1:26 I grieve over you, my brother Jonathan!
You were very dear to me.
Your love was more special to me than the love of women.
3:14 David sent messengers to Ish-bosheth son of Saul with this demand: 4 “Give me my wife Michal whom I acquired 5 for a hundred Philistine foreskins.”
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,
13:12 But she said to him, “No, my brother! Don’t humiliate me! This just isn’t done in Israel! Don’t do this foolish thing!
13:26 Then Absalom said, “If you will not go, 12 then let my brother Amnon go with us.” The king replied to him, “Why should he go with you?”
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!”
14:31 Then Joab got up and came to Absalom’s house. He said to him, “Why did your servants set my portion of field on fire?”
15:7 After four 13 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!”
22:30 Indeed, 16 with your help 17 I can charge 18 against an army; 19
by my God’s power 20 I can jump over a wall. 21
22:49 He delivers me from my enemies; 22
you snatch me away 23 from those who attack me; 24
you rescue me from violent men.
1 tc The Hebrew of the MT reads simply “and he said,” with no expressed subject for the verb. It is not likely that the text originally had no expressed subject for this verb, since the antecedent is not immediately clear from the context. We should probably restore to the Hebrew text the name “Ish-bosheth.” See a few medieval Hebrew
2 tn Heb “come to”; KJV, NRSV “gone in to”; NAB “been intimate with”; NIV “sleep with.”
3 sn This accusation against Abner is a very serious one, since an act of sexual infringement on the king’s harem would probably have been understood as a blatant declaration of aspirations to kingship. As such it was not merely a matter of ethical impropriety but an act of grave political significance as well.
4 tn Heb “to Ish-bosheth son of Saul saying.” To avoid excessive sibilance (especially when read aloud) the translation renders “saying” as “with this demand.”
5 tn Heb “whom I betrothed to myself.”
6 tn Heb “he”; the referent (Joab) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
7 tn Heb “if Aram is stronger than me.”
8 tn Heb “if the sons of Ammon are stronger than you.”
9 tn Heb “lie with me” (so NAB, NASB, NRSV); NCV “come and have sexual relations with me.”
10 tn Heb “send this [one] from upon me to the outside.”
11 tn Heb “your servant has sheepshearers.” The phrase “your servant” also occurs at the end of the verse.
12 tn Heb “and not.”
13 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.”
14 tn Heb “take.”
15 tn Heb “in peace.”
16 tn Or “for.” The translation assumes that כִּי (ki) is asseverative here.
17 tn Heb “by you.”
18 tn Heb “I will run.” The imperfect verbal forms in v. 30 indicate the subject’s potential or capacity to perform an action. Though one might expect a preposition to follow the verb here, this need not be the case with the verb רוּץ (ruts; see 1 Sam 17:22). Some emend the Qal to a Hiphil form of the verb and translate, “I put to flight [literally, “cause to run”] an army.”
19 tn More specifically, the noun refers to a raiding party or to a contingent of troops (see HALOT 177 s.v. II גְדוּד). The picture of a divinely empowered warrior charging against an army in almost superhuman fashion appears elsewhere in ancient Near Eastern literature. See R. B. Chisholm, “An Exegetical and Theological Study of Psalm 18/2 Samuel 22” (Th.D. diss., Dallas Theological Seminary, 1983), 228.
20 tn Heb “by my God.”
21 tn David uses hyperbole to emphasize his God-given military superiority.
22 tn Heb “and [the one who] brings me out from my enemies.”
23 tn Heb “you lift me up.” In light of the preceding and following references to deliverance, the verb רוּם (rum) probably here refers to being rescued from danger (see Ps 9:13). However, it could mean “exalt; elevate” here, indicating that the
24 tn Heb “from those who rise against me.”
25 tc The Hebrew text is difficult here. The translation reads עֶבֶד אֲדֹנָי (’eved ’adoni, “the servant of my lord”) rather than the MT’s אֲרַוְנָה (’Aravnah). In normal court etiquette a subject would not use his own name in this way, but would more likely refer to himself in the third person. The MT probably first sustained loss of עֶבֶד (’eved, “servant”), leading to confusion of the word for “my lord” with the name of the Jebusite referred to here.