2 Samuel 2:13

2:13 Joab son of Zeruiah and the servants of David also went out and confronted them at the pool of Gibeon. One group stationed themselves on one side of the pool, and the other group on the other side of the pool.

2 Samuel 6:20

6:20 When David went home to pronounce a blessing on his own house,¹ Michal, Saul’s daughter, came out to meet him.² She said, “How the king of Israel has distinguished³ himself this day! He has exposed himself today before his servants’ slave girls the way a vulgar fool⁴ might do!”

2 Samuel 10:3

10:3 the Ammonite officials said to their lord Hanun, “Do you really think David is trying to honor your father by sending these messengers to express his sympathy?⁵ No, David has sent his servants to you to get information about the city and spy on it so they can overthrow it!”⁶

2 Samuel 11:13

11:13 Then David summoned him. He ate and drank with him, and got him drunk. But in the evening he went out to sleep on his bed with the servants of his lord; he did not go down to his own house.

2 Samuel 12:18

12:18 On the seventh day the child died. But the servants of David were afraid to inform him that the child had died, for they said, “While the child was still alive he would not listen to us⁷ when we spoke to him. How can we tell him that the child is dead? He will do himself harm!”⁸

2 Samuel 14:19

14:19 The king said, “Did Joab put you up to all of this?”⁹ The woman answered, “As surely as you live, my lord the king, there is no deviation to the right or to the left from all that my lord the king has said. For your servant Joab gave me instructions. He has put all these words in your servant’s mouth.

2 Samuel 15:14

15:14 So David said to all his servants who were with him in Jerusalem,¹⁰ “Come on!¹¹ Let’s escape!¹² Otherwise no one will be delivered from Absalom! Go immediately, or else he will quickly overtake us and bring¹³ disaster on us and kill the city’s residents with the sword.”¹⁴

2 Samuel 16:11

16:11 Then David said to Abishai and to all his servants, “My own son, my very own flesh and blood,¹⁵ is trying to take my life. So also now this Benjaminite! Leave him alone so that he can curse, for the Lord has spoken to him.

2 Samuel 17:20

17:20 When the servants of Absalom approached the woman at her home, they asked, “Where are Ahimaaz and Jonathan?” The woman replied to them, “They crossed over the stream.” Absalom’s men¹⁶ searched but did not find them, so they returned to Jerusalem.¹⁷

2 Samuel 19:6-7

19:6 You seem to love your enemies and hate your friends! For you have as much as declared today that leaders and servants don’t matter to you. I realize now¹⁸ that if¹⁹ Absalom were alive and all of us were dead today,²⁰ it would be all right with you. 19:7 So get up now and go out and give some encouragement to²¹ your servants. For I swear by the Lord that if you don’t go out there, not a single man will stay here with you tonight! This disaster will be worse for you than any disaster that has overtaken you from your youth right to the present time!”

2 Samuel 20:6

20:6 Then David said to Abishai, “Now Sheba son of Bicri will cause greater disaster for us than Absalom did! Take your lord’s servants and pursue him. Otherwise he will secure²² fortified cities for himself and get away from us.”

¹tn Heb “and David returned to bless his house.”

²tn Heb “David.” The name has been replaced by the pronoun (“him”) in the translation for stylistic reasons.

³tn Heb “honored.”

⁴tn Heb “one of the foolish ones.”

⁵tn Heb “Is David honoring your father in your eyes when he sends to you ones consoling?”

⁶tn Heb “Is it not to explore the city and to spy on it and to overthrow it [that] David has sent his servants to you?”

⁷tn Heb “to our voice.”

⁸tn Heb “he will do harm.” The object is not stated in the Hebrew text. The statement may be intentionally vague, meaning that he might harm himself or them!

⁹tn Heb “Is the hand of Joab with you in all this?”

¹⁰map For location see Map5-B1; Map6-F3; Map7-E2; Map8-F2; Map10-B3; JP1-F4; JP2-F4; JP3-F4; JP4-F4.

¹¹tn Heb “Arise!”

¹²tn Heb “let’s flee.”

¹³tn Heb “thrust.”

¹⁴tn Heb “and strike the city with the edge of the sword.”

¹⁵tn Heb “who came out from my entrails.” David’s point is that is his own son, his child whom he himself had fathered, was now wanting to kill him.

¹⁶tn Heb “they”; the referents (Absalom’s men) have been specified in the translation for clarity.

¹⁷map For location see Map5-B1; Map6-F3; Map7-E2; Map8-F2; Map10-B3; JP1-F4; JP2-F4; JP3-F4; JP4-F4.

¹⁸tn Heb “today.”

¹⁹tc The translation follows the Qere, 4QSam^a, and many medieval Hebrew mss in reading לוּ (lu, “if”) rather than MT לֹא (lo’, “not”).

²⁰tc The Lucianic Greek recension and Syriac Peshitta lack “today.”

²¹tn Heb “and speak to the heart of.”

²²tn Heb “find.” The perfect verbal form is unexpected with the preceding word “otherwise.” We should probably read instead the imperfect. Although it is possible to understand the perfect here as indicating that the feared result is thought of as already having taken place (cf. BDB 814 s.v. פֶּן 2), it is more likely that the perfect is simply the result of scribal error. In this context the imperfect would be more consistent with the following verb וְהִצִּיל (vÿhitsil, “and he will get away”).