That first slaughter: this implies that there will be more events of this type to come later in the narrative, but we have no further specific evidence to this effect, unless verse 22 below is intended to imply a second slaughter. In some languages this information will be more naturally placed at the end of this verse rather than at the beginning and may require a separate sentence.

Half a furrow’s length in an acre of land: a literal translation is “as in half a furrow a yoke of field,” but the meaning of the Hebrew is not clear. New Jerusalem Bible does not even attempt to translate this phrase, placing instead three dots at the end of the verse. Anchor Bible considers the original text to have been “In this first engagement Jonathan and his weapon-bearer struck down about twenty men” and does not even translate this last part of the Hebrew verse.

It is possible that the Masoretic Text contains an error, and that the text originally compared the killing to the action of a farmer plowing a furrow across a half-acre field. Compare Revised English Bible, which follows the ancient Syriac in reading “like men cutting” instead of as it were half: “In that first attack Jonathan and his armour-bearer killed about twenty of them, like men cutting a furrow across a half-acre field.”

The entire verse in the Masoretic Text should be translated as it stands, however. Good News Translation understands this phrase to indicate the size of the area in which the fighting occurred. See also New Jewish Publication Society’s Tanakh “within a space about half a furrow long [in] an acre of land.” Fox also follows the Masoretic Text but includes within parentheses information that seems to be implicit: “(over) about half a furrow (that) a brace [= yoke] (of oxen might plow) in a field.” In some languages translators may have a difficult time finding an equivalent for an “acre.” Contemporary English Version says “before they had gone a hundred feet,” although some commentators estimate the distance to be more like fifteen or twenty meters (Klein, Driver). Bible en français courant has a more general expression, “in a very restricted space.”

A possible model for restructuring this verse may read as follows:

• That day Jonathan and the young man killed twenty men or more in an area of about half an acre. That was the first of several such feats that they performed.

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 .