1 Samuel15:24–35

Where the English smooths the original

• פִּֽי־ פִּי־יְהוָה (pî-YHWH, H6310 peh) is not “commandment” but the mouth of the LORD — the organ of speech itself, the means of blowing. BSB smooths a bodily metaphor into a legal noun. Saul did not merely break a statute; he walked past a spoken word out of a mouth. Poole reads the construct with the next noun as “the commandment of the Lord delivered to me by thy words; another hendiadis.”
• עָבַ֥רְתִּי עָבַרְתִּי (‘āḇartî, H5674 ʻâbar, Qal perfect 1cs) — “I crossed over.” English “transgressed” is Latin for the same picture, but it has gone dead; the Hebrew is still spatial. Saul stepped over a line that a mouth had drawn.
• וָאֶשְׁמַ֖ע וָאֶשְׁמַע בְּקוֹלָם (wā’ešma‘ bəqōlām, H8085 + H6963) — “and I hearkened to their voice.” BSB’s “obeyed their voice” is right in sense but hides the verbal echo: the whole chapter’s indictment is that Saul did not shemaʻ bəqol YHWH. He heard a voice; he simply heard the wrong one.
• יָרֵ֙אתִי֙ יָרֵאתִי אֶת־הָעָם (yārê’ṯî ’eṯ-hā‘ām, H3372) — the verb of the fear of God is here aimed at the people, and takes them as a direct object with ’eṯ. The English “I feared the people” is accurate but flat; the Hebrew places the people in the grammatical slot reserved elsewhere for YHWH.

Where the English smooths the original

• שָׂ֥א שָׂא (śā, H5375 nâsâʼ, Qal imperative) — “lift, carry, bear away,” not “forgive” as a courtroom verb. Hebrew pardon is a load being picked up and carried off. BSB’s “forgive my sin” loses the weight being shifted, and with it the question Gill presses: onto whom?
• חַטָּאתִ֑י חַטָּאתִי (ḥaṭṭā’ṯî, H2403 chaṭṭâʼâh) — one noun covering the offence, its penalty, and the sacrifice that expiates it. Gill notes that “pardon” here may mean no more than “averting a threatened judgment,” which is exactly the ambiguity the Hebrew noun carries.
• וְאֶֽשְׁתַּחֲוֶ֖ה וְאֶשְׁתַּחֲוֶה (wə’eštaḥăweh, H7812 shâchâh, Hitpael cohortative) — the root is “to depress, prostrate.” It is a body thrown flat, not the English abstraction “worship.” The cohortative makes it Saul’s own resolve, and it is grammatically dependent on Samuel first returning.
• וְשׁ֣וּב וְשׁוּב (wəšūḇ, H7725 shûwb, imperative) — “turn back.” The king commands the prophet with the very verb that elsewhere names repentance. Saul asks Samuel to shuwb; he does not himself shuwb.

Where the English smooths the original

• מָאַ֙סְתָּה֙ מָאַסְתָּה … וַיִּמְאָסְךָ (mā’astāh … wayyim’āseḵā, H3988 mâʼaç, “to spurn”) — the same root twice, active then reflected back. English “rejected… rejected” keeps the word but not the sting: mâʼaç is contemptuous refusal, to spurn as worthless. The sentence is measure for measure, and the grammar says so before the theology does.
• מִהְי֥וֹת מִהְיוֹת מֶלֶךְ (mihyōwṯ meleḵ, H1961 hâyâh infinitive with min) — literally “from being king,” not BSB’s “as king.” The preposition min severs; it removes Saul from the very state of kingship, not merely from a title.
• עִמָּ֑ךְ עִמָּךְ (‘immāḵ) — the parse here is second person feminine singular, an anomaly in a speech addressed to Saul. The consonantal text permits the reading; BSB renders the expected masculine “with you.” We flag the oddity rather than explain it away.

Where the English smooths the original

• בִּכְנַף־ כְּנַף (kənap̄, H3671 kânâph) is a wing — the edge or extremity of a garment named after a bird’s pinion. “Hem” (BSB) and “skirt” (AV) are both attempts at a word that means the outermost reach of a covering. Pulpit insists it was the outer border “probably at Samuel’s neck or shoulder”; Cambridge calls it “some kind of a lappet or flap hanging down behind.”
• וַיִּקָּרַֽע׃ וַיִּקָּרַע (wayyiqqāra‘, H7167 qâraʻ, Nifal) — passive: “and it was torn,” not “he tore it.” K&D defends the Nifal against the LXX’s active reading, and the grammar carries the whole sign: no one intended the tearing. BSB’s “and it tore” is a fair English middle voice, but the Hebrew passive is what makes the accident an omen.
• וַיַּחֲזֵ֥ק וַיַּחֲזֵק (wayyaḥăzêq, H2388 châzaq, Hifil) — “to fasten upon,” causative: he made himself strong upon it. BSB’s “grabbed” is close; what it loses is that this is the standard verb for strengthening, here bent into a grip of desperation.
• מְעִיל֖וֹ מְעִילוֹ (mə‘îlōw, H4598 mᵉʻîyl) — the meil, a close-fitting over-tunic, not the prophet’s addereth. Ellicott and Pulpit are emphatic that the AV’s “mantle” imports a later prophetic costume back into Samuel’s day; and Pulpit adds that because the meil fitted closely, the tearing “implies a considerable amount of violence on Saul’s part.”

Where the English smooths the original

• קָרַ֨ע קָרַע (qāra‘, H7167, Qal perfect) — “has torn,” completed action, with YHWH as subject and in the emphatic first position of the clause. The Hebrew word order is “Torn has YHWH…”; BSB’s “The LORD has torn” is idiomatic English but retires the fronting that makes the verb the hammer-blow.
• מַמְלְכ֧וּת מַמְלְכוּת (mamləḵūṯ, H4468 mamlâkûwth) — dominion, the abstract exercise of rule, a rarer noun than mamlâkâh. Not the territory but the ruling itself is torn away. The gloss “kingdom” lets an English reader hear real estate.
• מֵעָלֶ֖יךָ מֵעָלֶיךָ (mê‘āleḵā, min + ʻal) — “from off you,” a double preposition. BSB’s “from you” drops the second: the kingship is pictured as a garment lying upon Saul and stripped off him — which is precisely the torn meil still in his hand.
• לְרֵעֲךָ֖ לְרֵעֲךָ (lərê‘ăḵā, H7453 rêaʻ) — “an associate, more or less close.” BSB “your neighbor” is right; the point is its vagueness. K&D: “Samuel did not yet know to whom Jehovah would give it.” Geneva's gloss simply supplies “That is, to David”; the Hebrew does not.

Where the English smooths the original

• נֵ֣צַח נֵצַח (nêṣaḥ, H5331) — “properly, a goal,” hence perpetuity, endurance, and only by a later Aramaising usage “glory.” BSB’s “the Glory of Israel” takes the least likely sense for this context. K&D argues for constancy and trust: “He is ישׂראל נצח, the unchangeable One, in whom Israel can trust.” Ellicott would render “the Changeless One of Israel”; JFB and Pulpit take it as “Victory” or “Triumph.” Barnes concedes only that the phrase “occurs only here.”
• יְשַׁקֵּ֖ר יְשַׁקֵּר (yəšaqqêr, H8266 shâqar, Piel) — not simply “lie” but “to cheat, to deal falsely, to break faith.” A rare verb: it stands in only six verses in the canon. The Piel is intensive and relational — this is covenant-breaking, not misinformation.
• יִנָּחֵ֑ם יִנָּחֵם (yinnāḥêm, H5162 nâcham, Nifal) — the root is “to sigh, to breathe deeply,” hence to be moved to pity or to change course. “Change His mind” (BSB) is an interpretation; the Hebrew is bodily — to draw a hard breath over something done. This is the same verb, and the same stem, that v. 35 applies to YHWH over Saul.
• אָדָ֛ם אָדָם (’āḏām, H120) — “ruddy,” the earth-man. The denial is not of emotion but of creatureliness: the reason God does not nâcham like a man is that He is not made of the dust that changes.

Where the English smooths the original

• כַּבְּדֵ֥נִי כַּבְּדֵנִי (kabbəḏênî, H3513 kâbad, Piel imperative) — the root means “to be heavy.” To honour is to give weight. BSB’s “honor me” is correct and colourless; the Hebrew is a demand to be made weighty in public — from a man who has just been told the kingship was torn off him.
• נֶ֥גֶד נֶגֶד (neḡeḏ, H5048) — “a front,” what is straight in view. Doubled (before the elders, and before Israel), it makes the request explicitly about visibility. The whole petition is staged for eyes.
• אֱלֹהֶֽיךָ יְהוָה אֱלֹהֶיךָ (YHWH ’ĕlōheḵā) — “YHWH thy God,” the second-person suffix, exactly as in v. 15. In v. 25 Saul said simply “to YHWH.” Barnes flags the same phrase; the possessive has drifted to the prophet's side of the sentence, and BSB preserves it, but an English reader can pass over it.
• וְהִֽשְׁתַּחֲוֵ֖יתִי וְהִשְׁתַּחֲוֵיתִי (wəhištaḥăwêṯî, H7812, Hitpael conjunctive perfect) — where v. 25 had a cohortative (“let me bow down”), here the waw-consecutive perfect makes the prostration a settled consequence of Samuel's returning. The bargain has hardened.

Where the English smooths the original

• וַיָּ֥שָׁב וַיָּשָׁב (wayyāšāḇ, H7725 shûwb) — the verb Samuel refused in v. 26 now takes him as its subject. BSB’s “went back with Saul” is smooth; the Hebrew simply repeats shuwb, so that the refusal and the compliance are audibly the same word.
• אַחֲרֵ֣י אַחֲרֵי שָׁאוּל (’aḥărê šā’ūl, H310 ʼachar, “the hind part”) — “after Saul,” not “with Saul.” BSB’s “with” imports companionship the preposition does not give. Poole builds a whole argument on this: Samuel followed, but “not to worship the Lord with him, for that he did not; and therefore it is here mentioned that Saul only worshipped the Lord.”
• וַיִּשְׁתַּ֥חוּ וַיִּשְׁתַּחוּ (wayyištaḥū, H7812, Hitpael) — the subject is Saul alone, singular. The narrator is careful; the prostration Saul had twice requested as a joint act is recorded as a solo one.

Where the English smooths the original

• מַעֲדַנֹּ֑ת מַעֲדַנֹּת (ma‘ăḏannōṯ, H4575) — the single most uncertain word in the unit, and BSB’s “cheerfully” hides the uncertainty entirely. Its only other canonical occurrence, Job 38:31, means bands or chains; the LXX read “trembling,” the Vulgate rendered it twice over (“sleek and trembling”), and the Syriac dropped it. Pulpit argues for “in fetters”; K&D, Benson, Poole, Gill and JFB for cheerfulness. We leave it untranslated.
• הַגִּ֤ישׁוּ הַגִּישׁוּ (haggîšū, H5066 nâgash, Hifil imperative plural) — “cause to draw near.” The verb is the ordinary one for presenting an offering at the altar. Samuel is standing at Gilgal where Saul has just sacrificed, and he uses sanctuary language to summon a man. BSB’s “Bring me Agag” is accurate and loses the liturgical colouring.
• סָ֥ר סָר (sār, H5493 çûwr, Qal perfect) — “has turned aside, departed.” BSB’s “is past” reads it as time elapsed; the Hebrew verb is spatial — the bitterness has stepped out of the way. Agag speaks as of a thing that moved off a road, which is exactly the hope that is about to be disappointed.
• אָכֵ֖ן אָכֵן (’āḵên, H403, “firmly”) — an adverb of asseveration, but one Hebrew often uses when a speaker is bracing himself. Pulpit hears it exactly so: “Though put affirmatively, there is underlying doubt.”

Where the English smooths the original

• שִׁכְּלָ֤ה שִׁכְּלָה (šikkəlāh, H7921 shâkôl, Piel) — the root means properly “to miscarry,” to be made childless by loss. BSB’s “made women childless” is right; what the Piel adds is causation with intent. Gill notes the women were bereaved “not of their children only, but of their husbands also, and so made them both childless and widows.”
• מִנָּשִׁ֖ים מִנָּשִׁים (minnāšîm) — BSB reads the min as partitive, “among women.” K&D reads it as comparative and takes the whole as a superlative: “more childless than (other) women, i.e., the most childless of women, namely, because her son was the king.” Both are grammatically open; the English fixes one.
• וַיְשַׁסֵּ֨ף וַיְשַׁסֵּף (wayšassêp̄, H8158 shâçaph, Piel) — a hapax legomenon; it occurs nowhere else in the Hebrew Bible. Barnes: “Only found in this passage.” Cambridge: it “occurs nowhere else. It may perhaps mean no more than ‘executed’ (Sept. ἔσφαξε ).” Every English rendering of “hewed in pieces” descends from the Vulgate's in frusta concidit, not from known Hebrew usage.
• לִפְנֵ֥י לִפְנֵי יְהוָה (lip̄nê YHWH) — literally “to the face of YHWH.” The noun is pānîm, faces, plural. BSB’s “before the LORD” is standard and correct; the Hebrew idiom makes the execution an act done in a face's presence, which is why Poole and Gill debate whether the ark or the altar was physically there.

Where the English smooths the original

• עָלָ֥ה עָלָה (‘ālāh, H5927) — “went up, ascended,” against Samuel's plain wayyêleḵ (“went”). BSB keeps “went up,” but an English reader hears only topography. Gibeah sits high; the verb is also the standard one for going up to worship, and the writer has just refused to say that Samuel worshipped with Saul.
• הָרָמָ֑תָה הָרָמָתָה (hārāmāṯāh) — the he-locale ending, “to-Ramah,” a directional suffix English can only render with a preposition. The name itself means “the height.” Both men go up; they go up to different heights.
• גִּבְעַ֥ת גִּבְעַת שָׁאוּל (giḇ‘aṯ šā’ūl) — “Gibeah of Saul,” a construct that attaches the king's name to the town. BSB renders it faithfully, but the effect is easy to miss: the last thing said of Saul in this chapter's narrative is that he went home to a place called by his own name.

Where the English smooths the original

• יָסַ֨ף וְלֹא־יָסַף … לִרְאוֹת (wəlō-yāsap̄ … lir’ōwṯ, H3254 yâçaph with an infinitive) — a Hebrew idiom for “did not do it again.” BSB’s “never again visited” is idiomatic English; Gill gives the wooden form, “added not to see him,” which is what lets Poole and Benson square the statement with the later meeting at 1 Samuel 19:24.
• לִרְא֤וֹת לִרְאוֹת (lir’ōwṯ, H7200 râʼâh, “to see”) — the verb is plain seeing; BSB supplies “visited,” an interpretation. Poole defends it (“Seeing is put for visiting here , and 2 Kings 8:29 ”), but the reader should know the Hebrew says only “to see.”
• הִתְאַבֵּ֥ל הִתְאַבֵּל (hiṯ’abbêl, H56 ʼâbal, Hitpael) — “to bewail,” in the reflexive stem: to put oneself into mourning, the formal grief performed for the dead. BSB’s “mourned for Saul” is correct and understated; the stem means Samuel conducted funeral grief over a man still alive and still on the throne.
• נִחָ֔ם נִחָם (niḥām, H5162 nâcham, Nifal perfect) — the identical root and stem that v. 29 denied of God six verses earlier. BSB renders it “regretted” here and “change His mind” there, which quietly softens a collision the Hebrew makes unmissable by using one word twice.