2. twenty years. This is half the formulaic figure of forty years that recurs so frequently in the Book of Judges. The period of twenty years could refer to the time until David brings the Ark up to Jerusalem, though given the immediate narrative context, the more likely reference is the time until Samuel assembles the tribes at Mizpah. During this period, the presence of the Ark at Kiriath-Jearim inspires the people to cultic loyalty to God.

was drawn after. The Hebrew yinahu is anomalous. The usual meaning of this verbal root, “to weep,” makes little sense here (though it was followed by the King James translators). The present translation adopts the proposal of Rashi, who may simply have been interpreting from context. The Hebrew could also be a scribal error for yinharu, which clearly means “to be drawn after.”

3. with your whole heart. This phrase, and Samuel’s language here in general, is notably Deuteronomistic, and the narrative line in this chapter follows the Deuteronomistic theological assumption that cultic faithfulness leads to military success. Neither this language nor this assumption is much in evidence in the main body of the Samuel–Saul–David narrative.

Ashtaroth. The form is a feminine plural of Ashtoreth (Astarte), the Canaanite fertility goddess. The plural indicates either a plurality of goddesses or—more likely—the multiple icons of Astarte.

4. Baalim. This is the masculine plural of Baal, the principal Canaanite male deity.

5. Mizpah. Mizpah appears as a point of tribal assembly at two significant junctures in the Book of Judges. The name means “lookout” and in the Hebrew has a definite article.

6. they drew water and spilled it before the LORD. This act is a small puzzle because a water-drawing ritual is otherwise known only from the late Second Temple period (through Mishnaic sources), and there it is associated with fertility and the fall Festival of Succoth. The context makes clear that in this instance it must be a rite of penitence or purification. Rashi puts it succinctly: “It can only be a symbol of abnegation, that is, ‘Behold we are in your presence like this water spilled forth.’”

7. the Philistines heard that the Israelites had assembled. Either the Philistines assumed that the assembly was a mustering of the tribes for war, which might not have been far off the mark (compare the assembly at Mizpah at the end of Judges 10), or they decided to seize this opportunity of the gathering of Israel for cultic purposes in order to attack the assembled tribes.

9. one suckling lamb. The Hebrew is literally “milk lamb” (teleh ḥalav). The choice of the sacrificial animal strikes an odd little echo with the two milch cows sacrificed at the end of the Ark Narrative and with the emphasis on nursing and weaning in Samuel’s own infancy.

10. the LORD thundered . . . and panicked them. The key terms restate a recurrent pattern in 1 Samuel: God’s hand, or God’s voice (the thunder), comes down on the enemy, and the enemy is smitten with “panic” (mehumah). Compare, also, the end of Hannah’s poem: “the LORD shatters His adversaries, / against them in the heavens He thunders.” Essentially, it is God Who does battle, with the Israelite foot soldiers merely mopping up after His celestial bombardment. This Deuteronomistic view will fade from the Saul and David narratives.

12. Shen. If the Masoretic Text is correct (the Septuagint reflects a different place-name), this name means “cliff” and, like Mizpah, it is preceded by a definite article.

Eben-Ezer. The name means “stone of help,” with “help” bearing a particularly martial implication. This place may not be the same as the one where the Ark was captured. In any case, the recurring name is meant to signify the righting of old wrongs.

As far as here. The Hebrew phrase could be either temporal (“up until now”) or spatial, but the placing of a stone as a marker makes the latter more likely: as far as this point the LORD granted us victory.

13. the hand of the LORD was against the Philistines all the days of Samuel. Since under Saul’s kingship the Philistines remained a dominant military power, “all the days of Samuel” could refer only to the period of Samuel’s actual leadership. In any case, there are later indications that even under Samuel the Philistines remained powerful.

14. peace between Israel and the Amorite. This seemingly incongruous notice actually throws light, as Shmuel Avramsky has proposed, on Israel’s military-political situation. The Amorites—a designation often used loosely by the biblical writers for the indigenous Canaanite peoples—had also been dominated by the Philistine invaders, and Israel’s success against the Philistines may have been facilitated by an alliance, or at least a nonaggression pact, with the Amorites.

15. And Samuel judged Israel. The precise nature of his leadership is left ambiguous, as befits this transitional figure in Israel’s political evolution. Some of the “judging” may actually be performance of a judicial function, as the next verse indicates that Samuel operated as a kind of circuit judge, although he may well have carried out cultic or priestly duties as well (the towns at which he stopped are all cultic sites). He is also judge in the sense of “chieftain” or political leader, though he plays this role not as a warrior, according to the model of the Book of Judges, but as exhorter and intercessor. He is also, as we shall see in the Saul story, a seer and a reprover-prophet.

16. from year to year. This locution for iterative annual peregrination takes us back to Hannah and Elkanah at the very beginning of the Samuel story.

17. his point of return was Ramah. The Hebrew says literally “his return was Ramah.” This is evidently the same place as Ramathaim Zofim, where his parents lived. Samuel’s circuit is an uneven ellipsis roughly twenty miles across in the northern part of the territory of Benjamin (Saul’s tribe) and the southern part of the territory of Ephraim, in north-central Israel. It is far from encompassing all the tribal territories.