Good News Translation has restructured the information in verses 12 and 13, moving some of the content of verse 13 into verse 12 in order to present the information in a more natural English style.

According to Deut 12.15-18, some sacrifices such as this one could be eaten in any town, but others could be eaten only in the one place chosen by God, which later was established as Jerusalem.

The focusing particle Behold in this context has been translated “In fact” (Good News Translation) and “There” (New American Bible). But it can also be legitimately rendered “There he is!” (implying some sort of gesture). New Jerusalem Bible uses a less literal rendering but attempts to capture the unexpected nature of the situation by translating “He arrived a moment or two ahead of you.”

The people have a sacrifice: this wording seems a bit awkward in English, and there is no verb “have” in the Hebrew text. It may be more literally rendered “[there is] a sacrifice today for the people.” Knox and New Living Translation speak of “a public sacrifice.” The Hebrew noun translated sacrifice refers to a sacrifice of slaughtered sheep, goats or cattle.

The high place: this is the first mention of “high places” in 1 and 2 Samuel (the term occurs also in verses 13, 14, 19, 25; 10.5, 13; 2 Sam 1.19, 25; 22.14, 17; 23.1). In his fourth-century translation into Latin, Jerome rendered the Hebrew term bamah by the Latin word excelsus, which is the basis for the English translation high place. Most scholars today recognize that high place is not an adequate translation, since many bamoth (plural of bamah) were not located on hills or other high places. Perhaps the best translation in English is “shrine” (so New Revised Standard Version and New Jewish Publication Society’s Tanakh). In other languages it may be possible to say something like “place of sacrifice” or “the place of worship” (New Century Version).

Bless the sacrifice: in some languages only God can be the agent of the verb bless. So this will have to be translated “ask God to bless the sacrifice.” And the word sacrifice does not refer to the ritual but to the “victim” (Knox).

Meet him: literally “find him” as in King James Version and many more modern versions. Some languages may express the meaning as simply “see him.”

The word immediately seems to suggest that Saul would be able to encounter Samuel before the beginning of the ceremony of sacrifice. Good News Translation makes this explicit, but in other languages this may be unnecessary.

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 .