The verb said may have to be translated as a reciprocal form in certain languages, since the quoted material is something that the Philistines said to each other and not to the Israelites or some other group of people.

The Hebrews: the writer of 1 Samuel almost always uses the word “Israel” when referring to the Israelite people. The name “Hebrew” is nearly always used by foreigners in a negative or derogatory sense (verse 9; 13.19; 14.11; 29.3; see also 13.3). There is much debate among specialists about whether the term Hebrews, in both biblical and non-biblical texts, always refers to the Israelite people or whether it may sometimes refer to both Israelites and non-Israelites as a social class of people without power and prestige. Evidence seems to suggest that only in the Greco-Roman period did the term “Hebrew” become a common way of referring to Jewish people. Even when the term “Hebrews” is used of Israelite people in the Old Testament, it always seems to carry some negative aspect of meaning, but it is appropriate here since it is being used in a direct quotation of what the Philistines said about the Israelites.

Parola Del Signore: La Bibbia in Lingua Corrente has the following footnote on this term:

The word [Hebrew] probably indicates not only the Israelites, but all those who found themselves in the social situation of the nonoriginal inhabitants of that location. This was, it seems, the meaning of the word at that time.

A similar footnote, or one indicating that it was a derogatory term, will be acceptable in the receptor language, but the term Hebrews should be transliterated and not changed to “Israelites.”

In some languages it will not be natural to say that the ark of the LORD had come to the camp as if it were able to move on its own. It will be better to say that the ark “had been brought to the camp” or, where passive verbs are not possible, “the Israelites had brought the Covenant Box to their camp.”

Quoted with permission from Omanson, Roger L. and Ellington, John E. A Handbook on the First and Second Books of Samuel, Volume 1. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 2001. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .