1 Samuel 20:18-23

20:18 Jonathan said to him, “Tomorrow is the new moon, and you will be missed, for your seat will be empty. 20:19 On the third day ¹  you should go down quickly ²  and come to the place where you hid yourself the day this all started. ³  Stay near the stone Ezel. 20:20 I will shoot three arrows near it, as though I were shooting at a target. 20:21 When I send a boy after them, I will say, “Go and find the arrows.” If I say to the boy, ‘Look, the arrows are on this side of you; ⁴  get them,’ then come back. For as surely as the Lord lives, you will be safe and there will no problem. 20:22 But if I say to the boy, “Look, the arrows are on the other side of you,’ ⁵  get away. For in that case the Lord has sent you away. 20:23 With regard to the matter that you and I discussed, the Lord is the witness between us forever!” ⁶ 

[20:19]  ¹ tc Heb “you will do [something] a third time.” The translation assumes an emendation of the verb from שִׁלַּשְׁתָּ (shillashta, “to do a third time”) to שִׁלִּישִׁית (shillishit, “[on the] third [day]”).

[20:19]  ² tn Heb “you must go down greatly.” See Judg 19:11 for the same idiom.

[20:19]  ³ tn Heb “on the day of the deed.” This probably refers to the incident recorded in 19:2.

[20:21]  ¹ tn Heb “from you and here.”

[20:22]  ¹ tn Heb “from you and onward.”

[20:23]  ¹ tc Heb “the Lord [is] between me and between you forever.” The translation assumes that the original text read עֵד עַד־עוֹלָם (’ed ’ad-’olam), “a witness forever,” with the noun “a witness” accidentally falling out of the text by haplography. See P. K. McCarter, I Samuel (AB), 338.