translation_id: net-engnet

label: NET translator note

text: Heb “and struck them down with a great blow.”


text: Heb “an ephod went down in his hand.”


text: The MT reading (“God has alienated him into my hand”) in v. 7 is a difficult and uncommon idiom. The use of this verb in Jer 19:4 is somewhat parallel, but not entirely so. Many scholars have therefore suspected a textual problem here, emending the word נִכַּר ( nikkar , “alienated”) to סִכַּר ( sikkar , “he has shut up [i.e., delivered]”). This is the idea reflected in the translations of the Syriac Peshitta and Vulgate, although it is not entirely clear whether they are reading something different from the MT or are simply paraphrasing what for them too may have been a difficult text. The LXX has “God has sold him into my hands,” apparently reading מַכַר ( makar , “sold”) for MT’s נִכַּר . The present translation is a rather free interpretation.


text: Heb “with two gates and a bar.” Since in English “bar” could be understood as a saloon, it has been translated as an attributive: “two barred gates.”


text: Heb “So Saul mustered all his army for battle to go down to Keilah to besiege against David and his men.”


text: Heb “Saul was planning the evil against him.”


text: Heb “seeking.”


text: Heb “they went where they went.”


text: Heb “all the days.”


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


text: Heb “saw.”


text: Heb “strengthened his hand.”


text: Heb “to all the desire of your soul.”


text: Heb “know and see.” The expression is a hendiadys. See also v. 23 .


text: Heb “his place where his foot is.”


text: Heb “established.”


text: Heb “I will search him out.”


text: Heb “to search.”