Sa mu el 104 singing and dancing in front of the king and playing musical instru - ments . The female players were singing and praising the king and his young commander ( v . 7 ) : Saul has slain his thousands And David his tens of thousands This brief song contains two parallel clauses dealing with smiting and ; ) אלפיו ( the Philistines in ensuing battles : Saul smote thousands אלף / / רבבה : The paralleled objects . ) רבבותיו ( David ( smote ) myriads are well attested as a common pair in the Bible and Ugarit writings see Ras Shamra Parallels, I, 1972 : 114 ) . This song is later cited by ( the Philistines ( 21 : 12 ; 29 : 5 ) . Two options to interpret such pairs of synonyms were suggested . The first one is to interpret it as a pair of poetic synonyms ; and the variations between the two numbers are just for “embellishment” that should not be taken literally . The second op - tion is to see the numbers as “progressive” where the numbers under discussion precisely mean to over - pr...
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