2 Samuel 14:5-7

14:5 The king replied to her, “What do you want?” ¹  She answered, “I am a widow; my husband is dead. 14:6 Your servant ²  has two sons. When the two of them got into a fight in the field, there was no one present who could intervene. One of them struck the other and killed him. 14:7 Now the entire family has risen up against your servant, saying, ‘Turn over the one who struck down his brother, so that we can execute him and avenge the death ³  of his brother whom he killed. In so doing we will also destroy the heir.’ They want to extinguish my remaining coal, ⁴  leaving no one on the face of the earth to carry on the name of my husband.”

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¹ tn Heb “What to you?”

² tn Here and elsewhere (vv. 7, 12, 15a, 17, 19) the woman uses a term which suggests a lower level female servant. She uses the term to express her humility before the king. However, she uses a different term in vv. 15b-16. See the note at v. 15 for a discussion of the rhetorical purpose of this switch in terminology.

³ tn Heb “in exchange for the life.” The Hebrew preposition בְּ (bÿ, “in”) here is the so-called bet pretii, or bet (בְּ) of price, defining the value attached to someone or something.

⁴ sn My remaining coal is here metaphorical language, describing the one remaining son as her only source of lingering hope for continuing the family line.