1 Samuel 2:6-10

2:6 The Lord both kills and gives life;

he brings down to the grave ¹  and raises up.

2:7 The Lord impoverishes and makes wealthy;

he humbles and he exalts.

2:8 He lifts the weak ²  from the dust;

he raises ³  the poor from the ash heap

to seat them with princes

and to bestow on them an honored position. ⁴ 

The foundations of the earth belong to the Lord,

and he has placed the world on them.

2:9 He watches over ⁵  his holy ones, ⁶ 

but the wicked are made speechless in the darkness,

for it is not by one’s own strength that one prevails.

2:10 The Lord shatters ⁷  his adversaries; ⁸ 

he thunders against them from ⁹  the heavens.

The Lord executes judgment to the ends of the earth.

He will strengthen ¹⁰  his king

and exalt the power ¹¹  of his anointed one.” ¹² 

[2:6]  ¹ tn Heb “Sheol”; NAB “the nether world”; CEV “the world of the dead.”

[2:8]  ² tn Or “lowly”; Heb “insignificant.”

[2:8]  ³ tn The imperfect verbal form, which is parallel to the participle in the preceding line, is best understood here as indicating what typically happens.

[2:8]  ⁴ tn Heb “a seat of honor.”

[2:9]  ⁵ tn Heb “guards the feet of.” The expression means that God watches over and protects the godly in all of their activities and movements. The imperfect verbal forms in v. 9 are understood as indicating what is typically true. Another option is to translate them with the future tense. See v. 10b.

[2:9]  ⁶ tc The translation follows the Qere and many medieval Hebrew mss in reading the plural (“his holy ones”) rather than the singular (“his holy one”) of the Kethib.

[2:10]  ⁷ tn The imperfect verbal forms in this line and in the next two lines are understood as indicating what is typically true. Another option is to translate them with the future tense. See v. 10b.

[2:10]  ⁸ tc The present translation follows the Qere, many medieval Hebrew manuscripts, the Syriac Peshitta, and the Vulgate in reading the plural (“his adversaries,” similarly many other English versions) rather than the singular (“his adversary”) of the Kethib.

[2:10]  ⁹ tn The Hebrew preposition here has the sense of “from within.”

[2:10]  ¹⁰ tn The imperfect verbal forms in this and the next line are understood as indicating what is anticipated and translated with the future tense, because at the time of Hannah’s prayer Israel did not yet have a king.

[2:10]  ¹¹ tn Heb “the horn,” here a metaphor for power or strength. Cf. NCV “make his appointed king strong”; NLT “increases the might of his anointed one.”

[2:10]  ¹² tc The LXX greatly expands v. 10 with an addition that seems to be taken from Jer 9:23-24.

[2:10]  sn The anointed one is the anticipated king of Israel, as the preceding line makes clear.