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The well fed hire themselves out to earn food,
but the hungry no longer lack.[a]
Even[b] the barren woman has given birth to seven,[c]
but the one with many children has declined.[d]

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Footnotes

  1. 1 Samuel 2:5 tn By implication these lines refer to those formerly well-fed and those formerly hungry.
  2. 1 Samuel 2:5 tc Against BHS but with the MT, the preposition (עַד, ʿad) should be taken with what follows rather than with what precedes. For this sense of the preposition see Job 25:5.
  3. 1 Samuel 2:5 sn The number seven is used here in an ideal sense. Elsewhere in the OT having seven children is evidence of fertility as a result of God’s blessing on the family. See, for example, Jer 15:9, Ruth 4:15.
  4. 1 Samuel 2:5 tn Or “languished.”

Those who were full hire themselves out for food,
    but those who were hungry(A) are hungry no more.
She who was barren(B) has borne seven children,
    but she who has had many sons pines away.

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