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 10 at David’s table, 11 just as though he were one of the king’s sons.
13:32 Jonadab, the son of David’s brother Shimeah, said, “My lord should not say, ‘They have killed all the young men who are the king’s sons.’ For only Amnon is dead. This is what Absalom has talked about 14 from the day that Amnon 15 humiliated his sister Tamar.
18:18 Prior to this 23 Absalom had set up a monument 24 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.
18:28 Then Ahimaaz called out and said to the king, “Greetings!” 25 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 26 the men who opposed 27 my lord the king!”
So David bought the threshing floor and the oxen for fifty pieces of silver. 30
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 “from.”
6 tn Heb “work.”
7 tn The Hebrew text implies, but does not actually contain, the words “its produce” here.
8 tc The words “it will be,” though present in the MT, are absent from the LXX, the Syriac Peshitta, and Vulgate.
9 tn Heb “and he will eat it.”
10 tn Heb “eating.”
11 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.
12 tc So the Qere; the Kethib has “his.”
13 tn Heb “to you for a wife.” This expression also occurs at the end of v. 10.
14 tn Heb “it was placed on the mouth of Absalom.”
15 tn Heb “he”; the referent (Amnon) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
16 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.
17 tn Heb “let the king remember.”
18 tn Heb “of your son.”
19 tc The LXX (ὄψεταί με, opsetai me) has misunderstood the Hebrew יֵרְאֻנִי (yerÿ’uni, Piel perfect, “they have made me fearful”), taking the verb to be a form of the verb רָאָה (ra’ah, “to see”) rather than the verb יָרֵא (yare’, “to fear”). The fact that the Greek translators were working with an unvocalized Hebrew text (i.e., consonants only) made them very susceptible to this type of error.
20 tn Here and in v. 16 the woman refers to herself as the king’s אָמָה (’amah), a term that refers to a higher level female servant toward whom the master might have some obligation. Like the other term, this word expresses her humility, but it also suggests that the king might have some obligation to treat her in accordance with the principles of justice.
21 tn Heb “blessed.”
22 tc The present translation reads with the Qere “your” rather than the MT “his.”
23 tn Heb “and.” This disjunctive clause (conjunction + subject + verb) describes an occurrence that preceded the events just narrated.
24 tn Heb “a pillar.”
25 tn Heb “Peace.”
26 tn Heb “delivered over.”
27 tn Heb “lifted their hand against.”
28 tn Heb “your servant.”
29 tn Heb “your servant.”
30 tn Heb “fifty shekels of silver.” This would have been about 20 ounces (568 grams) of silver by weight.