3:28 When David later heard about this, he said, “I and my kingdom are forever innocent before the Lord of the shed blood of Abner son of Ner!
4:9 David replied to Recab and his brother Baanah, the sons of Rimmon the Beerothite, “As surely as the Lord lives, who has delivered my life from all adversity,
5:3 When all the leaders 3 of Israel came to the king at Hebron, King David made an agreement with them 4 in Hebron before the Lord. They designated 5 David as king over Israel.
6:8 David was angry because the Lord attacked 7 Uzzah; so he called that place Perez Uzzah, 8 which remains its name to this very day.
7:1 The king settled into his palace, 10 for the Lord gave him relief 11 from all his enemies on all sides. 12
12:1 So the Lord sent Nathan 16 to David. When he came to David, 17 Nathan 18 said, 19 “There were two men in a certain city, one rich and the other poor.
12:5 Then David became very angry at this man. He said to Nathan, “As surely as the Lord lives, the man who did this deserves to die! 20
12:15 Then Nathan went to his home. The Lord struck the child that Uriah’s wife had borne to David, and the child became very ill. 21
12:24 So David comforted his wife Bathsheba. He went to her and had marital relations with her. 22 She gave birth to a son, and David 23 named him Solomon. Now the Lord loved the child 24
15:7 After four 25 years Absalom said to the king, “Let me go and repay my vow that I made to the Lord while I was in Hebron. 15:8 For I made this vow 26 when I was living in Geshur in Aram: ‘If the Lord really does allow me to return to Jerusalem, 27 I will serve the Lord.’”
18:19 Then Ahimaaz the son of Zadok said, “Let me run and give the king the good news that the Lord has vindicated him before his enemies.” 31
18:31 Then the Cushite arrived and said, 32 “May my lord the king now receive the good news! The Lord has vindicated you today and delivered you from the hand of all who have rebelled against you!” 33
19:21 Abishai son of Zeruiah replied, “For this should not Shimei be put to death? After all, he cursed the Lord’s anointed!”
21:7 The king had mercy on Mephibosheth son of Jonathan, the son of Saul, in light of the Lord’s oath that had been taken between David and Jonathan son of Saul.
22:16 The depths 36 of the sea were exposed;
the inner regions 37 of the world were uncovered
by the Lord’s battle cry, 38
by the powerful breath from his nose. 39
24:1 The Lord’s anger again raged against Israel, and he incited David against them, saying, “Go count Israel and Judah.” 41
24:15 So the Lord sent a plague through Israel from the morning until the completion of the appointed time. Seventy thousand men died from Dan to Beer Sheba.
1 tn Or “loyalty and devotion.”
2 tn Heb “will do with you this good.”
3 tn Heb “elders.”
4 tn Heb “and the king, David, cut for them a covenant.”
5 tn Heb “anointed.”
6 tn Heb “camp” (so NAB).
7 tn Heb “because the
8 sn The name Perez Uzzah means in Hebrew “the outburst [against] Uzzah.”
9 tc The Syriac Peshitta lacks “in its place.”
10 tn Heb “house” (also in the following verse).
11 tn Or “rest.”
12 tn The translation understands the disjunctive clause in v. 1b as circumstantial-causal.
13 tn Or “delivered.”
14 tn Or “wherever he went.”
15 tc The MT is repetitious here: “He placed in Edom garrisons; in all Edom he placed garrisons.” The Vulgate lacks “in all Edom”; most of the Greek tradition (with the exception of the Lucianic recension and the recension of Origen) and the Syriac Peshitta lack “he placed garrisons.” The MT reading appears here to be the result of a conflation of variant readings.
16 tc A few medieval Hebrew
17 tn Heb “him”; the referent (David) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
18 tn Heb “he”; the referent (Nathan) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
19 tn The Hebrew text repeats “to him.”
20 tn Heb “the man doing this [is] a son of death.” See 1 Sam 20:31 for another use of this expression, which must mean “he is as good as dead” or “he deserves to die,” as 1 Sam 20:32 makes clear.
21 tn Heb “and the
22 tn Heb “and he lay with her.”
23 tn Heb “he”; the referent (David) has been specified in the translation for clarity. While some translations render the pronoun as third person plural (“they”), implying that both David and Bathsheba together named the child, it is likely that the name “Solomon,” which is related to the Hebrew word for “peace” (and may be derived from it) had special significance for David, who would have regarded the birth of a second child to Bathsheba as a confirming sign that God had forgiven his sin and was at peace with him.
24 tn Heb “him,” referring to the child.
25 tc The MT has here “forty,” but this is presumably a scribal error for “four.” The context will not tolerate a period of forty years prior to the rebellion of Absalom. The Lucianic Greek recension (τέσσαρα ἔτη, tessara ete), the Syriac Peshitta (’arba’ sanin), and Vulgate (post quattuor autem annos) in fact have the expected reading “four years.” Most English translations follow the versions in reading “four” here, although some (e.g. KJV, ASV, NASB, NKJV), following the MT, read “forty.”
26 tn Heb “for your servant vowed a vow.” The formal court style of referring to one’s self in third person (“your servant”) has been translated here as first person for clarity.
27 map For location see Map5-B1; Map6-F3; Map7-E2; Map8-F2; Map10-B3; JP1-F4; JP2-F4; JP3-F4; JP4-F4.
28 tc The translation follows 4QSama, part of the Greek tradition, the Syriac Peshitta, Targum, and Vulgate uldavid in reading “and to David,” rather than MT וְדָוִד (vÿdavid, “and David”). As Driver points out, the Hebrew verb הִגִּיד (higgid, “he related”) never uses the accusative for the person to whom something is told (S. R. Driver, Notes on the Hebrew Text and the Topography of the Books of Samuel, 316).
29 tn Heb “said.”
30 tn Heb “No for with the one whom the
31 tn Heb “that the
32 tn Heb “And look, the Cushite came and the Cushite said.”
33 tn Heb “for the
34 tn Heb “a city and a mother.” The expression is a hendiadys, meaning that this city was an important one in Israel and had smaller cities dependent on it.
35 tn After the preceding imperfect verbal form, the subordinated imperative indicates purpose/result. S. R. Driver comments, “…the imper. is used instead of the more normal voluntative, for the purpose of expressing with somewhat greater force the intention of the previous verb” (S. R. Driver, Notes on the Hebrew Text and the Topography of the Books of Samuel, 350).
36 tn Or “channels.”
37 tn Or “foundations.”
38 tn The noun is derived from the verb גָעַר (nag’ar) which is often understood to mean “rebuke.” In some cases it is apparent that scolding or threatening is in view (see Gen 37:10; Ruth 2:16; Zech 3:2). However, in militaristic contexts this translation is inadequate, for the verb refers in this setting to the warrior’s battle cry, which terrifies and paralyzes the enemy. See A. Caquot, TDOT 3:53, and note the use of the verb in Pss 68:30; 106:9; and Nah 1:4, as well as the related noun in Job 26:11; Pss 9:5; 76:6; 104:7; Isa 50:2; 51:20; 66:15.
39 tn Heb “blast of the breath” (literally, “breath of breath”) employs an appositional genitive. Synonyms are joined in a construct relationship to emphasize the single idea. For a detailed discussion of the grammatical point with numerous examples, see Y. Avishur, “Pairs of Synonymous Words in the Construct State (and in Appositional Hendiadys) in Biblical Hebrew,” Semitics 2 (1971): 17-81.
40 tn Heb “delivered.”
41 sn The parallel text in 1 Chr 21:1 says, “An adversary opposed Israel, inciting David to count how many warriors Israel had.” The Samuel version gives an underlying theological perspective, while the Chronicler simply describes what happened from a human perspective. The adversary in 1 Chr 21:1 is likely a human enemy, probably a nearby nation whose hostility against Israel pressured David into numbering the people so he could assess his military strength. See the note at 1 Chr 21:1.
42 tn Heb “There is great distress to me. Let us fall into the hand of the