general discussion and some striking extra-biblical parallels.