10:6 When the Ammonites realized that David was disgusted with them, 1 they 2 sent and hired 20,000 foot soldiers from Aram Beth Rehob and Aram Zobah, 3 in addition to 1,000 men from the king of Maacah and 12,000 men from Ish-tob. 4
1 tn Heb “that they were a stench [i.e., disgusting] with David.”
2 tn Heb “the Ammonites.”
3 tn Or “Arameans of Beth Rehob and Arameans of Zobah.”
4 tn Or perhaps “the men of Tob.” The ancient versions (the LXX, the Syriac Peshitta, and Vulgate) understand the name to be “Ish-tob.” It is possible that “Ish” is dittographic and that we should read simply “Tob,” a reading adopted by a number of recent English versions.
5 tn Heb “they.” The following context makes it clear that this refers to Joab and his army.
6 tc The LXX has here ἐνοοῦσαν (enoousan, “were devising”), which apparently presupposes the Hebrew word מַחֲשָׁבִים (makhashavim) rather than the MT מַשְׁחִיתִם (mashkhitim, “were destroying”). With a number of other scholars Driver thinks that the Greek variant may preserve the original reading, but this seems to be an unnecessary conclusion (but see S. R. Driver, Notes on the Hebrew Text and the Topography of the Books of Samuel, 346).
7 tn Heb “David.” For stylistic reasons the name has been replaced by the pronoun (“he”) in the translation.
8 tn Heb “the bones of Saul and the bones of Jonathan his son.” See also v. 13.
9 tn Heb “lords.”
10 tn Heb “stolen.”
11 tc Against the MT, this word is better read without the definite article. The MT reading is probably here the result of wrong word division, with the letter ה (he) belonging with the preceding word שָׁם (sham) as the he directive (i.e., שָׁמָּה, samah, “to there”).
12 tn Heb “had hung them.”
13 tn Heb “in the day.”
14 tn Heb “Philistines.”