1 Samuel 28:4

28:4 The Philistines assembled; they came and camped at Shunem. Saul mustered all Israel and camped at Gilboa.

1 Samuel 4:1

4:1 Samuel revealed the word of the Lord ¹  to all Israel.

The Ark of the Covenant is Lost to the Philistines

Then the Israelites went out to fight the Philistines. ²  They camped at Ebenezer, ³  and the Philistines camped at Aphek.

1 Samuel 13:16

13:16 Saul, his son Jonathan, and the army that remained with them stayed in Gibeah in the territory of Benjamin, while the Philistines camped in Micmash. ⁴ 

1 Samuel 17:2

17:2 Saul and the Israelite army ⁵  assembled and camped in the valley of Elah, where they arranged their battle lines to fight against ⁶  the Philistines.

1 Samuel 29:1

David Is Rejected by the Philistine Leaders

29:1 The Philistines assembled all their troops ⁷  at Aphek, while Israel camped at the spring that is in Jezreel.

1 Samuel 26:5

26:5 So David set out and went to the place where Saul was camped. David saw the place where Saul and Abner son of Ner, the general in command of his army, were sleeping. Now Saul was lying in the entrenchment, and the army was camped all around him.

1 Samuel 11:1

Saul Comes to the Aid of Jabesh

11:1 ⁸ Nahash ⁹  the Ammonite marched ¹⁰  against Jabesh Gilead. All the men of Jabesh Gilead said to Nahash, “Make a treaty with us and we will serve you.”

1 Samuel 17:1

David Kills Goliath

17:1 ¹¹ The Philistines gathered their troops ¹²  for battle. They assembled at Socoh in Judah. They camped in Ephes Dammim, between Socoh and Azekah.

1 Samuel 13:5

13:5 For the battle with Israel the Philistines had amassed 3,000 ¹³  chariots, 6,000 horsemen, and an army as numerous as the sand on the seashore. They went up and camped at Micmash, east of Beth Aven.

1 Samuel 26:3

26:3 Saul camped by the road on the hill of Hakilah near Jeshimon, but David was staying in the desert. When he realized that Saul had come to the desert to find ¹⁴  him,

[4:1]  ¹ tn Heb “and the word of Samuel was.” The present translation understands Samuel to be the speaker of the divine word (“Samuel” is a subjective genitive in this case), although the statement could mean that he was the recipient of the divine word (“Samuel” is an objective genitive in this case) who in turn reported it to Israel.

[4:1]  ² tn Heb “and Israel went out to meet the Philistines for battle.”

[4:1]  ³ tn Heb “the stone, the help.” The second noun is in apposition to the first one and apparently is the name by which the stone was known. Contrast the expression used in 5:1 and 7:12, where the first word lacks the definite article, unlike 4:1.

[13:16]  ¹ tn The juxtaposition of disjunctive clauses in v.16 indicates synchronic action.

[17:2]  ¹ tn Heb “the men of Israel” (so KJV, NASB); NAB, NIV, NRSV “the Israelites.”

[17:2]  ² tn Heb “to meet.”

[29:1]  ¹ tn Heb “camps.”

[11:1]  ¹ tc 4QSam^a and Josephus (Ant. 6.68-71) attest to a longer form of text at this point. The addition explains Nahash’s practice of enemy mutilation, and by so doing provides a smoother transition to the following paragraph than is found in the MT. The NRSV adopts this reading, with the following English translation: “Now Nahash, king of the Ammonites, had been grievously oppressing the Gadites and the Reubenites. He would gouge out the right eye of each of them and would not grant Israel a deliverer. No one was left of the Israelites across the Jordan whose right eye Nahash, king of the Ammonites, had not gouged out. But there were seven thousand men who had escaped from the Ammonites and had entered Jabesh-gilead.” This reading should not be lightly dismissed; it may in fact provide a text superior to that of the MT and the ancient versions. But the external evidence for it is so limited as to induce caution; the present translation instead follows the MT. However, for a reasonable case for including this reading in the text see the discussions in P. K. McCarter, I Samuel (AB), 199, and R. W. Klein, 1 Samuel (WBC), 103.

[11:1]  ² sn The name “Nahash” means “serpent” in Hebrew.

[11:1]  ³ tn Heb “went up and camped”; NIV, NRSV “went up and besieged.”

[17:1]  ¹ tc The content of 1 Sam 17–18, which includes the David and Goliath story, differs considerably in the LXX as compared to the MT, suggesting that this story circulated in ancient times in more than one form. The LXX for chs. 17–18 is much shorter than the MT, lacking almost half of the material (39 of a total of 88 verses). Many scholars (e.g., McCarter, Klein) think that the shorter text of the LXX is preferable to the MT, which in their view has been expanded by incorporation of later material. Other scholars (e.g., Wellhausen, Driver) conclude that the shorter Greek text (or the Hebrew text that underlies it) reflects an attempt to harmonize certain alleged inconsistencies that appear in the longer version of the story. Given the translation characteristics of the LXX elsewhere in this section, it does not seem likely that these differences are due to deliberate omission of these verses on the part of the translator. It seems more likely that the Greek translator has faithfully rendered here a Hebrew text that itself was much shorter than the MT in these chapters. Whether or not the shorter text represented by the LXX is to be preferred over the MT in 1 Sam 17–18 is a matter over which textual scholars are divided. For a helpful discussion of the major textual issues in this unit see D. Barthélemy, D. W. Gooding, J. Lust, and E. Tov, The Story of David and Goliath (OBO). Overall it seems preferable to stay with the MT, at least for the most part. However, the major textual differences between the LXX and the MT will be mentioned in the notes that accompany the translation so that the reader may be alert to the major problem passages.

[17:1]  ² tn Heb “camps.”

[13:5]  ¹ tn Many English versions (e.g., KJV, NASB, NRSV, TEV) read “30,000” here.

[26:3]  ¹ tn Heb “after.”