UTN uW Translation Notes:

1 Samuel 21 Chapter Introduction

Structure and Formatting

This chapter continues the part of the book that describes how David became king (chapters 16–31). It describes how David fled hastily from Saul’s court in Gibeah in order to save his life. It tells how he went to the city of Nob, where the Israelite priests were with the Box of Yahweh, and asked for food and a weapon. It then tells how he fled to the Philistine city of Gath, where Saul presumably could not attack him. However, the officials of the king of Gath did not want to have David, a great Israelite military commander, in their city. David pretended to be crazy so that they would not feel threatened by him.Some translations set each line of poetry farther to the right than the rest of the text to make it easier to read. The ULT does this with the poetic song in 21:11.