As in the previous verse, translators should again consider other possibilities in translating the verb said in the context of conversation.

The man: this, of course, refers to Saul. In many languages it will be wise to make this clear in translation by using the name, as Good News Translation, New Century Version, Bible en français courant, and Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch have done.

Consumed: the verb used here literally means “to cause to be finished,” “annihilated,” or “exterminated.” But this cannot be literally true, since there is a remnant. Some interpreters therefore think it means “massacred” (New Jewish Publication Society’s Tanakh) or “nearly annihilated” (see Anderson). Anchor Bible, on the other hand, adopts the reading of one manuscript of the ancient Greek version and translates “set himself against us and persecuted us.” But few English versions follow this option. The simplest solution appears to be to take the verb in its literal sense as an exaggeration. The result of this is a translation like that of New Jerusalem Bible, which uses the verb “decimated.” But in many languages the way to say this will be “killed nearly all of us.”

Planned to destroy us …: the meaning of this part of the verse is also uncertain. Goldman gives a more or less literal rendering, “devised against us, so that we have been destroyed from remaining in any of the borders of Israel.” But this is very awkward English. The meaning is expressed well by New American Bible, “who intended to destroy us that we might have no place in all the territory of Israel.”

Quoted with permission from Omanson, Roger L. and Ellington, John E. A Handbook on the First and Second Books of Samuel, Volume 2. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 2001. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .