1 Samuel 2:5

2:5 Those who are well-fed hire themselves out to earn food,

but the hungry no longer lack.

Even9 the barren woman gives birth to seven,10

but the one with many children withers away.11

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9	tc Against BHS but with the MT, the preposition (עַד, ’ad) should be taken with what follows rather than with what precedes. For this sense of the preposition see Job 25:5.
10	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.
11	tn Or “languishes.”