2 Samuel 22:30

22:30 Indeed, ¹ with your help ²  I can charge ³  against an army; ⁴ 

by my God’s power ⁵  I can jump over a wall. ⁶ 

2 Samuel 23:23

23:23 He received honor from ⁷  the thirty warriors, though he was not one of the three elite warriors. David put him in charge of his bodyguard.

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¹ tn Or “for.” The translation assumes that כִּי (ki) is asseverative here.

² tn Heb “by you.”

³ tn Heb “I will run.” The imperfect verbal forms in v. 30 indicate the subject’s potential or capacity to perform an action. Though one might expect a preposition to follow the verb here, this need not be the case with the verb רוּץ (ruts; see 1 Sam 17:22). Some emend the Qal to a Hiphil form of the verb and translate, “I put to flight [literally, “cause to run”] an army.”

⁴ tn More specifically, the noun refers to a raiding party or to a contingent of troops (see HALOT 177 s.v. II גְדוּד). The picture of a divinely empowered warrior charging against an army in almost superhuman fashion appears elsewhere in ancient Near Eastern literature. See R. B. Chisholm, “An Exegetical and Theological Study of Psalm 18/2 Samuel 22” (Th.D. diss., Dallas Theological Seminary, 1983), 228.

⁵ tn Heb “by my God.”

⁶ tn David uses hyperbole to emphasize his God-given military superiority.

⁷ tn Or “more than.”