1 Samuel 1:24

1:24 Once she had weaned him, she took him up with her, along with three bulls, an ephah ¹  of flour, and a container ²  of wine. She brought him to the Lord’s house at Shiloh, even though he was young. ³ 

1 Samuel 2:35

2:35 Then I will raise up for myself a faithful priest. He will do what is in my heart and soul. I will build for him a secure dynasty ⁴  and he will serve my chosen one for all time. ⁵ 

1 Samuel 5:8

5:8 So they assembled ⁶  all the leaders of the Philistines and asked, “What should we do with the ark of the God of Israel?” They replied, “The ark of the God of Israel should be moved to Gath.” So they moved the ark of the God of Israel.

1 Samuel 6:8

6:8 Then take the ark of the Lord and place it on the cart, and put in a chest beside it the gold objects you are sending to him as a guilt offering. You should then send it on its way.

1 Samuel 10:1

Samuel Anoints Saul

10:1 Then Samuel took a small container of olive oil and poured it on Saul’s ⁷  head. Samuel ⁸  kissed him and said, “The Lord has chosen you ⁹  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 ¹⁰  you as leader over his inheritance. ¹¹ 

1 Samuel 10:3

10:3 “As you continue on from there, you will come to the tall tree of Tabor. At that point three men who are going up to God at Bethel ¹²  will meet you. One of them will be carrying three young goats, one of them will be carrying three round loaves of bread, and one of them will be carrying a container of wine.

1 Samuel 21:2

21:2 David replied to Ahimelech the priest, “The king instructed me to do something, but he said to me, ‘Don’t let anyone know the reason I am sending you or the instructions I have given you.’ ¹³  I have told my soldiers ¹⁴  to wait at a certain place. ¹⁵ 

[1:24]  ¹ sn The ephah was a standard dry measure in OT times; it was the equivalent of one-tenth of the OT measure known as a homer. The ephah was equal to approximately one-half to two-thirds of a bushel.

[1:24]  ² tn The Hebrew term translated “container” may denote either a clay storage jar (cf. CEV “a clay jar full of wine”) or a leather container (cf. NAB, NIV, NRSV “a skin of wine”; NCV “a leather bag filled with (full of TEV) wine.”

[1:24]  ³ tc Heb “and the boy was a boy.” If the MT is correct the meaning apparently is that the boy was quite young at the time of these events. On the other hand, some scholars have suspected a textual problem, emending the text to read either “and the boy was with them” (so LXX) or “and the boy was with her” (a conjectural emendation). In spite of the difficulty it seems best to stay with the MT here.

[2:35]  ⁴ tn Heb “house.”

[2:35]  ⁵ tn Heb “and he will walk about before my anointed one all the days.”

[5:8]  ⁶ tn Heb “and they sent and gathered.”

[10:1]  ⁷ tn Heb “his”; the referent (Saul) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[10:1]  ⁸ tn Heb “he”; the referent (Samuel) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[10:1]  ⁹ 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]  ¹⁰ tn That is, “anointed.”

[10:1]  ¹¹ 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.

[10:3]  ¹² map For location see Map4 G4; Map5 C1; Map6 E3; Map7 D1; Map8 G3.

[21:2]  ¹³ tn Heb “let not a man know anything about the matter [for] which I am sending you and [about] which I commanded you.”

[21:2]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “servants.”

[21:2]  ¹⁵ tn The Hebrew expression here refers to a particular, but unnamed, place. It occurs in the OT only here, in 2 Kgs 6:8, and in Ruth 4:1, where Boaz uses it to refer to Naomi’s unnamed kinsman-redeemer. A contracted form of the expression appears in Dan 8:13.