1 Samuel 2:8

2:8 He lifts the weak ¹  from the dust;

he raises ²  the poor from the ash heap

to seat them with princes

and to bestow on them an honored position. ³ 

The foundations of the earth belong to the Lord,

and he has placed the world on them.

1 Samuel 5:4

5:4 But when they got up early the following day, Dagon was again lying on the ground before the ark of the Lord. The head of Dagon and his two hands were sheared off and were lying at the threshold. Only Dagon’s body was left intact. ⁴ 

1 Samuel 9:16

9:16 “At this time tomorrow I will send to you a man from the land of Benjamin. You must consecrate ⁵  him as a leader over my people Israel. He will save my people from the hand of the Philistines. For I have looked with favor on my people. Their cry has reached me!”

1 Samuel 17:49

17:49 David reached his hand into the bag and took out a stone. He slung it, striking the Philistine on the forehead. The stone sank deeply into his forehead, and he fell down with his face to the ground.

1 Samuel 20:41

20:41 When the servant had left, David got up from beside the mound, ⁶  knelt ⁷  with his face to the ground, and bowed three times. Then they kissed each other and they both wept, especially David.

1 Samuel 21:11

21:11 The servants of Achish said to him, “Isn’t this David, the king of the land? Isn’t he the one that they sing about when they dance, saying,

‘Saul struck down his thousands,

But David his tens of thousands’?”

1 Samuel 23:23

23:23 Locate precisely all the places where he hides and return to me with dependable information. ⁸  Then I will go with you. If he is in the land, I will find him ⁹  among all the thousands of Judah.”

1 Samuel 24:8

24:8 Afterward David got up and went out of the cave. He called out after Saul, “My lord, O king!” When Saul looked behind him, David kneeled down and bowed with his face to the ground.

1 Samuel 26:7-8

26:7 So David and Abishai approached the army at night and found Saul lying asleep in the entrenchment with his spear stuck in the ground by his head. Abner and the army were lying all around him. 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 Samuel 26:20

26:20 Now don’t let my blood fall to the ground away from the Lord’s presence, for the king of Israel has gone out to look for a flea the way one looks for a partridge ¹²  in the hill country.”

1 Samuel 27:1

David Aligns Himself with the Philistines

27:1 David thought to himself, ¹³  “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 Samuel 28:9

28:9 But the woman said to him, “Look, you are aware of what Saul has done; he has removed ¹⁴  the mediums and magicians ¹⁵  from the land! Why are you trapping me ¹⁶  so you can put me to death?”

1 Samuel 28:14

28:14 He said to her, “What about his appearance?” She said, “An old man is coming up! He is wrapped in a robe!”

Then Saul realized it was Samuel, and he bowed his face toward the ground and kneeled down.

1 Samuel 28:20

28:20 Saul quickly fell full length on the ground and was very afraid because of Samuel’s words. He was completely drained of energy, ¹⁷  not having eaten anything ¹⁸  all that day and night.

[2:8]  ¹ tn Or “lowly”; Heb “insignificant.”

[2:8]  ² tn The imperfect verbal form, which is parallel to the participle in the preceding line, is best understood here as indicating what typically happens.

[2:8]  ³ tn Heb “a seat of honor.”

[5:4]  ⁴ tc Heb “only Dagon was left.” We should probably read the word גֵּו (gev, “back”) before Dagon, understanding it to have the sense of the similar word גְּוִיָּה (gÿviyyah, “body”). This variant is supported by the following evidence: The LXX has ἡ ῥάχις (Jh rJacis, “the back” or “trunk”); the Syriac Peshitta has wegusmeh (“and the body of”); the Targum has gupyeh (“the body of”); the Vulgate has truncus (“the trunk of,” cf. NAB, NASB, NRSV, NLT). On the strength of this evidence the present translation employs the phrase “Dagon’s body.”

[9:16]  ⁷ tn Heb “anoint.”

[20:41]  ¹⁰ tc The translation follows the LXX in reading “the mound,” rather than the MT’s “the south.” It is hard to see what meaning the MT reading “from beside the south” would have as it stands, since such a location lacks specificity. The NIV treats it as an elliptical expression, rendering the phrase as “from the south side of the stone (rock NCV).” This is perhaps possible, but it seems better to follow the LXX rather than the MT here.

[20:41]  ¹¹ tn Heb “fell.”

[23:23]  ¹³ tn Heb “established.”

[23:23]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “I will search him out.”

[26:8]  ¹⁶ 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]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “let me strike him with the spear and into the ground one time.”

[26:20]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “the calling [one],” which apparently refers to a partridge.

[27:1]  ²² tn Heb “said to his heart.”

[28:9]  ²⁵ tn Heb “how he has cut off.”

[28:9]  ²⁶ tn See the note at v. 3.

[28:9]  ²⁷ tn Heb “my life.”

[28:20]  ²⁸ tn Heb “also there was no strength in him.”

[28:20]  ²⁹ tn Heb “food.”