1 Samuel 1:23

1:23 So her husband Elkanah said to her, “Do what you think best. ¹  Stay until you have weaned him. May the Lord fulfill his promise.” ² 

So the woman stayed and nursed her son until she had weaned him.

1 Samuel 2:15

2:15 Even before they burned the fat, the priest’s attendant would come and say to the person who was making the sacrifice, “Hand over some meat for the priest to roast! He won’t take boiled meat from you, but only raw.” ³ 

1 Samuel 2:29

2:29 Why are you ⁴  scorning my sacrifice and my offering that I commanded for my dwelling place? ⁵  You have honored your sons more than you have me by having made yourselves fat from the best parts of all the offerings of my people Israel.’

1 Samuel 3:6

3:6 The Lord again called, “Samuel!” So Samuel got up and went to Eli and said, “Here I am, for you called me.” But Eli ⁶  said, “I didn’t call you, my son. Go back and lie down.”

1 Samuel 3:8

3:8 Then the Lord called Samuel a third time. So he got up and went to Eli and said, “Here I am, for you called me!” Eli then realized that it was the Lord who was calling the boy.

1 Samuel 9:24

9:24 So the cook picked up the leg and brought it and set it in front of Saul. Samuel ⁷  said, “What was kept is now set before you! Eat, for it has been kept for you for this meeting time, from the time I said, ‘I have invited the people.’” So Saul ate with Samuel that day.

1 Samuel 10:5

10:5 Afterward you will go to Gibeah of God, where there are Philistine officials. ⁸  When you enter the town, you will meet a company of prophets coming down from the high place. They will have harps, tambourines, flutes, and lyres, and they will be prophesying.

1 Samuel 17:8

17:8 Goliath ⁹  stood and called to Israel’s troops, ¹⁰  “Why do you come out to prepare for battle? Am I not the Philistine, and are you not the servants of Saul? Choose ¹¹  for yourselves a man so he may come down ¹²  to me!

1 Samuel 17:28

17:28 When David’s ¹³  oldest brother Eliab heard him speaking to the men, he became angry ¹⁴  with David and said, “Why have you come down here? To whom did you entrust those few sheep in the desert? I am familiar with your pride and deceit! ¹⁵  You have come down here to watch the battle!”

1 Samuel 20:3

20:3 Taking an oath, David again ¹⁶  said, “Your father is very much aware of the fact ¹⁷  that I have found favor with you, and he has thought, ¹⁸  ‘Don’t let Jonathan know about this, or he will be upset.’ But as surely as the Lord lives and you live, there is about one step between me and death!”

1 Samuel 20:30

20:30 Saul became angry with Jonathan ¹⁹  and said to him, “You stupid traitor! ²⁰  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 22:6

Saul Executes the Priests

22:6 But Saul found out the whereabouts of David and the men who were with him. ²¹  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 25:13

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.

1 Samuel 30:21

30:21 Then David approached the two hundred men who had been too exhausted to go with him, ²²  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.

[1:23]  ¹ tn Heb “what is good in your eyes.”

[1:23]  ² tn Heb “establish his word.” This apparently refers to the promise inherent in Eli’s priestly blessing (see v. 17).

[2:15]  ³ tn Heb “living.”

[2:29]  ⁴ tc The MT has a plural “you” here, but the LXX and a Qumran ms have the singular. The singular may be the correct reading; the verb “you have honored” later in the verse is singular even in the MT. However, it is more probable that the Lord here refers to Eli and his sons. Note the plural in the second half of the verse (“you have made yourselves fat”).

[2:29]  ⁵ tn Heb “which I commanded, dwelling place.” The noun is functioning as an adverbial accusative in relation to the verb. Since God’s dwelling place/sanctuary is in view, the pronoun “my” is supplied in the translation.

[3:6]  ⁶ tn Heb “he”; the referent (Eli) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[9:24]  ⁷ tn Heb “he” (also in v. 25); the referent (Samuel) has been specified in both places in the translation for clarity.

[10:5]  ⁸ tn Or “sentries.” Some translate “outpost” (NIV) or “garrison” (NAB, NRSV, NLT) here (see 1 Sam 13:3). The noun is plural in the Hebrew text, but the LXX and other ancient witnesses read a singular noun here.

[17:8]  ⁹ tn Heb “he”; the referent (Goliath) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[17:8]  ¹⁰ tn The Hebrew text adds “and said to them.”

[17:8]  ¹¹ tc The translation follows the ancient versions in reading “choose,” (from the root בחר, bkhr), rather than the MT. The verb in MT (ברה, brh) elsewhere means “to eat food”; the sense of “to choose,” required here by the context, is not attested for this root. The MT apparently reflects an early scribal error.

[17:8]  ¹² tn Following the imperative, the prefixed verbal form (either an imperfect or jussive) with the prefixed conjunction indicates purpose/result here.

[17:28]  ¹³ tn Heb “his”; the referent (David) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[17:28]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “the anger of Eliab became hot.”

[17:28]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “the wickedness of your heart.”

[20:3]  ¹⁶ tc The LXX and the Syriac Peshitta lack the word “again.”

[20:3]  ¹⁷ tn The infinitive absolute appears before the finite verb for emphasis.

[20:3]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “said,” that is, to himself. So also in v. 25.

[20:30]  ¹⁹ tc Many medieval Hebrew mss include the words “his son” here.

[20:30]  ²⁰ 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.

[22:6]  ²¹ tn Heb “and Saul heard that David and the men who were with him were known.”

[30:21]  ²² tn Heb “David.” The pronoun (“him”) has been substituted for the proper name in the translation for stylistic reasons.