1 Samuel 3:21

3:21 Then the Lord again appeared in Shiloh, for it was in Shiloh that the Lord had revealed himself to Samuel ¹  through the word of the Lord. ² 

Psalms 74:9

74:9 We do not see any signs of God’s presence; ³ 

there are no longer any prophets ⁴ 

and we have no one to tell us how long this will last. ⁵ 

Isaiah 13:12

13:12 I will make human beings more scarce than pure gold,

and people more scarce ⁶  than gold from Ophir.

Amos 8:11-12

8:11 Be certain of this, ⁷  the time is ⁸  coming,” says the sovereign Lord,

“when I will send a famine through the land –

not a shortage of food or water

but an end to divine revelation! ⁹ 

8:12 People ¹⁰  will stagger from sea to sea, ¹¹ 

and from the north around to the east.

They will wander about looking for a revelation from ¹²  the Lord,

but they will not find any. ¹³ 

[3:21]  ¹ tc The LXX has a lengthy addition here: “And Samuel was acknowledged to be a prophet of the Lord in all Israel, from one end to the other. Eli was very old and, as for his sons, their way kept getting worse and worse before the Lord.” The Hebraic nature of the Greek syntax used here suggests that the LXX translator was accurately rendering a Hebrew variant and not simply expanding the text on his own initiative.

[3:21]  ² tn The chapter division at this point is inappropriate. 1 Sam 4:1a is best understood as the conclusion to chap. 3 rather than the beginning of chap. 4.

[74:9]  ³ tn Heb “our signs we do not see.” Because of the reference to a prophet in the next line, it is likely that the “signs” in view here include the evidence of God’s presence as typically revealed through the prophets. These could include miraculous acts performed by the prophets (see, for example, Isa 38:7-8) or object lessons which they acted out (see, for example, Isa 20:3).

[74:9]  ⁴ tn Heb “there is not still a prophet.”

[74:9]  ⁵ tn Heb “and [there is] not with us one who knows how long.”

[13:12]  ⁶ tn The verb is supplied in the translation from the first line. The verb in the first line (“I will make scarce”) does double duty in the parallel structure of the verse.

[8:11]  ⁷ tn Heb “behold” or “look.”

[8:11]  ⁸ tn Heb “the days are.”

[8:11]  ⁹ tn Heb “not a hunger for food or a thirst for water, but for hearing the words of the Lord.”

[8:12]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “they”; the referent (people) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[8:12]  ¹¹ tn That is, from the Mediterranean Sea in the west to the Dead Sea in the east – that is, across the whole land.

[8:12]  ¹² tn Heb “looking for the word of.”

[8:12]  ¹³ tn It is not clear whether the speaker in this verse is the Lord or the prophet.