2 Samuel 17:18

17:18 But a young man saw them on one occasion and informed Absalom. So the two of them quickly departed and went to the house of a man in Bahurim. There was a well in his courtyard, and they got down in it.

2 Samuel 20:1

Sheba’s Rebellion

20:1 Now a wicked man ¹  named Sheba son of Bicri, a Benjaminite, ²  happened to be there. He blew the trumpet ³  and said,

“We have no share in David;

we have no inheritance in this son of Jesse!

Every man go home, ⁴  O Israel!”

2 Samuel 20:12

20:12 Amasa was squirming in his own blood in the middle of the path, and this man had noticed that all the soldiers stopped. Having noticed that everyone who came across Amasa ⁵  stopped, the man ⁶  pulled him ⁷  away from the path and into the field and threw a garment over him.

2 Samuel 20:21

20:21 That’s not the way things are. There is a man from the hill country of Ephraim named Sheba son of Bicri. He has rebelled ⁸  against King David. Give me just this one man, and I will leave the city.” The woman said to Joab, “This very minute ⁹  his head will be thrown over the wall to you!”

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¹ tn Heb “a man of worthlessness.”

² 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.

³ tn Heb “the shophar” (the ram’s horn trumpet). So also v. 22.

⁴ 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.

⁵ tn Heb “him”; the referent (Amasa) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

⁶ tn Heb “he”; the referent (the man who spoke up in v. 11) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

⁷ tn Heb “Amasa.” For stylistic reasons the name has been replaced by the pronoun (“him”) in the translation.

⁸ tn Heb “lifted his hand.”

⁹ tn Heb “Look!”