And when all the men of Israel who were in the valley saw that the army had fled …: As in verse 1, the men of Israel is literally “the man of Israel.” The singular word “man” should be taken collectively here also, as is clearly indicated by the use of the word all. The valley is “Jezreel Valley” (Good News Translation, Contemporary English Version, New Living Translation, Nova Tradução na Linguagem de Hoje), which was located immediately to the northeast of Mount Gilboa (see 1 Chr 10.1). It is better to make this information explicit in the translation itself rather than putting the information in a footnote (so Bible en français courant) since the Hebrew implies that the writer had a definite place in mind and the original readers would have understood it to refer to Jezreel Valley. All the men of Israel who were in the valley may be rendered “all the Israelites who lived in the Jezreel Valley.”
The text says that these other Israelites saw what happened to their fellow Israelites. However, it is unlikely that this is meant to be taken in its literal sense of witnessing the events themselves. The idea is rather that they became aware of what had occurred. So some possible translations of the verb saw are “heard” (Good News Translation) and “learned” (Contemporary English Version, Bible en français courant).
The army had fled is literally “they had fled.” The pronoun “they” may refer to Saul and his sons, but it more likely refers to the Israelite army. It will be helpful in many languages to make the subject explicit as Revised Standard Version and many other versions have done.
They forsook their cities means they abandoned the towns in which they had lived previously.
And the Philistines came and dwelt in them: The Hebrew verb rendered dwelt is the common verb for “living” or “dwelling.” In this context a more specific verb for the settling of invading foreign troops may be used, such as “occupied” in English (New Revised Standard Version, New International Version, Revised English Bible, New Jerusalem Bible, New American Bible, New Jewish Publication Society’s Tanakh).
The text does not indicate how long it took for the Philistines to come and occupy the Israelite towns, but a period of at least several days is probably implied. This whole verse interrupts the flow of action and time between the preceding verses and those that follow. Moffatt correctly places it within parentheses in order to mark this break in the chronological sequence.
Quoted with permission from Omanson, Roger L. and Ellington, John E. A Handbook on 1-2 Chronicles, Volume 1. (UBS Helps for Translators). Miami: UBS, 2014. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .