3:22 Now David’s soldiers 4 and Joab were coming back from a raid, bringing a great deal of plunder with them. Abner was no longer with David in Hebron, for David 5 had sent him away and he had left in peace.
10:6 When the Ammonites realized that David was disgusted with them, 6 they 7 sent and hired 20,000 foot soldiers from Aram Beth Rehob and Aram Zobah, 8 in addition to 1,000 men from the king of Maacah and 12,000 men from Ish-tob. 9
16:1 When David had gone a short way beyond the summit, Ziba the servant of Mephibosheth was there to meet him. He had a couple of donkeys that were saddled, and on them were two hundred loaves of bread, a hundred raisin cakes, a hundred baskets of summer fruit, 15 and a container of wine.
1 tn Heb “after his falling”; NAB “could not survive his wound”; CEV “was too badly wounded to live much longer.”
2 tc The MT lacks the definite article, but this is likely due to textual corruption. It is preferable to read the alef (א) of אֶצְעָדָה (’ets’adah) as a ה (he) giving הַצְּעָדָה (hatsÿ’adah). There is no reason to think that the soldier confiscated from Saul’s dead body only one of two or more bracelets that he was wearing (cf. NLT “one of his bracelets”).
3 sn The claims that the soldier is making here seem to contradict the story of Saul’s death as presented in 1 Sam 31:3-5. In that passage it appears that Saul took his own life, not that he was slain by a passerby who happened on the scene. Some scholars account for the discrepancy by supposing that conflicting accounts have been brought together in the MT. However, it is likely that the young man is here fabricating the account in a self-serving way so as to gain favor with David, or so he supposes. He probably had come across Saul’s corpse, stolen the crown and bracelet from the body, and now hopes to curry favor with David by handing over to him these emblems of Saul’s royalty. But in so doing the Amalekite greatly miscalculated David’s response to this alleged participation in Saul’s death. The consequence of his lies will instead be his own death.
4 tn Heb “And look, the servants of David.”
5 tn Heb “he”; the referent (David) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
6 tn Heb “that they were a stench [i.e., disgusting] with David.”
7 tn Heb “the Ammonites.”
8 tn Or “Arameans of Beth Rehob and Arameans of Zobah.”
9 tn Or perhaps “the men of Tob.” The ancient versions (the LXX, the Syriac Peshitta, and Vulgate) understand the name to be “Ish-tob.” It is possible that “Ish” is dittographic and that we should read simply “Tob,” a reading adopted by a number of recent English versions.
10 tn Heb “raise up against you disaster.”
11 tn Heb “house” (so NAB, NRSV); NCV, TEV, CEV “family.”
12 tn Or “friend.”
13 tn Heb “will lie with” (so NIV, NRSV); TEV “will have intercourse with”; CEV, NLT “will go to bed with.”
14 tn Heb “in the eyes of this sun.”
15 tn Heb “a hundred summer fruit.”
16 tn Heb “David.” For stylistic reasons the name has been replaced by the pronoun (“he”) in the translation.
17 tn Heb “the bones of Saul and the bones of Jonathan his son.” See also v. 13.
18 tn Heb “lords.”
19 tn Heb “stolen.”
20 tc Against the MT, this word is better read without the definite article. The MT reading is probably here the result of wrong word division, with the letter ה (he) belonging with the preceding word שָׁם (sham) as the he directive (i.e., שָׁמָּה, samah, “to there”).
21 tn Heb “had hung them.”
22 tn Heb “in the day.”
23 tn Heb “Philistines.”