4:7 They had entered 5 the house while Ish-bosheth 6 was resting on his bed in his bedroom. They mortally wounded him 7 and then cut off his head. 8 Taking his head, 9 they traveled on the way of the Arabah all that night.
4:12 So David issued orders to the soldiers and they put them to death. Then they cut off their hands and feet and hung them 10 near the pool in Hebron. But they took the head of Ish-bosheth 11 and buried it in the tomb of Abner 12 in Hebron. 13
5:6 Then the king and his men advanced to Jerusalem 14 against the Jebusites who lived in the land. The Jebusites 15 said to David, “You cannot invade this place! Even the blind and the lame will turn you back, saying, ‘David cannot invade this place!’”
13:6 So Amnon lay down and pretended to be sick. When the king came in to see him, Amnon said to the king, “Please let my sister Tamar come in so she can make a couple of cakes in my sight. Then I will eat from her hand.”
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.
17:14 Then Absalom and all the men of Israel said, “The advice of Hushai the Arkite sounds better than the advice of Ahithophel.” Now the Lord had decided 30 to frustrate the sound advice of Ahithophel, so that the Lord could bring disaster on Absalom.
18:9 Then Absalom happened to come across David’s men. Now as Absalom was riding on his 31 mule, it 32 went under the branches of a large oak tree. His head got caught in the oak and he was suspended in midair, 33 while the mule he had been riding kept going.
18:28 Then Ahimaaz called out and said to the king, “Greetings!” 34 He bowed down before the king with his face toward the ground and said, “May the Lord your God be praised because he has defeated 35 the men who opposed 36 my lord the king!”
18:33 (19:1) 37 The king then became very upset. He went up to the upper room over the gate and wept. As he went he said, “My son, Absalom! My son, my son, 38 Absalom! If only I could have died in your place! Absalom, my son, my son!” 39
19:11 Then King David sent a message to Zadok and Abiathar the priests saying, “Tell the elders of Judah, ‘Why should you delay any further in bringing the king back to his palace, 40 when everything Israel is saying has come to the king’s attention. 41
19:41 Then all the men of Israel began coming to the king. They asked the king, “Why did our brothers, the men of Judah, sneak the king away and help the king and his household cross the Jordan – and not only him but all of David’s men as well?”
20:3 Then David went to his palace 42 in Jerusalem. The king took the ten concubines he had left to care for the palace and placed them under confinement. 43 Though he provided for their needs, he did not have sexual relations with them. 44 They remained in confinement until the day they died, living out the rest of their lives as widows.
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 45 fortified cities for himself and get away from us.”
20:22 Then the woman went to all the people with her wise advice and they cut off Sheba’s head and threw it out to Joab. Joab 49 blew the trumpet, and his men 50 dispersed from the city, each going to his own home. 51 Joab returned to the king in Jerusalem.
21:4 The Gibeonites said to him, “We 52 have no claim to silver or gold from Saul or from his family, 53 nor would we be justified in putting to death anyone in Israel.” David asked, 54 “What then are you asking me to do for you?”
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 After the concluding disjunctive clause at the end of v. 6, the author now begins a more detailed account of the murder and its aftermath.
6 tn Heb “he”; the referent (Ish-bosheth) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
7 tn Heb “they struck him down and killed him.” The expression is a verbal hendiadys.
8 tn Heb “and they removed his head.” The Syriac Peshitta and Vulgate lack these words.
9 tc The Lucianic Greek recension lacks the words “his head.”
10 tn The antecedent of the pronoun “them” (which is not present in the Hebrew text, but implied) is not entirely clear. Presumably it is the corpses that were hung and not merely the detached hands and feet; cf. NIV “hung the (their NRSV, NLT) bodies”; the alternative is represented by TEV “cut off their hands and feet, which they hung up.”
11 tc 4QSama mistakenly reads “Mephibosheth” here.
12 tc The LXX adds “the son of Ner” by conformity with common phraseology elsewhere.
13 tc Some
14 map For location see Map5-B1; Map6-F3; Map7-E2; Map8-F2; Map10-B3; JP1-F4; JP2-F4; JP3-F4; JP4-F4.
15 tn The Hebrew text has “he” rather than “the Jebusites.” The referent has been specified in the translation for clarity. In the Syriac Peshitta and some
16 tn Heb “and he measured [with] two [lengths] of rope to put to death and [with] the fullness of the rope to keep alive.”
17 tn Heb “and the Moabites were servants of David, carriers of tribute.”
18 tn Heb “brought out.”
19 tn Heb “and so he would do.”
20 map For location see Map5-B1; Map6-F3; Map7-E2; Map8-F2; Map10-B3; JP1-F4; JP2-F4; JP3-F4; JP4-F4.
21 tn This verb is used in the Hitpael stem only in this chapter of the Hebrew Bible. With the exception of v. 2 it describes not a real sickness but one pretended in order to entrap Tamar. The Hitpael sometimes, as here, describes the subject making oneself appear to be of a certain character. On this use of the stem, see GKC 149-50 §54.e.
22 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.
23 tn Heb “let the king remember.”
24 tn Heb “of your son.”
25 tn Heb “blessed.”
26 tc The present translation reads with the Qere “your” rather than the MT “his.”
27 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.
28 tn Heb “go to”; NAB “have (+ sexual NCV) relations with”; TEV “have intercourse with”; NLT “Go and sleep with.”
29 tn Heb “and the hands of all who are with you will be strengthened.”
30 tn Heb “commanded.”
31 tn Heb “the.”
32 tn Heb “the donkey.”
33 tn Heb “between the sky and the ground.”
34 tn Heb “Peace.”
35 tn Heb “delivered over.”
36 tn Heb “lifted their hand against.”
37 sn This marks the beginning of ch. 19 in the Hebrew text. Beginning with 18:33, the verse numbers through 19:43 in the English Bible differ from the verse numbers in the Hebrew text (BHS), with 18:33 ET = 19:1 HT, 19:1 ET = 19:2 HT, 19:2 ET = 19:3 HT, etc., through 19:43 ET = 19:44 HT. From 20:1 the versification in the English Bible and the Hebrew Bible is again the same.
38 tc One medieval Hebrew
39 tc The Lucianic Greek recension and Syriac Peshitta lack this repeated occurrence of “my son” due to haplography.
40 tn Heb “his house.”
41 tc The Hebrew text adds “to his house” (= palace), but the phrase, which also appears earlier in the verse, is probably accidentally repeated here.
42 tn Heb “house.”
43 tn Heb “and he placed them in a guarded house.”
44 tn Heb “he did not come to them”; NAB “has no further relations with them”; NIV “did not lie with them”; TEV “did not have intercourse with them”; NLT “would no longer sleep with them.”
45 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”).
46 tn Heb “he”; the referent (Joab) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
47 tn Heb “his”; the referent (Amasa) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
48 tn Heb “and he did not repeat concerning him, and he died.”
49 tn Heb “he”; the referent (Joab) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
50 tn Heb “they”; the referent (Joab’s men) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
51 tn Heb “his tents.”
52 tc The translation follows the Qere and several medieval Hebrew
53 tn Heb “house.”
54 tn Heb “and he said”; the referent (David) has been specified in the translation for clarity.