2 Samuel 15:6-7

15:6 Absalom acted this way toward everyone in Israel who came to the king for justice. In this way Absalom won the loyalty ¹  of the citizens ²  of Israel.

15:7 After four ³  years Absalom said to the king, “Let me go and repay my vow that I made to the Lord while I was in Hebron.

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¹ tn Heb “stole the heart.”

² tn Heb “the men.”

³ 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.”