¹tn Heb “and struck them down with a great blow.”
²tn Heb “an ephod went down in his hand.”
³tn 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 rK^n] (nikkar, “alienated”) to rK^s! (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 rk^m^ (makar, “sold”) for MT’s rK^n]. The present translation is a rather free interpretation.
⁴tn Heb “So Saul mustered all his army for battle to go down to Keilah to besiege against David and his men.”
⁵tn Heb “Saul was planning the evil against him.”
⁶tn Heb “seeking.”
⁷tn Heb “they went where they went.”
⁸tn Heb “all the days.”
⁹tn Heb “him”; the referent (David) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
¹⁰tn Heb “saw.”
¹¹tn Heb “strengthened his hand.”
¹²tn Heb “to all the desire of your soul.”
¹³tn Heb “know and see.” The expression is a hendiadys. See also v. 23.
¹⁴tn Heb “his place where his foot is.”
¹⁵tn Heb “established.”
¹⁶tn Heb “I will search him out.”
¹⁷tn Heb “to search.”
¹⁸sn The name toql=j=M^h^ ul^s# (Sela Hammakhleqoth) probably means “Rock of Divisions” in Hebrew, in the sense that Saul and David parted company there. This etymology assumes that the word derives from the Hebrew root II qlj (khlq, “to divide”; HALOT 322 s.v. II qlj). However, there is another root I qlj, which means “to be smooth or slippery” (HALOT 322 s.v. I qlj). If the word is taken from this root, the expression would mean “Slippery Rock.”
¹⁹sn Beginning with 23:29, the verse numbers through 24:22 in the English Bible differ from the verse numbers in the Hebrew text (BHS), with 23:29 ET = 24:1 HT, 24:1 ET = 24:2 HT, 24:2 ET = 24:3 HT, etc., through 24:22 ET = 24:23 HT. With 25:1 the verse numbers in the ET and HT are again the same.