1 Samuel 2:30

2:30 Therefore the Lord, the God of Israel, says, ‘I really did say ¹  that your house and your ancestor’s house would serve ²  me forever.’ But now the Lord says, ‘May it never be! ³  For I will honor those who honor me, but those who despise me will be cursed!

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.” ⁴ 

1 Samuel 14:24

Jonathan Violates Saul’s Oath

14:24 Now the men of Israel were hard pressed that day, for Saul had made the army agree to this oath: “Cursed be the man who eats food before evening! I will get my vengeance on my enemies!” So no one in the army ate anything.

1 Samuel 14:27

14:27 But Jonathan had not heard about the oath his father had made the army take. He extended the end of his staff that was in his hand and dipped it in the honeycomb. When he ate it, ⁵  his eyes gleamed. ⁶ 

1 Samuel 14:47

14:47 After Saul had secured his royal position over Israel, he fought against all their ⁷  enemies on all sides – the Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, the kings of Zobah, and the Philistines. In every direction that he turned he was victorious. ⁸ 

1 Samuel 15:30

15:30 Saul ⁹  again replied, “I have sinned. But please honor me before the elders of my people and before Israel. Go back with me so I may worship the Lord your God.”

1 Samuel 17:21

17:21 Israel and the Philistines drew up their battle lines opposite one another.

1 Samuel 17:24

17:24 When all the men of Israel saw this man, they retreated ¹⁰  from his presence and were very afraid.

1 Samuel 17:37

17:37 David went on to say, “The Lord who delivered me from the lion and the bear will also deliver me from the hand of this Philistine!” Then Saul said to David, “Go! The Lord will be with you.” ¹¹ 

1 Samuel 20:30

20:30 Saul became angry with Jonathan ¹²  and said to him, “You stupid traitor! ¹³  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. ¹⁴  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 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. ¹⁵  When told that David had escaped from Keilah, Saul called a halt to his expedition.

1 Samuel 23:21

23:21 Saul replied, “May you be blessed by the Lord, for you have had compassion on me.

1 Samuel 26:8

26:8 Abishai said to David, “Today God has delivered your enemy into your hands. Now let me drive the spear ¹⁶  right through him into the ground with one swift jab! ¹⁷  A second jab won’t be necessary!”

1 Samuel 29:3

29:3 The leaders of the Philistines asked, “What about these Hebrews?” Achish said to the leaders of the Philistines, “Isn’t this David, the servant of King Saul of Israel, who has been with me for quite some time? ¹⁸  I have found no fault with him from the day of his defection until the present time!” ¹⁹ 

1 Samuel 30:5

30:5 David’s two wives had been taken captive – Ahinoam the Jezreelite and Abigail the Carmelite, Nabal’s widow.

1 Samuel 30:31

30:31 and Hebron; and for those in whatever other places David and his men had traveled.

[2:30]  ¹ tn The infinitive absolute appears before the finite verb for emphasis.

[2:30]  ² tn Heb “walk about before.”

[2:30]  ³ tn Heb “may it be far removed from me.”

[12:19]  ⁴ tn Heb “for we have added to all our sins an evil [thing] by asking for ourselves a king.”

[14:27]  ⁵ tn Heb “and he returned his hand to his mouth.”

[14:27]  ⁶ tc The translation follows the Qere and several medieval Hebrew mss in reading “gleamed,” rather than the Kethib, “saw.”

[14:47]  ⁷ tn Heb “his,” which could refer to Israel or to Saul.

[14:47]  ⁸ tc The translation follows the LXX (“he was delivered”), rather than the MT, which reads, “he acted wickedly.”

[15:30]  ⁹ tn Heb “he”; the referent (Saul) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[17:24]  ¹⁰ tn Or “fled.”

[17:37]  ¹¹ tn Or “Go, and may the Lord be with you” (so NASB, NCV, NRSV).

[20:30]  ¹² tc Many medieval Hebrew mss include the words “his son” here.

[20:30]  ¹³ 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]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “and Saul heard that David and the men who were with him were known.”

[23:13]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “they went where they went.”

[26:8]  ¹⁶ tn Here “the spear” almost certainly refers to Saul’s own spear, which according to the previous verse was stuck into the ground beside him as he slept. This is reflected in a number of English versions: TEV, CEV “his own spear”; NLT “that spear.” Cf. NIV, NCV “my spear,” in which case Abishai refers to his own spear rather than Saul’s, but this is unlikely since (1) Abishai would probably not have carried a spear along since such a weapon would be unwieldy when sneaking into the enemy camp; and (2) this would not explain the mention of Saul’s own spear stuck in the ground beside him in the previous verse.

[26:8]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “let me strike him with the spear and into the ground one time.”

[29:3]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “these days or these years.”

[29:3]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “from the day of his falling [away] until this day.”