This verse in Hebrew contains a direct quotation, which Good News Translation restructures in the form of an indirect quotation. The quotation alludes to several Old Testament passages, for example, Exo 34.16 and Deut 7.3-4.

You shall not enter into marriage with them is literally “You shall not enter with them.” New Jewish Publication Society’s Tanakh says “None of you shall join them.” In this context, however, the sense is clearly “None of you shall join them in marriage.”

Neither shall they with you is literally “and they shall not enter with you.” The addition of these words adds strong emphasis to the prohibition. Unless such repetition is considered unnatural, it should be retained in translation in order to retain the stress that is found in the text. Both Good News Translation and New Living Translation simplify the structure of the Hebrew by saying “not to intermarry with” for the first two clauses of the quotation.

Surely translates a Hebrew exclamation word that functions to emphasize what is unexpected. In the present context, it may be rendered “truly,” “certainly,” or “indeed.”

They will turn away your heart after their gods: This Hebrew expression means that the foreign wives will redirect the loyalty of the Israelite men toward gods whom they worship. Some other ways of translating the meaning are “they will cause you to desire to worship the gods whom they worship,” “they will entice you to serve their gods” (Revised English Bible), and “they will be sure to seduce you to follow their gods” (Moffatt). For heart see 1 Kgs 8.17; for gods see 1 Kgs 9.6.

Solomon clung to these in love: Good News Translation appears to have placed these words at the beginning of the verse. The structure of the Hebrew, however, seems to give a nuance of meaning that neither Revised Standard Version nor Good News Translation captures. Compare New Jewish Publication Society’s Tanakh: “Such Solomon clung to and loved.” That is, after the writer has said that women such as these would cause the Israelites to become followers of other gods, he then adds, “It was just such women as these whom Solomon married.” In the Hebrew text, the pronoun these is masculine even though it refers to Solomon’s wives. This is probably because the grammatical forms used in verse 1 to refer to the nations where these wives came from are masculine.

Verses 1-2 may need to be restructured in certain languages since it may be seen as more logical to state first the prohibition of verse 2 before the fact of Solomon’s forbidden loves in the first verse. A model for this type of structure may be found in Contemporary English Version:

• The LORD did not want the Israelites to worship foreign gods, so he had warned them not to marry anyone who was not from Israel.
Solomon loved his wife, the daughter of the king of Egypt. But he also loved some women from Moab, Ammon and Edom, and others from Sidon and the land of the Hittites.

Quoted with permission from Omanson, Roger L. and Ellington, John E. A Handbook on 1-2 Kings, Volume 1. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 2008. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .