1 Samuel 10:19

10:19 But today you have rejected your God who saves you from all your trouble and distress. You have said, “No! ¹  Appoint a king over us.” Now take your positions before the Lord by your tribes and by your clans.’”

1 Samuel 10:24

10:24 Then Samuel said to all the people, “Do you see the one whom the Lord has chosen? Indeed, there is no one like him among all the people!” All the people shouted out, “Long live the king!”

1 Samuel 12:14

12:14 If you fear the Lord, serving him and obeying him ²  and not rebelling against what he says, ³  and if both you and the king who rules over you follow the Lord your God, all will be well. ⁴ 

1 Samuel 12:17

12:17 Is this not the time of the wheat harvest? I will call on the Lord so that he makes it thunder and rain. Realize and see what a great sin you have committed before the Lord by asking for a king for yourselves.”

1 Samuel 12:19

12:19 All the people said to Samuel, “Pray to the Lord your God on behalf of us – your servants – so we won’t die, for we have added to all our sins by asking for a king.” ⁵ 

1 Samuel 14:47

14:47 After Saul had secured his royal position over Israel, he fought against all their ⁶  enemies on all sides – the Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, the kings of Zobah, and the Philistines. In every direction that he turned he was victorious. ⁷ 

1 Samuel 15:11

15:11 “I regret that I have made Saul king, for he has turned away from me and has not done what I told him to do.” Samuel became angry and he cried out to the Lord all that night.

1 Samuel 15:20

15:20 Then Saul said to Samuel, “But I have obeyed ⁸  the Lord! I went on the campaign ⁹  the Lord sent me on. I brought back King Agag of the Amalekites after exterminating the Amalekites.

1 Samuel 16:1

Samuel Anoints David as King

16:1 The Lord said to Samuel, “How long do you intend to mourn for Saul? I have rejected him as king over Israel. ¹⁰  Fill your horn with olive oil and go! I am sending you to Jesse in Bethlehem, ¹¹  for I have selected a king for myself from among his sons.” ¹² 

1 Samuel 17:25

17:25 The men of Israel said, “Have you seen this man who is coming up? He does so ¹³  to defy Israel. But the king will make the man who can strike him down very wealthy! He will give him his daughter in marriage, and he will make his father’s house exempt from tax obligations in Israel.”

1 Samuel 17:55

17:55 ¹⁴ Now as Saul watched David going out to fight the Philistine, he asked Abner, the general in command of the army, “Whose son is this young man, Abner?” Abner replied, “As surely as you live, O king, I don’t know.”

1 Samuel 18:6

18:6 When the men ¹⁵  arrived after David returned from striking down the Philistine, the women from all the cities of Israel came out singing and dancing to meet King Saul. They were happy as they played their tambourines and three-stringed instruments. ¹⁶ 

1 Samuel 19:4

19:4 So Jonathan spoke on David’s behalf ¹⁷  to his father Saul. He said to him, “The king should not sin against his servant David, for he has not sinned against you. On the contrary, his actions have been very beneficial ¹⁸  for you.

1 Samuel 20:5

20:5 David said to Jonathan, “Tomorrow is the new moon, and I am certainly expected to join the king for a meal. ¹⁹  You must send me away so I can hide in the field until the third evening from now.

1 Samuel 20:29

20:29 He said, ‘Permit me to go, ²⁰  for we are having a family sacrifice in the city, and my brother urged ²¹  me to be there. So now, if I have found favor with you, let me go ²²  to see my brothers.’ For that reason he has not come to the king’s table.”

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.’ ²³  I have told my soldiers ²⁴  to wait at a certain place. ²⁵ 

1 Samuel 21:8

21:8 David said to Ahimelech, “Is there no sword or spear here at your disposal? I don’t have my own sword or equipment in hand due to the urgency of the king’s instructions.”

1 Samuel 21:11

21:11 The servants of Achish said to him, “Isn’t this David, the king of the land? Isn’t he the one that they sing about when they dance, saying,

‘Saul struck down his thousands,

But David his tens of thousands’?”

1 Samuel 22:3

22:3 Then David went from there to Mizpah in Moab, where he said to the king of Moab, “Please let my father and mother stay ²⁶  with you until I know what God is going to do for me.”

1 Samuel 22:15

22:15 Was it just today that I began to inquire of God on his behalf? Far be it from me! The king should not accuse ²⁷  his servant or any of my father’s house. For your servant is not aware of all this – not in whole or in part!” ²⁸ 

1 Samuel 22:18

22:18 Then the king said to Doeg, “You turn and strike down the priests!” So Doeg the Edomite turned and struck down the priests. He killed on that day eighty-five ²⁹  men who wore the linen ephod.

1 Samuel 24:8

24:8 Afterward David got up and went out of the cave. He called out after Saul, “My lord, O king!” When Saul looked behind him, David kneeled down and bowed with his face to the ground.

1 Samuel 25:36

25:36 When Abigail went back to Nabal, he was holding a banquet in his house like that of the king. Nabal was having a good time ³⁰  and was very intoxicated. She told him absolutely nothing ³¹  until morning’s light.

1 Samuel 26:14

26:14 David called to the army and to Abner son of Ner, “Won’t you answer, Abner?” Abner replied, “Who are you, that you have called to the king?”

1 Samuel 26:16

26:16 This failure on your part isn’t good! ³²  As surely as the Lord lives, you people who have not protected your lord, the Lord’s chosen one, are as good as dead! ³³  Now look where the king’s spear and the jug of water that was by his head are!”

1 Samuel 26:20

26:20 Now don’t let my blood fall to the ground away from the Lord’s presence, for the king of Israel has gone out to look for a flea the way one looks for a partridge ³⁴  in the hill country.”

1 Samuel 29:8

29:8 But David said to Achish, “What have I done? What have you found in your servant from the day that I first came into your presence until the present time, that I shouldn’t go and fight the enemies of my lord the king?”

[10:19]  ¹ tc The translation follows many medieval Hebrew mss, the LXX, the Syriac Peshitta, and Vulgate in reading לֹא (lo’, “not”) rather than the MT לוֹ (lo; “to him”). Some witnesses combine the variants, resulting in a conflated text. For example, a few medieval Hebrew mss have לֹא לוֹ (lo lo’; “to him, ‘No.’”). A few others have לֹא לִי (li lo’; “to me, ‘No.’”).

[12:14]  ² tn Heb “and you listen to his voice.”

[12:14]  ³ tn Heb “the mouth of the Lord.” So also in v. 15.

[12:14]  ⁴ tn The words “all will be well” are supplied in the translation for stylistic reasons.

[12:19]  ⁵ tn Heb “for we have added to all our sins an evil [thing] by asking for ourselves a king.”

[14:47]  ⁶ tn Heb “his,” which could refer to Israel or to Saul.

[14:47]  ⁷ tc The translation follows the LXX (“he was delivered”), rather than the MT, which reads, “he acted wickedly.”

[15:20]  ⁸ tn Heb “listened to the voice of the Lord.”

[15:20]  ⁹ tn Heb “journey.”

[16:1]  ¹⁰ tc The Lucianic recension of the Old Greek translation includes the following words: “And the Lord said to Samuel.”

[16:1]  ¹¹ map For location see Map5 B1; Map7 E2; Map8 E2; Map10 B4.

[16:1]  ¹² tn Heb “for I have seen among his sons for me a king.”

[17:25]  ¹³ tn Heb “he is coming up.”

[17:55]  ¹⁴ tc Most LXX mss lack 17:55–18:5.

[18:6]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “them.” The masculine plural pronoun apparently refers to the returning soldiers.

[18:6]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “with tambourines, with joy, and with three-stringed instruments.”

[19:4]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “spoke good with respect to David.”

[19:4]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “good.”

[20:5]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “and I must surely sit with the king to eat.” The infinitive absolute appears before the finite verb for emphasis.

[20:29]  ²⁰ tn Heb “send me.”

[20:29]  ²¹ tn Heb “commanded.”

[20:29]  ²² tn Heb “be released [from duty].”

[21:2]  ²³ 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]  ²⁴ tn Heb “servants.”

[21:2]  ²⁵ 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.

[22:3]  ²⁶ tn Heb “go forth.”

[22:15]  ²⁷ tn Heb “set a matter against.”

[22:15]  ²⁸ tn Heb “small or great.”

[22:18]  ²⁹ tc The number is confused in the Greek ms tradition. The LXX, with the exception of the Lucianic recension, has the number 305. The Lucianic recension, along with a couple of Old Latin mss, has the number 350.

[25:36]  ³⁰ tn Heb “and the heart of Nabal was good upon him”; NASB, NRSV “Nabal’s heart was merry within him”; NIV “he was in high spirits”; NCV, TEV “was in a good mood”; CEV “was very drunk and feeling good.”

[25:36]  ³¹ tn Heb “and she did not tell him a thing, small or large.”

[26:16]  ³² tn Heb “Not good [is] this thing which you have done.”

[26:16]  ³³ tn Heb “you are sons of death.”

[26:20]  ³⁴ tn Heb “the calling [one],” which apparently refers to a partridge.