1 Samuel 4:1

4:1 Samuel revealed the word of the Lord ¹  to all Israel.

The Ark of the Covenant is Lost to the Philistines

Then the Israelites went out to fight the Philistines. ²  They camped at Ebenezer, ³  and the Philistines camped at Aphek.

1 Samuel 4:9-10

4:9 Be strong and act like men, you Philistines, or else you will wind up serving the Hebrews the way they have served you! Act like men and fight!”

4:10 So the Philistines fought. Israel was defeated; they all ran home. ⁴  The slaughter was very great; thirty thousand foot soldiers fell in battle.

1 Samuel 5:2

5:2 The Philistines took the ark of God and brought it into the temple of Dagon, where they positioned it beside Dagon.

1 Samuel 6:2

6:2 the Philistines called the priests and the omen readers, saying, “What should we do with the ark of the Lord? Advise us as to how we should send it back to its place.”

1 Samuel 6:17

6:17 These are the gold sores that the Philistines brought as a guilt offering to the Lord – one for each of the following cities: Ashdod, Gaza, Ashkelon, Gath, and Ekron.

1 Samuel 6:21

6:21 So they sent messengers to the residents of Kiriath Jearim, saying, “The Philistines have returned the ark of the Lord. Come down here and take it back home with you.”

1 Samuel 7:8

7:8 The Israelites said to Samuel, “Keep ⁵  crying out to the Lord our ⁶  God so that he may save us ⁷  from the hand of the Philistines!”

1 Samuel 7:11

7:11 Then the men of Israel left Mizpah and chased the Philistines, striking them down all the way to an area below Beth Car.

1 Samuel 12:9

12:9 “But they forgot the Lord their God, so he gave ⁸  them into the hand of Sisera, the general in command of Hazor’s ⁹  army, ¹⁰  and into the hand of the Philistines and into the hand of the king of Moab, and they fought against them.

1 Samuel 13:4

13:4 All Israel heard this message, ¹¹  “Saul has attacked the Philistine outpost, and now Israel is repulsive ¹²  to the Philistines!” So the people were summoned to join ¹³  Saul at Gilgal.

1 Samuel 13:12

13:12 I thought, ¹⁴  ‘Now the Philistines will come down on me at Gilgal and I have not sought the Lord’s favor.’ So I felt obligated ¹⁵  to offer the burnt offering.”

1 Samuel 13:17

13:17 Raiding bands went out from the camp of the Philistines in three groups. One band turned toward the road leading to Ophrah by the land of Shual;

1 Samuel 13:19

13:19 A blacksmith could not be found in all the land of Israel, for the Philistines had said, “This will prevent the Hebrews from making swords and spears.”

1 Samuel 14:22

14:22 When all the Israelites who had hidden themselves in the hill country of Ephraim heard that the Philistines had fled, they too pursued them in battle.

1 Samuel 14:37

14:37 So Saul asked God, “Should I go down after the Philistines? Will you deliver them into the hand of Israel?” But he did not answer him that day.

1 Samuel 14:52

14:52 There was fierce war with the Philistines all the days of Saul. So whenever Saul saw anyone who was a warrior or a brave individual, he would conscript him.

1 Samuel 17:1

David Kills Goliath

17:1 ¹⁶ The Philistines gathered their troops ¹⁷  for battle. They assembled at Socoh in Judah. They camped in Ephes Dammim, between Socoh and Azekah.

1 Samuel 17:23

17:23 As he was speaking with them, the champion named Goliath, the Philistine from Gath, was coming up from the battle lines of the Philistines. He spoke the way he usually did, ¹⁸  and David heard it.

1 Samuel 18:30

18:30 ¹⁹  Then the leaders of the Philistines would march out, and as often as they did so, David achieved more success than all of Saul’s servants. His name was held in high esteem.

1 Samuel 23:3-4

23:3 But David’s men said to him, “We are afraid while we are still here in Judah! What will it be like if we go to Keilah against the armies of the Philistines?” 23:4 So David asked the Lord once again. But again the Lord replied, “Arise, go down to Keilah, for I will give the Philistines into your hand.”

1 Samuel 23:28

23:28 So Saul stopped pursuing David and went to confront the Philistines. Therefore that place is called Sela Hammahlekoth. ²⁰ 

1 Samuel 24:1

David Spares Saul’s Life

24:1 (24:2) When Saul returned from pursuing the Philistines, they told him, “Look, David is in the desert of En Gedi.”

1 Samuel 29:11

29:11 So David and his men got up early in the morning to return ²¹  to the land of the Philistines, but the Philistines went up to Jezreel.

1 Samuel 31:8-9

31:8 The next day, when the Philistines came to strip loot from the corpses, they discovered Saul and his three sons lying dead ²²  on Mount Gilboa. 31:9 They cut off Saul’s ²³  head and stripped him of his armor. They sent messengers to announce the news in the temple of their idols and among their people throughout the surrounding land of the Philistines.

[4:1]  ¹ tn Heb “and the word of Samuel was.” The present translation understands Samuel to be the speaker of the divine word (“Samuel” is a subjective genitive in this case), although the statement could mean that he was the recipient of the divine word (“Samuel” is an objective genitive in this case) who in turn reported it to Israel.

[4:1]  ² tn Heb “and Israel went out to meet the Philistines for battle.”

[4:1]  ³ tn Heb “the stone, the help.” The second noun is in apposition to the first one and apparently is the name by which the stone was known. Contrast the expression used in 5:1 and 7:12, where the first word lacks the definite article, unlike 4:1.

[4:10]  ⁴ tn Heb “and they fled, each to his tents.”

[7:8]  ⁵ tn Heb “don’t stop.”

[7:8]  ⁶ tc The LXX reads “your God” rather than the MT’s “our God.”

[7:8]  ⁷ tn After the negated jussive, the prefixed verbal form with the prefixed conjunction indicates purpose/result.

[12:9]  ⁸ tn Heb “sold” (so KJV, NASB, NIV, NRSV); NAB “he allowed them to fall into the clutches of Sisera”; NLT “he let them be conquered by Sisera.”

[12:9]  ⁹ map For location see Map1 D2; Map2 D3; Map3 A2; Map4 C1.

[12:9]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “captain of the host of Hazor.”

[13:4]  ¹¹ tn The words “this message” are supplied in the translation for stylistic reasons.

[13:4]  ¹² tn Heb “stinks.” The figurative language indicates that Israel had become repulsive to the Philistines.

[13:4]  ¹³ tn Heb “were summoned after.”

[13:12]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “said.”

[13:12]  ¹⁵ tn Or “I forced myself” (so KJV, NASB, NRSV, CEV); NAB “So in my anxiety I offered”; NIV “I felt compelled.”

[17:1]  ¹⁶ tc The content of 1 Sam 17–18, which includes the David and Goliath story, differs considerably in the LXX as compared to the MT, suggesting that this story circulated in ancient times in more than one form. The LXX for chs. 17–18 is much shorter than the MT, lacking almost half of the material (39 of a total of 88 verses). Many scholars (e.g., McCarter, Klein) think that the shorter text of the LXX is preferable to the MT, which in their view has been expanded by incorporation of later material. Other scholars (e.g., Wellhausen, Driver) conclude that the shorter Greek text (or the Hebrew text that underlies it) reflects an attempt to harmonize certain alleged inconsistencies that appear in the longer version of the story. Given the translation characteristics of the LXX elsewhere in this section, it does not seem likely that these differences are due to deliberate omission of these verses on the part of the translator. It seems more likely that the Greek translator has faithfully rendered here a Hebrew text that itself was much shorter than the MT in these chapters. Whether or not the shorter text represented by the LXX is to be preferred over the MT in 1 Sam 17–18 is a matter over which textual scholars are divided. For a helpful discussion of the major textual issues in this unit see D. Barthélemy, D. W. Gooding, J. Lust, and E. Tov, The Story of David and Goliath (OBO). Overall it seems preferable to stay with the MT, at least for the most part. However, the major textual differences between the LXX and the MT will be mentioned in the notes that accompany the translation so that the reader may be alert to the major problem passages.

[17:1]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “camps.”

[17:23]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “according to these words.”

[18:30]  ¹⁹ tc Verse 30 is absent in most LXX mss.

[23:28]  ²⁰ sn The name הַמַּחְלְקוֹת סֶלַע (Sela Hammakhleqoth) probably means “Rock of Divisions” in Hebrew, in the sense that Saul and David parted company there (cf. NAB “Gorge of Divisions”; TEV “Separation Hill”). This etymology assumes that the word derives from the Hebrew root II חלק (khlq, “to divide”; HALOT 322 s.v. II חלק). However, there is another root I חלק, which means “to be smooth or slippery” (HALOT 322 s.v. I חלק). If the word is taken from this root, the expression would mean “Slippery Rock.”

[29:11]  ²¹ tc Heb “to go in the morning to return.” With the exception of Origen and the Lucianic recension, the Old Greek tradition lacks the phrase “in the morning.” The Syriac Peshitta also omits it.

[31:8]  ²² tn Heb “fallen.”

[31:9]  ²³ tn Heb “his”; the referent (Saul) has been specified in the translation for clarity (likewise in the following verse).