Ichabod: the Hebrew contains a play on words with the name Ichabod, which means “no glory,” and the statement that the glory has departed from Israel. Plays on words such as this are nearly always impossible to translate. Translators need to explain the meaning of the name in a footnote (Good News Translation) or to give a translation of the name in the text within parentheses following the transliteration of the name Ichabod (so Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch, Parola Del Signore: La Bibbia in Lingua Corrente, La Bible du Semeur). Moffatt attempts to translate both the form and the meaning: “Ichabod, or Noglory.” Fox uses a slash to separate the Hebrew name and the meaning in English: “but she called the lad I-Khavod/Where-is-the-Glory.” Since the reference is to God’s glory, as Good News Translation makes explicit, Fox capitalizes the word “Glory.” Ichabod is mentioned again in 14.3.

Because … because: the Hebrew preposition rendered because in Revised Standard Version and New Revised Standard Version is different from the Hebrew conjunction rendered “because” in verse 22. Here in verse 21 it more likely expresses the idea of “with regard to.” Compare New Jerusalem Bible, “alluding to the capture” (similarly Good News Translation and New Jewish Publication Society’s Tanakh). New American Bible says “with reference to.” Another way of translating this preposition is the following: “She was talking about the capture of the ark.”

Because of her father-in-law and her husband: that is, because they had both died (see verse 19). In many languages it will be wise to make this information explicit by saying something like “because her father-in-law and her husband had already died.”

Quoted with permission from Omanson, Roger L. and Ellington, John E. A Handbook on the First and Second Books of Samuel, Volume 1. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 2001. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .