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 6:4

6:4 They inquired, “What is the guilt offering that we should send to him?”

They replied, “The Philistine leaders number five. So send five gold sores and five gold mice, for it is the same plague that has afflicted both you and your leaders.

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 15:12

15:12 Then Samuel got up early to meet Saul the next morning. But Samuel was informed, “Saul has gone to Carmel where ¹²  he is setting up a monument for himself. Then Samuel left ¹³  and went down to Gilgal.” ¹⁴ 

1 Samuel 19:11

19:11 Saul sent messengers to David’s house to guard it and to kill him in the morning. Then David’s wife Michal told him, “If you do not save yourself ¹⁵  tonight, tomorrow you will be dead!”

1 Samuel 22:6

Saul Executes the Priests

22:6 But Saul found out the whereabouts of David and the men who were with him. ¹⁶  Now Saul was sitting at Gibeah under the tamarisk tree at an elevated location with his spear in hand and all his servants stationed around him.

1 Samuel 22:8

22:8 For all of you have conspired against me! No one informs me ¹⁷  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 23:11

23:11 Will the leaders of Keilah deliver me into his hand? Will Saul come down as your servant has heard? O Lord God of Israel, please inform your servant!”

Then the Lord said, “He will come down.”

1 Samuel 23:13

23:13 So David and his men, who numbered about six hundred, set out and left Keilah; they moved around from one place to another. ¹⁸  When told that David had escaped from Keilah, Saul called a halt to his expedition.

1 Samuel 23:26

23:26 Saul went on one side of the mountain, while David and his men went on the other side of the mountain. David was hurrying to get away from Saul, but Saul and his men were surrounding David and his men so they could capture them.

1 Samuel 24:4

24:4 David’s men said to him, “This is the day about which the Lord said to you, ‘I will give your enemy into your hand, and you can do to him whatever seems appropriate to you.’” ¹⁹  So David got up and quietly cut off an edge of Saul’s robe.

1 Samuel 24:6

24:6 He said to his men, “May the Lord keep me far away from doing such a thing to my lord, who is the Lord’s chosen one, ²⁰  by extending my hand against him. After all, ²¹  he is the Lord’s chosen one.” ²² 

1 Samuel 25:8

25:8 Ask your own servants; they can tell you! May my servants find favor in your sight, for we have come ²³  at the time of a holiday. Please provide us – your servants ²⁴  and your son David – with whatever you can spare.” ²⁵ 

1 Samuel 25:13-14

25:13 Then David instructed his men, “Each of you strap on your sword!” So each one strapped on his sword, and David also strapped on his sword. About four hundred men followed David up, while two hundred stayed behind with the equipment.

25:14 But one of the servants told Nabal’s wife Abigail, “David sent messengers from the desert to greet ²⁶  our lord, but he screamed at them.

1 Samuel 25:34

25:34 Otherwise, as surely as the Lord, the God of Israel, lives – he who has prevented me from harming you – if you had not come so quickly to meet me, by morning’s light not even one male belonging to Nabal would have remained alive!”

1 Samuel 27:11

27:11 Neither man nor woman would David leave alive so as to bring them back to Gath. He was thinking, “This way they can’t tell on us, saying, ‘This is what David did.’” Such was his practice the entire time ²⁷  that he lived in the country of the Philistines.

1 Samuel 28:1

The Witch of Endor

28:1 In those days the Philistines gathered their troops ²⁸  for war in order to fight Israel. Achish said to David, “You should fully understand that you and your men must go with me into the battle.” ²⁹ 

1 Samuel 30:6

30:6 David was very upset, for the men ³⁰  were thinking of stoning him; ³¹  each man grieved bitterly ³²  over his sons and daughters. But David drew strength from the Lord his God.

1 Samuel 30:21

30:21 Then David approached the two hundred men who had been too exhausted to go with him, ³³  those whom they had left at the Wadi Besor. They went out to meet David and the people who were with him. When David approached the people, he asked how they were doing.

[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.

[15:12]  ¹² tn Heb “and look.”

[15:12]  ¹³ tn Heb “and he turned and crossed over.”

[15:12]  ¹⁴ tc At the end of v. 12 the LXX and one Old Latin ms include the following words not found in the MT: “to Saul. And behold, he was offering as a burnt offering to the Lord the best of the spoils that he had brought from the Amalekites.”

[19:11]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “your life.”

[22:6]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “and Saul heard that David and the men who were with him were known.”

[22:8]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “uncovers my ear.”

[23:13]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “they went where they went.”

[24:4]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “is good in your eyes.”

[24:6]  ²⁰ tn Heb “anointed.”

[24:6]  ²¹ tn Or “for.”

[24:6]  ²² tn Heb “anointed.”

[25:8]  ²³ tc The translation follows many medieval Hebrew mss in reading בָּאנוּ (ba’nu, “we have come”) rather than the MT’s בָּנוּ (banu, “we have built”).

[25:8]  ²⁴ tn This refers to the ten servants sent by David.

[25:8]  ²⁵ tn Heb “whatever your hand will find.”

[25:14]  ²⁶ tn Heb “bless.”

[27:11]  ²⁷ tn Heb “all the days.”

[28:1]  ²⁸ tn Heb “their camps.”

[28:1]  ²⁹ tc The translation follows the LXX (εἰς πόλεμον, eis polemon) and a Qumran ms מלחמה במלחמה ([m]lkhmh) bammilkhamah (“in the battle”) rather than the MT’s בַמַּחֲנֶה (bammakhaneh, “in the camp”; cf. NASB). While the MT reading is not impossible here, and although admittedly it is the harder reading, the variant fits the context better. The MT can be explained as a scribal error caused in part by the earlier occurrence of “camp” in this verse.

[30:6]  ³⁰ tn Heb “people.”

[30:6]  ³¹ tn Heb “said to stone him.”

[30:6]  ³² tn Heb “for bitter was the soul of all the people, each one.”

[30:21]  ³³ tn Heb “David.” The pronoun (“him”) has been substituted for the proper name in the translation for stylistic reasons.