3:22 Now David’s soldiers 5 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 6 had sent him away and he had left in peace.
9:11 Ziba said to the king, “Your servant will do everything that my lord the king has instructed his servant to do.” So Mephibosheth was a regular guest 12 at David’s table, 13 just as though he were one of the king’s sons.
15:25 Then the king said to Zadok, “Take the ark of God back to the city. If I find favor in the Lord’s sight he will bring me back and enable me to see both it and his dwelling place again.
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, 34 and a container of wine.
18:18 Prior to this 39 Absalom had set up a monument 40 and dedicated it to himself in the King’s Valley, reasoning “I have no son who will carry on my name.” He named the monument after himself, and to this day it is known as Absalom’s Memorial.
20:1 Now a wicked man 43 named Sheba son of Bicri, a Benjaminite, 44 happened to be there. He blew the trumpet 45 and said,
“We have no share in David;
we have no inheritance in this son of Jesse!
Every man go home, 46 O Israel!”
20:6 Then David said to Abishai, “Now Sheba son of Bicri will cause greater disaster for us than Absalom did! Take your lord’s servants and pursue him. Otherwise he will secure 47 fortified cities for himself and get away from us.”
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 After the cohortatives, the prefixed verbal form with the prefixed conjunction indicates purpose or result.
5 tn Heb “And look, the servants of David.”
6 tn Heb “he”; the referent (David) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
7 tn Heb “and it was told to David, saying.”
8 tn Heb “and David returned to bless his house.”
9 tn Heb “David.” The name has been replaced by the pronoun (“him”) in the translation for stylistic reasons.
10 tn Heb “honored.”
11 tn Heb “one of the foolish ones.”
12 tn Heb “eating.”
13 tc Heb “my table.” But the first person reference to David is awkward here since the quotation of David’s words has already been concluded in v. 10; nor does the “my” refer to Ziba, since the latter part of v. 11 does not seem to be part of Ziba’s response to the king. The ancient versions are not unanimous in the way that they render the phrase. The LXX has “the table of David” (τῆς τραπέζης Δαυιδ, th" trapezh" Dauid); the Syriac Peshitta has “the table of the king” (patureh demalka’); the Vulgate has “your table” (mensam tuam). The present translation follows the LXX.
14 sn The upper millstone (Heb “millstone of riding”) refers to the heavy circular stone that was commonly rolled over a circular base in order to crush and grind such things as olives.
15 tn Heb “raise up against you disaster.”
16 tn Heb “house” (so NAB, NRSV); NCV, TEV, CEV “family.”
17 tn Or “friend.”
18 tn Heb “will lie with” (so NIV, NRSV); TEV “will have intercourse with”; CEV, NLT “will go to bed with.”
19 tn Heb “in the eyes of this sun.”
20 tn Heb “brought out.”
21 tn Heb “and so he would do.”
22 map For location see Map5-B1; Map6-F3; Map7-E2; Map8-F2; Map10-B3; JP1-F4; JP2-F4; JP3-F4; JP4-F4.
23 tn The Hebrew Hitpael verbal form here indicates pretended rather than genuine action.
24 tn Heb “these many days.”
25 tn The words “in that case” are not in the Hebrew text, but may be inferred from the context. They are supplied in the translation for the sake of clarification.
26 tn Heb “let the king remember.”
27 tn Heb “of your son.”
28 tn Heb “Is the hand of Joab with you in all this?”
29 map For location see Map5-B1; Map6-F3; Map7-E2; Map8-F2; Map10-B3; JP1-F4; JP2-F4; JP3-F4; JP4-F4.
30 tn Heb “Arise!”
31 tn Heb “let’s flee.”
32 tn Heb “thrust.”
33 tn Heb “and strike the city with the edge of the sword.”
34 tn Heb “a hundred summer fruit.”
35 tn Heb “who came out from my entrails.” David’s point is that is his own son, his child whom he himself had fathered, was now wanting to kill him.
36 tn Heb “go to”; NAB “have (+ sexual NCV) relations with”; TEV “have intercourse with”; NLT “Go and sleep with.”
37 tn Heb “and the hands of all who are with you will be strengthened.”
38 tc The LXX (with the exception of the recensions of Origen and Lucian) repeats the description as follows: “Just as a female bear bereft of cubs in a field.”
39 tn Heb “and.” This disjunctive clause (conjunction + subject + verb) describes an occurrence that preceded the events just narrated.
40 tn Heb “a pillar.”
41 tn Though this verb in the MT is 3rd person masculine singular, it should probably be read as 2nd person masculine singular. It is one of fifteen places where the Masoretes placed a dot over each of the letters of the word in question in order to call attention to their suspicion of the word. Their concern in this case apparently had to do with the fact that this verb and the two preceding verbs alternate from third person to second and back again to third. Words marked in this way in Hebrew manuscripts or printed editions are said to have puncta extrordinaria, or “extraordinary points.”
42 map For location see Map5-B1; Map6-F3; Map7-E2; Map8-F2; Map10-B3; JP1-F4; JP2-F4; JP3-F4; JP4-F4.
43 tn Heb “a man of worthlessness.”
44 tn The expression used here יְמִינִי (yÿmini) is a short form of the more common “Benjamin.” It appears elsewhere in 1 Sam 9:4 and Esth 2:5. Cf. 1 Sam 9:1.
45 tn Heb “the shophar” (the ram’s horn trumpet). So also v. 22.
46 tc The MT reads לְאֹהָלָיו (lÿ’ohalav, “to his tents”). For a similar idiom, see 19:9. An ancient scribal tradition understands the reading to be לְאלֹהָיו (le’lohav, “to his gods”). The word is a tiqqun sopherim, and the scribes indicate that they changed the word from “gods” to “tents” so as to soften its theological implications. In a consonantal Hebrew text the change involved only the metathesis of two letters.
47 tn Heb “find.” The perfect verbal form is unexpected with the preceding word “otherwise.” We should probably read instead the imperfect. Although it is possible to understand the perfect here as indicating that the feared result is thought of as already having taken place (cf. BDB 814 s.v. פֶּן 2), it is more likely that the perfect is simply the result of scribal error. In this context the imperfect would be more consistent with the following verb וְהִצִּיל (vÿhitsil, “and he will get away”).
48 tn Heb “lifted his hand.”
49 tn Heb “Look!”
50 tc The translation follows the Qere and several medieval Hebrew
51 tn Heb “fell.”
52 tc The translation follows the Qere and many medieval Hebrew
53 tn Heb “David.” For stylistic reasons the name has been replaced by the pronoun (“he”) in the translation.
54 tn Heb “the bones of Saul and the bones of Jonathan his son.” See also v. 13.
55 tn Heb “lords.”
56 tn Heb “stolen.”
57 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”).
58 tn Heb “had hung them.”
59 tn Heb “in the day.”
60 tn Heb “Philistines.”
61 tn Heb “arose.”
62 tn Heb “his hand.”
63 tn Heb “messenger.”
64 tn Heb “concerning the calamity.”
65 tn Heb “Now, drop your hand.”