Mazmur 36:11

36:11 Do not let arrogant men overtake me,

or let evil men make me homeless! ¹ 

Mazmur 54:3

54:3 For foreigners ²  attack me; ³ 

ruthless men, who do not respect God, seek my life. ⁴  (Selah)

Mazmur 119:51

119:51 Arrogant people do nothing but scoff at me. ⁵ 

Yet I do not turn aside from your law.

Mazmur 119:69

119:69 Arrogant people smear my reputation with lies, ⁶ 

but I observe your precepts with all my heart.

Mazmur 119:85

119:85 The arrogant dig pits to trap me, ⁷ 

which violates your law. ⁸ 

Mazmur 140:5

140:5 Proud men hide a snare for me;

evil men ⁹  spread a net by the path;

they set traps for me. (Selah)

Mazmur 140:2

140:2 who plan ways to harm me. ¹⁰ 

All day long they stir up conflict. ¹¹ 

1 Samuel 15:1-12

Saul Is Rejected as King

15:1 Then Samuel said to Saul, “I was the one the Lord sent to anoint you as king over his people Israel. Now listen to what the Lord says. ¹²  15:2 Here is what the Lord of hosts says: ‘I carefully observed how the Amalekites opposed ¹³  Israel along the way when Israel ¹⁴  came up from Egypt. 15:3 So go now and strike down the Amalekites. Destroy everything that they have. Don’t spare ¹⁵  them. Put them to death – man, woman, child, infant, ox, sheep, camel, and donkey alike.’”

15:4 So Saul assembled ¹⁶  the army ¹⁷  and mustered them at Telaim. There were 200,000 foot soldiers and 10,000 men of Judah. 15:5 Saul proceeded to the city ¹⁸  of Amalek, where he set an ambush ¹⁹  in the wadi. ²⁰  15:6 Saul said to the Kenites, “Go on and leave! Go down from among the Amalekites! Otherwise I will sweep you away ²¹  with them! After all, you were kind to all the Israelites when they came up from Egypt.” So the Kenites withdrew from among the Amalekites.

15:7 Then Saul struck down the Amalekites all the way from Havilah to ²²  Shur, which is next to Egypt. 15:8 He captured King Agag of the Amalekites alive, but he executed all Agag’s people ²³  with the sword. 15:9 However, Saul and the army spared Agag, along with the best of the flock, the cattle, the fatlings, ²⁴  and the lambs, as well as everything else that was of value. ²⁵  They were not willing to slaughter them. But they did slaughter everything that was despised ²⁶  and worthless.

15:10 Then the word of the Lord came to Samuel: 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.

15:12 Then Samuel got up early to meet Saul the next morning. But Samuel was informed, “Saul has gone to Carmel where ²⁷  he is setting up a monument for himself. Then Samuel left ²⁸  and went down to Gilgal.” ²⁹ 

[36:11]  ¹ tn Heb “let not a foot of pride come to me, and let not the hand of the evil ones cause me to wander as a fugitive.”

[54:3]  ² tc Many medieval Hebrew mss read זֵדִים (zedim, “proud ones”) rather than זָרִים (zarim, “foreigners”). (No matter which reading one chooses as original, dalet-resh confusion accounts for the existence of the variant.) The term זֵדִים (“proud ones”) occurs in parallelism with עָרִיצִים (’aritsim, “violent ones”) in Ps 86:14 and Isa 13:11. However, זָרִים (zarim, “foreigners”) is parallel to עָרִיצִים (’aritsim, “violent ones”) in Isa 25:5; 29:5; Ezek 28:7; 31:12.

[54:3]  ³ tn Heb “rise against me.”

[54:3]  ⁴ tn Heb “and ruthless ones seek my life, they do not set God in front of them.”

[119:51]  ⁵ tn Heb “scoff at me to excess.”

[119:69]  ⁶ tn Heb “smear over me a lie.”

[119:85]  ⁷ tn Heb “for me.”

[119:85]  ⁸ tn Heb “which [is] not according to your law.”

[140:5]  ⁹ tn Heb “and ropes,” but many prefer to revocalize the noun as a participle (חֹבְלִים, khovÿlim) from the verb חָבַל (khaval, “act corruptly”).

[140:2]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “they devise wicked [plans] in [their] mind.”

[140:2]  ¹¹ tc Heb “they attack [for] war.” Some revocalize the verb (which is a Qal imperfect from גּוּר, gur, “to attack”) as יְגָרוּ (yÿgaru), a Piel imperfect from גָרָה (garah, “stir up strife”). This is followed in the present translation.

[15:1]  ¹² tn Heb “to the voice of the words of the Lord” (so KJV).

[15:2]  ¹³ tn Heb “what Amalek did to Israel, how he placed against him.”

[15:2]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “he”; the referent (Israel) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[15:3]  ¹⁵ tn Or perhaps “don’t take pity on” (cf. CEV).

[15:4]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “caused the people to hear.”

[15:4]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “people.”

[15:5]  ¹⁸ tc The LXX has the plural here, “cities.”

[15:5]  ¹⁹ tc The translation follows the LXX and Vulgate which assume a reading וַיָּאָרֶב (vayya’arev, “and he set an ambush,” from the root ארב [’rv] with quiescence of alef) rather than the MT, which has וַיָּרֶב (vayyareb, “and he contended,” from the root ריב [ryv]).

[15:5]  ²⁰ tn That is, “the dry stream bed.”

[15:6]  ²¹ tc The translation follows the Syriac Peshitta and Vulgate which assume a reading אֶסִפְךָ (’esfÿka, “I sweep you away,” from the root ספה [sfh]) rather than the MT אֹסִפְךָ (’osifÿka, “I am gathering you,” from the root אסף[’sf]).

[15:7]  ²² tn Heb “[as] you enter.”

[15:8]  ²³ tn Heb “all the people.” For clarity “Agag’s” has been supplied in the translation.

[15:9]  ²⁴ tn The Hebrew text is difficult here. We should probably read וְהַמַּשְׂמַנִּים (vÿhammasmannim, “the fat ones”) rather than the MT וְהַמִּשְׂנִים (vÿhammisnim, “the second ones”). However, if the MT is retained, the sense may be as the Jewish commentator Kimchi supposed: the second-born young, thought to be better than the firstlings. (For discussion see S. R. Driver, Notes on the Hebrew Text and the Topography of the Books of Samuel, 123-24.)

[15:9]  ²⁵ tn Heb “good.”

[15:9]  ²⁶ tc The MT has here the very odd form נְמִבְזָה (nÿmivzah), but this is apparently due to a scribal error. The translation follows instead the Niphal participle נִבְזָה (nivzah).

[15:12]  ²⁷ tn Heb “and look.”

[15:12]  ²⁸ tn Heb “and he turned and crossed over.”

[15:12]  ²⁹ tc At the end of v. 12 the LXX and one Old Latin ms include the following words not found in the MT: “to Saul. And behold, he was offering as a burnt offering to the Lord the best of the spoils that he had brought from the Amalekites.”