1 Samuel 15:2

Hebrew Bible

1 Then Samuel said to Saul, “I was the one the Lord sent to anoint you as king over his people Israel. Now listen to what the Lord says. 2 Here is what the Lord of Heaven’s Armies has said: ‘I carefully observed how the Amalekites opposed Israel along the way when Israel came up from Egypt. 3 So go now and strike down the Amalekites. Destroy everything they have. Don’t spare them. Put them to death—man, woman, child, infant, ox, sheep, camel, and donkey alike.’”

LXX 1 Samuel 15:2

Septuagint

1 And Samuel said to Saul, The Lord sent me to anoint thee king over Israel: and now hear the voice of the Lord. 2 Thus said the Lord of hosts, Now will I take vengeance for what Amalec did to Israel, when he met him in the way as he came up out of Egypt. 3 And now go, and thou shalt smite Amalec and Hierim and all that belongs to him, and thou shalt not save anything of him alive, but thou shalt utterly destroy him: and thou shalt devote him and all his to destruction, and thou shalt spare nothing belonging to him; and thou shalt slay both man and woman, and infant and suckling, and calf and sheep, and camel and ass.

 Notes and References

"... In other cases, the Masoretic text and Targum tempered difficulties in the text, which textually survived only in the Septuagint. In 1 Samuel 15:2, the Septuagint offers ἐκδικήσω (“I will avenge”) whereas the Masoretic text offers “I have taken account”, and Targum Jonathan offers “I remember”. In this case, the Septuagint offers an old reading which is tempered in the Hebrew traditions. In 2 Samuel 24:16, LXX Ra offers the original reading ὁ ἄγγελος τοῦ θεοῦ whereas the Masoretic Text, LXX A.L. and the Targum omit the mention of “God” in order to reduce the notion of God’s cruelty. In Rabbinical tradition, this reading also is known, but there we find an explicit debate on God’s cruelty ..."

Meiser, Martin The Septuagint and Its Reception: Collected Essays (p. 76) Mohr Siebeck, 2022

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