And fought … and brought … and made: each of these verbs is singular in Hebrew, with David as the subject. New Jewish Publication Society’s Tanakh renders the second and third verbs in the singular, but not the first: “David and his men went to Keilah and fought against the Philistines; he drove off their cattle and inflicted a severe defeat on them.” The focus in Hebrew is on David, and this should be preserved in translation if this can be done naturally. Traduction œcuménique de la Bible is a good model: “David, with his men, left for Keilah and attacked the Philistines. He led away their cattle and gave them a very sound defeat.”

In some languages the expression made a great slaughter will be more naturally rendered “killed many Philistines” (New Century Version). This kind of rendering will be especially important in those languages where the pronoun them may possibly be understood to refer to the cattle rather than to the Philistines.

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 .