Though the Hebrew is literally “But Hannah answered and said,” in the interest of English style, Good News Translation substitutes the pronoun “she” for the name Hannah and omits the words “and said.”

My lord is a common biblical term expressing politeness. It should be rendered by an equally common and equally polite term in the receptor language. Like Good News Translation, Revised English Bible and New Century Version also use the English equivalent “sir.” Whether such a term is placed at the beginning of the address or later will depend on what is natural in the receptor language.

I am a woman sorely troubled: literally “a woman heavy [or, difficult] of spirit [am] I.” The sense is not so much that she was “desperate” (so Good News Translation) but that she was “a very unhappy woman” (New Jewish Publication Society’s Tanakh) or “a heart-broken woman” (Revised English Bible). New American Bible (“an unhappy woman”) is similar to the New Jewish Publication Society’s Tanakh translation, but “very unhappy” or “feel miserable” (Contemporary English Version) seem to capture better the force of the Hebrew.

I have drunk neither wine nor strong drink is a literal translation. Strong drink translates the noun form of a verb that means “be or become drunk,” and in Hebrew the noun refers to an intoxicating drink. Such strong drinks were made from either grains or fruits, and most likely they were fermented drinks rather than distilled liquors. The Hebrew word is therefore better translated as “beer” (New International Version) than as “liquor” (New American Bible). New Jewish Publication Society’s Tanakh appropriately inserts the word “other,” that is, “I have drunk no wine or other strong drink.” Some common language translations compress the two Hebrew nouns wine and strong drink and say simply “I haven’t been drinking” (Good News Translation, Bible en français courant).

But I have been pouring out my soul before the LORD is a literal translation. The Hebrew word translated soul has a wide range of meanings. It may refer to the center of spiritual and physical needs and desires. It may also refer to the seat of emotions and experiences such as sadness, grief, pain, distress, and anxiety. In this context “pouring out my troubles” (Good News Translation, New American Bible) is an appropriate translation. New Jewish Publication Society’s Tanakh’s “pouring out my heart” also expresses in contemporary English the meaning of the Hebrew, as does the expression “pouring out my feelings” (Revised English Bible).

As in verse 12 above, before the LORD (Revised Standard Version, New Revised Standard Version, Revised English Bible, Fox) is a literal translation of a common Hebrew expression. While the word before indicates location, the meaning is that the speaker is in the presence of the person being addressed and is capable of being heard. Many translations say “to the LORD” (Good News Translation, New Jewish Publication Society’s Tanakh, Bible en français courant).

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 .

The translation of the verb “to be” in this verse is important, since it sets the stage for what follows. Good News Translation and New International Version make the content of this verse into a temporal clause, introducing verse 2, and both use the pluperfect English verb form “had been.” Compare also An American Translation, which indicates the beginning of new events with the word “now”: “Now the ark of the LORD had been in the territory of the Philistines seven months, when the Philistines called for….” New Century Version restructures this verse to make the Philistines, rather than the Covenant Box, the grammatical subject of the sentence: “the Philistines kept the Ark of God in their land seven months.”

The ark of the LORD: see the comments on 5.1.

The country of the Philistines: the translation of this expression will be closely tied to the following verse, where the name Philistines is repeated in Hebrew. Such repetition, however, may be unnatural in the receptor language. Revised English Bible translates “their territory” here and “the Philistines” in verse 2. Others may prefer to say “the region of the Philistines” here, and then use the pronoun “they” or a more general noun like “the people” (Good News Translation) in verse 2.

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 .

In order to avoid the use of the passive were restored, it may be necessary in some languages to supply the implied agent, Yahweh. The translation of the first part of this verse will then be “The LORD restored to Israel all the cities that the Philistines had taken from them.”

Ekron and Gath: on the geographic location of these cities, see the comments on 5.8. It is not at all clear how the words from Ekron to Gath are to be understood in this context. Perhaps they mean that the Israelites recaptured these two cities, which had been given to the tribes of Judah and Dan in the time of Joshua. More likely the sense is that Ekron and Gath are the north and south points of a line. The Israelites recovered territory going as far west as that line, extending as far north as Ekron and as far south as Gath. This may be translated “The Israelites captured all the cities that the Philistines had taken from them, right up to the Philistine border extending from Ekron to Gath.”

The verbs were restored and rescued may seem to refer to the same event; that is, by restoring these cities to Israel, Israel rescued the territory that had belonged to Israel. The pronoun suffix their on the Hebrew noun territory is feminine plural, referring to the Philistine cities that have been captured. Their territory means “the territory around the cities.” The pronoun their does not refer to Israel, as in Good News Translation, but to the cities. The restoration of land apparently took place in two stages: first the cities, and then the territories around those cities. So the second clause may be rendered “and the people of Israel also rescued the land around the cities from Philistine control.” Other translations that make this meaning clear include “The cities the Philistines had taken from Israel returned to her, from Ekron to Gath. Israel delivered the territory [belonging to these cities] from the hand of the Philistines” (Klein) and “Israel also freed the territory of these cities from the dominion of the Philistines” (New American Bible).

On the metaphorical use of hand of, see the comment on 4.8.

Since the Philistines and the Amorites were different groups, it is important that the word also be properly emphasized.

The Amorites were one of the groups of people who lived in Palestine and in the regions east of the Jordan River before the conquest by the Israelites. Often the term is used as a synonym for Canaanites. In this verse Good News Translation uses “Canaanites,” which is the more widely known name in English. If translators retain the name Amorites, they may wish to explain this name in a Word List (as, for example, in Bible en français courant, Traduction œcuménique de la Bible, Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch).

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 .

Then: the common conjunction is here treated as a temporal transition word indicating what happened next in the story. But many modern versions omit it altogether.

Saul said to his servant is a literal translation. Good News Translation omits to his servant as redundant. Since the verb said is followed by a question, it may be better translated as “asked.”

But if we go: literally “Behold [if] we go.” Regarding the translation of the word “Behold,” see page 18 and following. In this context the word may even be translated “Wait a minute!” or “Hold on!” Fox attempts to express the sense of the Hebrew by saying “But here, (if) we go, what can we bring for the man?”

The bread in our sacks is gone should not be understood to mean that it had somehow disappeared or been stolen. Rather the idea is that it had been “used up” (Anchor Bible). It will also be recalled that the word bread is often used in Scripture to refer to food in general. It is taken in this way by New Jewish Publication Society’s Tanakh, Revised English Bible, and New Jerusalem Bible, as well as Good News Translation. So some may prefer to say “we have eaten all the food that was in our sacks.”

Present: the noun so translated is not found elsewhere in the Old Testament, but it is related to a verb related to travel and so refers perhaps to any gift offered by a traveler. 1 Kgs 14.3 and 2 Kgs 4.42 seem to suggest that it was common to take a gift to a prophet. Perhaps it was expected that people would pay the prophet a fee for an interview. At least one scholar has suggested that this Hebrew word means “interview fee,” but nearly all translations say simply “a gift” or “a present.” In most languages a general term for “gift” will be adequate.

The man of God: see the comments on verse 6.

The final question of Saul, What have we? seems to mean “Do we have anything at all [to give the man of God]?” And the implication is that they had “nothing at all” (Revised English Bible). Some may translate “We don’t have anything else, do we?”

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 .

Told us plainly: the Hebrew uses an emphatic verbal construction that is stronger than saying simply “he told us.” So it is probable that the meaning is something like “he guaranteed to us” or “he promised us.” Several modern versions attempt to reflect this by translating “he assured us” (New International Version and La Bible du Semeur) or “he told us emphatically” (An American Translation). New Jewish Publication Society’s Tanakh, however, takes this expression to be a limiting one, translating “he just told us….” This implies that Saul claims that Samuel had said nothing more to them.

That the asses had been found: the passive formulation may be made active by saying “that someone had found the [female] donkeys.”

Revised Standard Version follows the order of the Hebrew in this verse. The use of quotation marks in Revised Standard Version clearly shows where Saul’s report ends. Since, however, quotation marks do not help those people who only hear the text read, it may be better to restructure to make clear that the last sentence in the verse is not part of the quotation of Samuel’s words. Good News Translation provides one possible model. Another is “But Saul did not tell….”

The matter of the kingdom: that is, the conversation about Saul’s becoming king of Israel, or “what Samuel said about his becoming king” (New Century Version). Samuel clearly stated this in verse 1.

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 .