2 Samuel 1:9

1:9 He said to me, ‘Stand over me and finish me off! ¹  I’m very dizzy, ²  even though I’m still alive.’ ³ 

2 Samuel 7:12

7:12 When the time comes for you to die, ⁴  I will raise up your descendant, one of your own sons, to succeed you, ⁵  and I will establish his kingdom.

2 Samuel 7:15

7:15 But my loyal love will not be removed from him as I removed it from Saul, whom I removed from before you.

2 Samuel 12:22

12:22 He replied, “While the child was still alive, I fasted and wept because I thought, ⁶  ‘Perhaps ⁷  the Lord will show pity and the child will live.

2 Samuel 15:7

15:7 After four ⁸  years Absalom said to the king, “Let me go and repay my vow that I made to the Lord while I was in Hebron.

2 Samuel 21:3

21:3 David said to the Gibeonites, “What can I do for you, and how can I make amends so that you will bless ⁹  the Lord’s inheritance?”

2 Samuel 22:7

22:7 In my distress I called to the Lord;

I called to my God. ¹⁰ 

From his heavenly temple ¹¹  he heard my voice;

he listened to my cry for help. ¹² 

2 Samuel 22:30

22:30 Indeed, ¹³ with your help ¹⁴  I can charge ¹⁵  against an army; ¹⁶ 

by my God’s power ¹⁷  I can jump over a wall. ¹⁸ 

2 Samuel 22:43

22:43 I grind them as fine as the dust of the ground;

I crush them and stomp on them like clay ¹⁹  in the streets.

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¹ tn As P. K. McCarter (II Samuel [AB], 59) points out, the Polel of the verb מוּת (mut, “to die”) “refers to dispatching or ‘finishing off’ someone already wounded and near death.” Cf. NLT “put me out of my misery.”

² tn Heb “the dizziness has seized me.” On the meaning of the Hebrew noun translated “dizziness,” see P. K. McCarter, II Samuel (AB), 59-60. The point seems to be that he is unable to kill himself because he is weak and disoriented.

³ tn The Hebrew text here is grammatically very awkward (Heb “because all still my life in me”). Whether the broken construct phrase is due to the fact that the alleged speaker is in a confused state of mind as he is on the verge of dying, or whether the MT has sustained corruption in the transmission process, is not entirely clear. The former seems likely, although P. K. McCarter understands the MT to be the result of conflation of two shorter forms of text (P. K. McCarter, II Samuel [AB], 57, n. 9). Early translators also struggled with the verse, apparently choosing to leave part of the Hebrew text untranslated. For example, the Lucianic recension of the LXX lacks “all,” while other witnesses (namely, one medieval Hebrew ms, codices A and B of the LXX, and the Syriac Peshitta) lack “still.”

⁴ tn Heb, “when your days are full and you lie down with your ancestors.”

⁵ tn Heb “your seed after you who comes out from your insides.”

⁶ tn Heb “said.”

⁷ tn Heb “Who knows?”

⁸ 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.”

⁹ 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).

¹⁰ 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.

¹¹ tn Heb “from his temple.” Verse 10, which pictures God descending from the sky, indicates that the heavenly, not earthly, temple is in view.

¹² tn Heb “and my cry for help [entered] his ears.”

¹³ tn Or “for.” The translation assumes that כִּי (ki) is asseverative here.

¹⁴ tn Heb “by you.”

¹⁵ 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.”

¹⁶ 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.

¹⁷ tn Heb “by my God.”

¹⁸ tn David uses hyperbole to emphasize his God-given military superiority.

¹⁹ tn Or “mud” (so NAB, NIV, CEV). See HALOT 374 s.v. טִיט.