1 Samuel 4:17

4:17 The messenger replied, “Israel has fled from ¹  the Philistines! The army has suffered a great defeat! Your two sons, Hophni and Phineas, are dead! The ark of God has been captured!”

1 Samuel 4:2

4:2 The Philistines arranged their forces to fight ²  Israel. As the battle spread out, ³  Israel was defeated by ⁴  the Philistines, who ⁵  killed about four thousand men in the battle line in the field.

1 Samuel 15:13

15:13 When Samuel came to him, ⁶  Saul said to him, “May the Lord bless you! I have done what the Lord said.”

Jeremiah 51:31

51:31 One runner after another will come to the king of Babylon.

One messenger after another will come bringing news. ⁷ 

They will bring news to the king of Babylon

that his whole city has been captured. ⁸ 

[4:17]  ¹ tn Heb “before.”

[4:2]  ² tn Heb “to meet.”

[4:2]  ³ tn The MT has וַתִּטֹּשׁ (vattittosh), from the root נטשׁ (ntsh). This verb normally means “to leave,” “to forsake,” or “to permit,” but such an idea does not fit this context very well. Many scholars have suspected that the text originally read either וַתֵּט (vattet, “and it spread out”), from the root נטה (nth), or וַתִּקֶשׁ (vattiqesh, “and it grew fierce”), from the root קשׂה (qsh). The former suggestion is apparently supported by the LXX ἔκλινεν (eklinen, “it inclined”) and is adopted in the translation.

[4:2]  ⁴ tn Heb “before.”

[4:2]  ⁵ tn Heb “the Philistines, and they killed.” The pronoun “they” has been translated as a relative pronoun (“who”) to make it clear to the English reader that the Philistines were the ones who did the killing.

[15:13]  ⁶ tn Heb “to Saul.”

[51:31]  ⁷ tn Heb “Runner will run to meet runner and…” The intent is to portray a relay of runners carrying the news that follows on in vv. 31d-33 to the king of Babylon. The present translation attempts to spell out the significance.

[51:31]  ⁸ tn Heb “Runner will run to meet runner and messenger to meet messenger to report to the king of Babylon that his city has been taken in [its] entirety.” There is general agreement among the commentaries that the first two lines refer to messengers converging on the king of Babylon from every direction bringing news the sum total of which is reported in the lines that follow. For the meaning of the last phrase see BDB 892 s.v. קָצֶה 3 and compare the usage in Gen 19:4 and Isa 56:11. The sentence has been broken down and restructured to better conform with contemporary English style.