1 Samuel 9:21

9:21 Saul replied, “Am I not a Benjaminite, from the smallest of Israel’s tribes, and is not my family clan the smallest of all the tribes of Benjamin? Why do you speak to me in this way?”

1 Samuel 14:1

14:1 Then one day Jonathan son of Saul said to his armor bearer, ¹  “Come on, let’s go over to the Philistine garrison that is opposite us.” But he did not let his father know.

1 Samuel 16:18

16:18 One of his attendants replied, ²  “I have seen a son of Jesse in Bethlehem ³  who knows how to play the lyre. He is a brave warrior ⁴  and is articulate ⁵  and handsome, ⁶  for the Lord is with him.”

1 Samuel 17:12

17:12 ⁷ Now David was the son of this Ephrathite named Jesse from Bethlehem ⁸  in Judah. He had eight sons, and in Saul’s days he was old and well advanced in years. ⁹ 

1 Samuel 17:55

17:55 ¹⁰ Now as Saul watched David going out to fight the Philistine, he asked Abner, the general in command of the army, “Whose son is this young man, Abner?” Abner replied, “As surely as you live, O king, I don’t know.”

1 Samuel 20:27

20:27 But the next morning, the second day of the new moon, David’s place was still vacant. So Saul said to his son Jonathan, “Why has Jesse’s son not come to the meal yesterday or today?”

1 Samuel 20:30

20:30 Saul became angry with Jonathan ¹¹  and said to him, “You stupid traitor! ¹²  Don’t I realize that to your own disgrace and to the disgrace of your mother’s nakedness you have chosen this son of Jesse?

1 Samuel 22:7-8

22:7 Saul said to his servants who were stationed around him, “Listen up, you Benjaminites! Is Jesse’s son giving fields and vineyards to all of you? Or is he making all of you ¹³  commanders and officers? ¹⁴  22:8 For all of you have conspired against me! No one informs me ¹⁵  when my own son makes an agreement with this son of Jesse! Not one of you feels sorry for me or informs me that my own son has commissioned my own servant to hide in ambush against me, as is the case today!”

1 Samuel 22:11

22:11 Then the king arranged for a meeting with the priest Ahimelech son of Ahitub and all the priests of his father’s house who were at Nob. They all came to the king.

1 Samuel 26:5-6

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. 26:6 David said to Ahimelech the Hittite and Abishai son of Zeruiah, Joab’s brother, “Who will go down with me to Saul in the camp?” Abishai replied, “I will go down with you.”

1 Samuel 26:14

26:14 David called to the army and to Abner son of Ner, “Won’t you answer, Abner?” Abner replied, “Who are you, that you have called to the king?”

[14:1]  ¹ tn Or “the servant who was carrying his military equipment” (likewise in vv. 6, 7, 12, 13, 14).

[16:18]  ¹ tn Heb “answered and said.”

[16:18]  ² map For location see Map5 B1; Map7 E2; Map8 E2; Map10 B4.

[16:18]  ³ tn Heb “mighty man of valor and a man of war.”

[16:18]  ⁴ tn Heb “discerning of word.”

[16:18]  ⁵ tn Heb “a man of form.”

[17:12]  ¹ tc Some mss of the LXX lack vv. 12-31.

[17:12]  ² map For location see Map5 B1; Map7 E2; Map8 E2; Map10 B4.

[17:12]  ³ tc The translation follows the Lucianic recension of the LXX and the Syriac Peshitta in reading “in years,” rather than MT “among men.”

[17:55]  ¹ tc Most LXX mss lack 17:55–18:5.

[20:30]  ¹ tc Many medieval Hebrew mss include the words “his son” here.

[20:30]  ² tn Heb “son of a perverse woman of rebelliousness.” But such an overly literal and domesticated translation of the Hebrew expression fails to capture the force of Saul’s unrestrained reaction. Saul, now incensed and enraged over Jonathan’s liaison with David, is actually hurling very coarse and emotionally charged words at his son. The translation of this phrase suggested by Koehler and Baumgartner is “bastard of a wayward woman” (HALOT 796 s.v. עוה), but this is not an expression commonly used in English. A better English approximation of the sentiments expressed here by the Hebrew phrase would be “You stupid son of a bitch!” However, sensitivity to the various public formats in which the Bible is read aloud has led to a less startling English rendering which focuses on the semantic value of Saul’s utterance (i.e., the behavior of his own son Jonathan, which he viewed as both a personal and a political betrayal [= “traitor”]). But this concession should not obscure the fact that Saul is full of bitterness and frustration. That he would address his son Jonathan with such language, not to mention his apparent readiness even to kill his own son over this friendship with David (v. 33), indicates something of the extreme depth of Saul’s jealousy and hatred of David.

[22:7]  ¹ tc The MT has “to all of you.” If this reading is correct, we have here an example of a prepositional phrase functioning as the equivalent of a dative of advantage, which is not impossible from a grammatical point of view. However, the LXX, the Syriac Peshitta, and Vulgate all have “and.” A conjunction rather than a preposition should probably be read on the front of this phrase.

[22:7]  ² tn Heb “officers of a thousand and officers of a hundred.”

[22:8]  ¹ tn Heb “uncovers my ear.”