translation_id: net-engnet

label: NET translator note

text: Heb “before Eli.”


text: Heb “he”; the referent (Eli) has been specified in the translation for clarity.


text: The Hebrew text adds “so that” here, formally connecting this clause with the next.


text: Or “fulfill.”


label: NET textual note

text: The MT has וְהִגַּדְתִּי לוֹ ( vÿhiggadti lo ). The verb is Hiphil perfect 1st person common singular, and apparently the conjunction should be understood as vav consecutive (“I will say to him”). But the future reference makes more sense if Samuel is the subject. This would require dropping the final י ( yod) and reading the 2nd person masculine singular וְהִגַּדְתָּ ( vÿhiggadta) . Although there is no external evidence to support it, this reading has been adopted in the present translation. The alternative is to understand the MT to mean “I said to him,” but for this we would expect the preterite with vav consecutive.


text: The translation understands the preposition to have a causal sense. However, the preposition could also be understood as the beth pretii , indicating in a broad sense the price attached to this action. So GKC 380 §119. p .


text: The translation follows the LXX θεόν ( qeon , “God”) rather than the MT לָהֶם ( lahem , “to them”). The MT seems to mean “they were bringing a curse on themselves” (cf. ASV, NASB). But this meaning is problematic in part because the verb qll means “to curse,” not “to bring a curse on,” and in part because it takes an accusative object rather than the equivalent of a dative. This is one of the so-called tiqqune sopherim , or “emendations of the scribes.” Why would the ancient copyists alter the original statement about Eli’s sons cursing God to the less objectionable statement that they brought a curse on themselves ? Some argue that the scribes were concerned that such a direct and blasphemous affront against God could occur without an immediate response of judgment from God. Therefore they changed the text by deleting two letters א and י ( alef and yod ) from the word for “God,” with the result that the text then read “to them.” If this ancient scribal claim is accepted as accurate, it implies that the MT here is secondary. The present translation follows the LXX ( κακολογοῦντες θεόν , kakologounte" qeon ) and a few mss of the Old Latin in reading “God” rather than the MT “to them.” Cf. also NAB, NRSV, NLT.


text: Heb “So God will do to you and thus he will add.” The verbal forms in this pronouncement are imperfects, not jussives, but the statement has the force of a curse or warning. One could translate, “May God do to you and thus may he add.”


text: Heb “what is good in his eyes.”


text: Heb “and he did not cause to fall from all his words to the ground.”


text: The LXX has a lengthy addition here: “And Samuel was acknowledged to be a prophet of the Lord in all Israel, from one end to the other. Eli was very old and, as for his sons, their way kept getting worse and worse before the Lord .” The Hebraic nature of the Greek syntax used here suggests that the LXX translator was accurately rendering a Hebrew variant and not simply expanding the text on his own initiative.


text: The chapter division at this point is inappropriate. 1 Sam 4:1 a is best understood as the conclusion to chap. rather than the beginning of chap. .