1 Samuel 6:17-19
New English Translation
17 These are the gold sores that the Philistines brought as a guilt offering to the Lord—one for each of the following cities: Ashdod, Gaza, Ashkelon, Gath, and Ekron. 18 The gold mice corresponded in number to all the Philistine cities of the five leaders, from the fortified cities to hamlet villages, to greater Abel.[a] They positioned the ark of the Lord on a rock until this very day in the field of Joshua who was from Beth Shemesh.
19 But the Lord[b] struck down some of the people of Beth Shemesh because they had looked into the ark of the Lord; he struck down 50,070 of[c] the men. The people grieved because the Lord had struck the people with a hard blow.
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- 1 Samuel 6:18 tc A few Hebrew mss and the LXX read “villages; the large rock…[is witness] until this very day.”
- 1 Samuel 6:19 tn Heb “he”; the referent (the Lord) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
- 1 Samuel 6:19 tc The number 50,070 is surprisingly large, although it finds almost unanimous textual support in the MT and in the ancient versions. Only a few medieval Hebrew mss lack “50,000,” reading simply “70” instead. However, there does not seem to be sufficient external evidence to warrant reading 70 rather than 50,070, although that is done by a number of recent translations (e.g., NAB, NIV, NRSV, NLT). The present translation (reluctantly) follows the MT and the ancient versions here.
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