Discovery Box2 Samuel 18:10-12 
Context18:10 When one 1 of the men saw this, he reported it to Joab saying, “I saw Absalom hanging in an oak tree. 18:11 Joab replied to the man who was telling him this, “What! You saw this? Why didn’t you strike him down right on the spot? 2 I would have given you ten pieces of silver 3 and a commemorative belt!” 4
18:12 The man replied to Joab, “Even if 5 I were receiving 6 a thousand pieces of silver, 7 I would not strike 8 the king’s son! In our very presence 9 the king gave this order to you and Abishai and Ittai, ‘Protect the young man Absalom for my sake.’ 10
1 tc 4QSama lacks the word “one.”
2 tn Heb “Why did you not strike him down there to the ground.”
3 tn Heb “ten [shekels] of silver.” This would have been about 4 ounces (114 grams) of silver by weight.
4 tn Heb “and a girdle” (so KJV); NIV “a warrior’s belt”; CEV “a special belt”; NLT “a hero’s belt.”
5 tc The translation follows the Qere and many medieval Hebrew
6 tn Heb “weighing out in my hand.”
7 tn Heb “a thousand [shekels] of silver.” This would have been about 25 pounds (11.4 kg) of silver by weight.
8 tn Heb “extend my hand against.”
9 tn Heb “in our ears.”
10 tc The Hebrew text is very difficult here. The MT reads מִי (mi, “who”), apparently yielding the following sense: “Show care, whoever you might be, for the youth Absalom.” The Syriac Peshitta reads li (“for me”), the Hebrew counterpart of which may also lie behind the LXX rendering μοι (moi, “for me”). This reading seems preferable here, since it restores sense to the passage and most easily explains the rise of the variant.
