1 Samuel 4:2

4:2 The Philistines arranged their forces to fight ¹  Israel. As the battle spread out, ²  Israel was defeated by ³  the Philistines, who ⁴  killed about four thousand men in the battle line in the field.

1 Samuel 8:12

8:12 He will appoint for himself leaders of thousands and leaders of fifties, ⁵  as well as those who plow his ground, reap his harvest, and make his weapons of war and his chariot equipment.

1 Samuel 15:4

15:4 So Saul assembled ⁶  the army ⁷  and mustered them at Telaim. There were 200,000 foot soldiers and 10,000 men of Judah.

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. ⁸ 

1 Samuel 24:2

24:2 So Saul took three thousand select men from all Israel and went to find ⁹  David and his men in the region of ¹⁰  the rocks of the mountain goats. ¹¹ 

1 Samuel 25:2

David Marries Abigail the Widow of Nabal

25:2 There was a man in Maon whose business was in Carmel. This man was very wealthy; ¹²  he owned three thousand sheep and a thousand goats. At that time he was shearing his sheep in Carmel.

1 Samuel 26:2

26:2 So Saul arose and

went down to the desert of Ziph, accompanied by three thousand select men of Israel, to look for David in the desert of Ziph.

[4:2]  ¹ tn Heb “to meet.”

[4:2]  ² 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]  ³ tn Heb “before.”

[4:2]  ⁴ 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.

[8:12]  ⁵ tc The numbers of v. 12 are confused in the Greek and Syriac versions. For “fifties” the LXX has “hundreds.” The Syriac Peshitta has “heads of thousands and heads of hundreds and heads of fifties and heads of tens,” perhaps reflecting influence from Deut 1:15.

[15:4]  ⁹ tn Heb “caused the people to hear.”

[15:4]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “people.”

[17:5]  ¹³ 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.

[24:2]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “to search [for].”

[24:2]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “upon the face of.”

[24:2]  ¹⁹ tn Or “the region of the Rocks of the Mountain Goats,” if this expression is understood as a place name (cf. NASB, NIV, NRSV, TEV, CEV).

[25:2]  ²¹ tn Heb “great.”