1 Samuel 10:27

10:27 But some wicked men ¹  said, “How can this man save us?” They despised him and did not even bring him a gift. But Saul said nothing about it. ² 

1 Samuel 10:1

Samuel Anoints Saul

10:1 Then Samuel took a small container of olive oil and poured it on Saul’s ³  head. Samuel ⁴  kissed him and said, “The Lord has chosen you ⁵  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 ⁶  you as leader over his inheritance. ⁷ 

1 Samuel 16:20

16:20 So Jesse took a donkey loaded with bread, a container of wine, and a young goat ⁸  and sent them to Saul with ⁹  his son David.

Amsal 18:16

18:16 A person’s gift ¹⁰  makes room for him,

and leads him ¹¹  before important people.

[10:27]  ¹ tn Heb “sons of worthlessness” (see 2:12).

[10:27]  ² tc In place of the MT (“and it was like one being silent”) the LXX has “after about a month,” taking the expression with the first part of the following chapter rather than with 10:27. Some Hebrew support for this reading appears in the corrected hand of a Qumran ms of Samuel, which has here “about a month.” However, it seems best to stay with the MT here even though it is difficult.

[10:1]  ³ tn Heb “his”; the referent (Saul) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[10:1]  ⁴ tn Heb “he”; the referent (Samuel) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[10:1]  ⁵ 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]  ⁶ tn That is, “anointed.”

[10:1]  ⁷ 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.

[16:20]  ⁸ tn Heb “a kid of the goats.”

[16:20]  ⁹ tn Heb “by the hand of.”

[18:16]  ¹⁰ sn The Hebrew term translated “gift” is a more general term than “bribe” (שֹׁחַד, shokhad), used in 17:8, 23. But it also has danger (e.g., 15:27; 21:14), for by giving gifts one might learn how influential they are and use them for bribes. The proverb simply states that a gift can expedite matters.

[18:16]  ¹¹ sn The two verbs here show a progression, helping to form the synthetic parallelism. The gift first “makes room” (יַרְחִיב, yarkhiv) for the person, that is, extending a place for him, and then “ushers him in” (יַנְחֵנּוּ, yakhenu) among the greats.