1 Samuel 20:7

20:7 If he should then say, ‘That’s fine,’ ¹  then your servant is safe. But if he becomes very angry, be assured that he has decided to harm me. ² 

1 Samuel 11:6

11:6 The Spirit of God rushed upon Saul when he heard these words, and he became very angry.

1 Samuel 18:8

18:8 This made Saul very angry. The statement displeased him and he thought, ³  “They have attributed to David tens of thousands, but to me they have attributed only thousands. What does he lack, except the kingdom?”

1 Samuel 15:11

15:11 “I regret that I have made Saul king, for he has turned away from me and has not done what I told him to do.” Samuel became angry and he cried out to the Lord all that night.

1 Samuel 20:30

20:30 Saul became angry with Jonathan ⁴  and said to him, “You stupid traitor! ⁵  Don’t I realize that to your own disgrace and to the disgrace of your mother’s nakedness you have chosen this son of Jesse?

1 Samuel 17:28

17:28 When David’s ⁶  oldest brother Eliab heard him speaking to the men, he became angry ⁷  with David and said, “Why have you come down here? To whom did you entrust those few sheep in the desert? I am familiar with your pride and deceit! ⁸  You have come down here to watch the battle!”

[20:7]  ¹ tn Heb “good.”

[20:7]  ² tn Heb “know that the evil is completed from with him.”

[18:8]  ³ tn Heb “said.” So also in vv. 11, 17.

[20:30]  ⁵ tc Many medieval Hebrew mss include the words “his son” here.

[20:30]  ⁶ tn Heb “son of a perverse woman of rebelliousness.” But such an overly literal and domesticated translation of the Hebrew expression fails to capture the force of Saul’s unrestrained reaction. Saul, now incensed and enraged over Jonathan’s liaison with David, is actually hurling very coarse and emotionally charged words at his son. The translation of this phrase suggested by Koehler and Baumgartner is “bastard of a wayward woman” (HALOT 796 s.v. עוה), but this is not an expression commonly used in English. A better English approximation of the sentiments expressed here by the Hebrew phrase would be “You stupid son of a bitch!” However, sensitivity to the various public formats in which the Bible is read aloud has led to a less startling English rendering which focuses on the semantic value of Saul’s utterance (i.e., the behavior of his own son Jonathan, which he viewed as both a personal and a political betrayal [= “traitor”]). But this concession should not obscure the fact that Saul is full of bitterness and frustration. That he would address his son Jonathan with such language, not to mention his apparent readiness even to kill his own son over this friendship with David (v. 33), indicates something of the extreme depth of Saul’s jealousy and hatred of David.

[17:28]  ⁷ tn Heb “his”; the referent (David) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[17:28]  ⁸ tn Heb “the anger of Eliab became hot.”

[17:28]  ⁹ tn Heb “the wickedness of your heart.”