1 Samuel 4:12

Eli Dies

4:12 On that day ¹  a Benjaminite ran from the battle lines and came to Shiloh. His clothes were torn and dirt was on his head.

1 Samuel 10:1

Samuel Anoints Saul

10:1 Then Samuel took a small container of olive oil and poured it on Saul’s ²  head. Samuel ³  kissed him and said, “The Lord has chosen you ⁴  to lead his people Israel! You will rule over the Lord’s people and you will deliver them from the power of the enemies who surround them. This will be your sign that the Lord has chosen ⁵  you as leader over his inheritance. ⁶ 

1 Samuel 17:5

17:5 He had a bronze helmet on his head and was wearing scale body armor. The weight of his bronze body armor was five thousand shekels. ⁷ 

1 Samuel 17:38

17:38 Then Saul clothed David with his own fighting attire and put a bronze helmet on his head. He also put body armor on him.

1 Samuel 31:9

31:9 They cut off Saul’s ⁸  head and stripped him of his armor. They sent messengers to announce the news in the temple of their idols and among their people throughout the surrounding land of the Philistines.

[4:12]  ¹ tn Or perhaps, “the same day.” On this use of the demonstrative pronoun see Joüon 2:532 §143.f.

[10:1]  ² tn Heb “his”; the referent (Saul) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[10:1]  ³ tn Heb “he”; the referent (Samuel) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[10:1]  ⁴ tn Heb “Is it not that the Lord has anointed you?” The question draws attention to the fact and is a rhetorical way of affirming the Lord’s choice of Saul. The translation reflects the rhetorical force of the question.

[10:1]  ⁵ tn That is, “anointed.”

[10:1]  ⁶ tc The MT reads simply “Is it not that the Lord has anointed you over his inheritance for a leader?” The translation follows the LXX. The MT apparently suffers from parablepsis, whereby a scribe’s eye jumped from the first occurrence of the expression “the Lord has anointed you” to the second occurrence of this expression at the end of v. 1. This mistake caused the accidental omission of the intervening material in the LXX, which appears to preserve the original Hebrew text here.

[17:5]  ³ sn Although the exact weight of Goliath’s defensive body armor is difficult to estimate in terms of modern equivalency, it was obviously quite heavy. Driver, following Kennedy, suggests a modern equivalent of about 220 pounds (100 kg); see S. R. Driver, Notes on the Hebrew Text and the Topography of the Books of Samuel, 139. Klein, taking the shekel to be equal to .403 ounces, arrives at a somewhat smaller weight of about 126 pounds (57 kg); see R. W. Klein, 1 Samuel (WBC), 175. But by any estimate it is clear that Goliath presented himself as a formidable foe indeed.

[31:9]  ⁴ tn Heb “his”; the referent (Saul) has been specified in the translation for clarity (likewise in the following verse).