20:1 Now a wicked man 6 named Sheba son of Bicri, a Benjaminite, 7 happened to be there. He blew the trumpet 8 and said,
“We have no share in David;
we have no inheritance in this son of Jesse!
Every man go home, 9 O Israel!”
1 tc The LXX (ὄψεταί με, opsetai me) has misunderstood the Hebrew יֵרְאֻנִי (yerÿ’uni, Piel perfect, “they have made me fearful”), taking the verb to be a form of the verb רָאָה (ra’ah, “to see”) rather than the verb יָרֵא (yare’, “to fear”). The fact that the Greek translators were working with an unvocalized Hebrew text (i.e., consonants only) made them very susceptible to this type of error.
2 tn Here and in v. 16 the woman refers to herself as the king’s אָמָה (’amah), a term that refers to a higher level female servant toward whom the master might have some obligation. Like the other term, this word expresses her humility, but it also suggests that the king might have some obligation to treat her in accordance with the principles of justice.
3 tn Heb “go to”; NAB “have (+ sexual NCV) relations with”; TEV “have intercourse with”; NLT “Go and sleep with.”
4 tn Heb “and the hands of all who are with you will be strengthened.”
5 tn Heb “from the king.”
6 tn Heb “a man of worthlessness.”
7 tn The expression used here יְמִינִי (yÿmini) is a short form of the more common “Benjamin.” It appears elsewhere in 1 Sam 9:4 and Esth 2:5. Cf. 1 Sam 9:1.
8 tn Heb “the shophar” (the ram’s horn trumpet). So also v. 22.
9 tc The MT reads לְאֹהָלָיו (lÿ’ohalav, “to his tents”). For a similar idiom, see 19:9. An ancient scribal tradition understands the reading to be לְאלֹהָיו (le’lohav, “to his gods”). The word is a tiqqun sopherim, and the scribes indicate that they changed the word from “gods” to “tents” so as to soften its theological implications. In a consonantal Hebrew text the change involved only the metathesis of two letters.