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,
6:8 David was angry because the Lord attacked 11 Uzzah; so he called that place Perez Uzzah, 12 which remains its name to this very day.
12:1 So the Lord sent Nathan 32 to David. When he came to David, 33 Nathan 34 said, 35 “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! 36
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. 38
14:12 Then the woman said, “Please permit your servant to speak to my lord the king about another matter.” He replied, “Tell me.”
14:18 Then the king replied to the woman, “Don’t hide any information from me when I question you.” The woman said, “Let my lord the king speak!”
15:7 After four 41 years Absalom said to the king, “Let me go and repay my vow that I made to the Lord while I was in Hebron.
16:9 Then Abishai son of Zeruiah said to the king, “Why should this dead dog curse my lord the king? Let me go over and cut off his head!”
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.” 45
19:21 Abishai son of Zeruiah replied, “For this should not Shimei be put to death? After all, he cursed the Lord’s anointed!”
22:7 In my distress I called to the Lord;
I called to my God. 49
From his heavenly temple 50 he heard my voice;
he listened to my cry for help. 51
22:31 The one true God acts in a faithful manner; 52
the Lord’s promise is reliable; 53
he is a shield to all who take shelter in him.
22:42 They cry out, 54 but there is no one to help them; 55
they cry out to the Lord, 56 but he does not answer them.
24:1 The Lord’s anger again raged against Israel, and he incited David against them, saying, “Go count Israel and Judah.” 58
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.
24:18 So Gad went to David that day and told him, “Go up and build an altar for the Lord on the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite.”
1 tn Heb “let your hands be strong.”
2 tn Heb “from Gibeon until you enter Gezer.”
3 tn Heb “all the house of Israel.”
4 tc Heb “were celebrating before the
5 tn Heb “with zithers [?] and with harps.”
6 tn That is, “sistrums” (so NAB, NIV); ASV, NASB, NRSV, CEV, NLT “castanets.”
7 tn Heb “and the anger of the
8 tn Heb “God.”
9 tc Heb “there.” Since this same term occurs later in the verse it is translated “on the spot” here for stylistic reasons.
10 tc The phrase “his negligence” is absent from the LXX.
11 tn Heb “because the
12 sn The name Perez Uzzah means in Hebrew “the outburst [against] Uzzah.”
13 tn Heb “he”; the referent (David) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
14 tc Several medieval Hebrew
15 tn Heb “all that is in your heart.”
16 tn Heb “in all which we heard with our ears.” The phrase translated “in all” בְּכֹל (bÿkhol) should probably be emended to “according to all” כְּכֹל (kÿkhol).
17 tn Heb “and now, O
18 tn Heb “as you have spoken.”
19 tn Heb “and your name might be great permanently.” Following the imperative in v. 23b, the prefixed verbal form with vav conjunctive indicates purpose/result.
20 tn Heb “saying.” The words “as people” are supplied in the translation for clarification and stylistic reasons.
21 tn Heb “the house.” See the note on “dynastic house” in the following verse.
22 tn Heb “the God.” The article indicates uniqueness here.
23 tn The translation understands the prefixed verb form as a jussive, indicating David’s wish/prayer. Another option is to take the form as an imperfect and translate “your words are true.”
24 tn Heb “and you have spoken to your servant this good thing.”
25 tn Or “delivered.”
26 tn Or “wherever he went.”
27 tn Heb “also them King David made holy to the
28 tn Heb “with the silver and the gold that he had dedicated from.”
29 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.
30 tn Heb “and the
31 tc The Lucianic recension of the Old Greek translation lacks the word “all.”
32 tc A few medieval Hebrew
33 tn Heb “him”; the referent (David) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
34 tn Heb “he”; the referent (Nathan) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
35 tn The Hebrew text repeats “to him.”
36 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.
37 tc The MT has here “because you have caused the enemies of the
38 tn Heb “and the
39 tn Heb “said.”
40 tn Heb “Who knows?”
41 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.”
42 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).
43 tn Heb “said.”
44 tn Heb “No for with the one whom the
45 tn Heb “that the
46 tn Heb “take.”
47 tn Heb “in peace.”
48 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).
49 tn In this poetic narrative the two prefixed verbal forms in v. 7a are best understood as preterites indicating past tense, not imperfects. Note the use of the vav consecutive with the prefixed verbal form that follows in v. 7b.
50 tn Heb “from his temple.” Verse 10, which pictures God descending from the sky, indicates that the heavenly, not earthly, temple is in view.
51 tn Heb “and my cry for help [entered] his ears.”
52 tn Heb “[As for] the God, his way is blameless.” The term הָאֵל (ha’el, “the God”) stands as a nominative (or genitive) absolute in apposition to the resumptive pronominal suffix on “way.” The prefixed article emphasizes his distinctiveness as the one true God (see BDB 42 s.v. II אֵל 6; Deut 33:26). God’s “way” in this context refers to his protective and salvific acts in fulfillment of his promise (see also Deut 32:4; Pss 67:2; 77:13 [note vv. 11-12, 14]; 103:7; 138:5; 145:17).
53 tn Heb “the word of the
54 tc The translation follows one medieval Hebrew
55 tn Heb “but there is no deliverer.”
56 tn The words “they cry out” are not in the Hebrew text. This reference to the psalmists’ enemies crying out for help to the
57 tn Heb “delivered.”
58 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.