5:6 Then the king and his men advanced to Jerusalem 2 against the Jebusites who lived in the land. The Jebusites 3 said to David, “You cannot invade this place! Even the blind and the lame will turn you back, saying, ‘David cannot invade this place!’”
9:11 Ziba said to the king, “Your servant will do everything that my lord the king has instructed his servant to do.” So Mephibosheth was a regular guest 9 at David’s table, 10 just as though he were one of the king’s sons.
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 us 17 when we spoke to him. How can we tell him that the child is dead? He will do himself harm!” 18
13:6 So Amnon lay down and pretended to be sick. When the king came in to see him, Amnon said to the king, “Please let my sister Tamar come in so she can make a couple of cakes in my sight. Then I will eat from her hand.”
13:32 Jonadab, the son of David’s brother Shimeah, said, “My lord should not say, ‘They have killed all the young men who are the king’s sons.’ For only Amnon is dead. This is what Absalom has talked about 19 from the day that Amnon 20 humiliated his sister Tamar.
15:25 Then the king said to Zadok, “Take the ark of God back to the city. If I find favor in the Lord’s sight he will bring me back and enable me to see both it and his dwelling place again.
17:14 Then Absalom and all the men of Israel said, “The advice of Hushai the Arkite sounds better than the advice of Ahithophel.” Now the Lord had decided 33 to frustrate the sound advice of Ahithophel, so that the Lord could bring disaster on Absalom.
18:33 (19:1) 34 The king then became very upset. He went up to the upper room over the gate and wept. As he went he said, “My son, Absalom! My son, my son, 35 Absalom! If only I could have died in your place! Absalom, my son, my son!” 36
20:1 Now a wicked man 39 named Sheba son of Bicri, a Benjaminite, 40 happened to be there. He blew the trumpet 41 and said,
“We have no share in David;
we have no inheritance in this son of Jesse!
Every man go home, 42 O Israel!”
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 secure 43 fortified cities for himself and get away from us.”
21:4 The Gibeonites said to him, “We 46 have no claim to silver or gold from Saul or from his family, 47 nor would we be justified in putting to death anyone in Israel.” David asked, 48 “What then are you asking me to do for you?”
So David bought the threshing floor and the oxen for fifty pieces of silver. 49
1 tn After the cohortatives, the prefixed verbal form with the prefixed conjunction indicates purpose or result.
2 map For location see Map5-B1; Map6-F3; Map7-E2; Map8-F2; Map10-B3; JP1-F4; JP2-F4; JP3-F4; JP4-F4.
3 tn The Hebrew text has “he” rather than “the Jebusites.” The referent has been specified in the translation for clarity. In the Syriac Peshitta and some
4 tn Heb “and David returned to bless his house.”
5 tn Heb “David.” The name has been replaced by the pronoun (“him”) in the translation for stylistic reasons.
6 tn Heb “honored.”
7 tn Heb “one of the foolish ones.”
8 tn Heb “house.”
9 tn Heb “eating.”
10 tc Heb “my table.” But the first person reference to David is awkward here since the quotation of David’s words has already been concluded in v. 10; nor does the “my” refer to Ziba, since the latter part of v. 11 does not seem to be part of Ziba’s response to the king. The ancient versions are not unanimous in the way that they render the phrase. The LXX has “the table of David” (τῆς τραπέζης Δαυιδ, th" trapezh" Dauid); the Syriac Peshitta has “the table of the king” (patureh demalka’); the Vulgate has “your table” (mensam tuam). The present translation follows the LXX.
11 tn Heb “Is David honoring your father in your eyes when he sends to you ones consoling?”
12 tn 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?”
13 tn Heb “let not this matter be evil in your eyes.”
14 tn Heb “according to this and according to this the sword devours.”
15 tn Heb “overthrow.”
16 tn The Hebrew text does not have “with these words.” They are supplied in the translation for clarity and for stylistic reasons.
17 tn Heb “to our voice.”
18 tn 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!
19 tn Heb “it was placed on the mouth of Absalom.”
20 tn Heb “he”; the referent (Amnon) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
21 tc The LXX (ὄψεταί με, opsetai me) has misunderstood the Hebrew יֵרְאֻנִי (yerÿ’uni, Piel perfect, “they have made me fearful”), taking the verb to be a form of the verb רָאָה (ra’ah, “to see”) rather than the verb יָרֵא (yare’, “to fear”). The fact that the Greek translators were working with an unvocalized Hebrew text (i.e., consonants only) made them very susceptible to this type of error.
22 tn Here and in v. 16 the woman refers to herself as the king’s אָמָה (’amah), a term that refers to a higher level female servant toward whom the master might have some obligation. Like the other term, this word expresses her humility, but it also suggests that the king might have some obligation to treat her in accordance with the principles of justice.
23 tn Heb “blessed.”
24 tc The present translation reads with the Qere “your” rather than the MT “his.”
25 tc The LXX adds here the following words: “And the servants of Absalom burned them up. And the servants of Joab came to him, rending their garments. They said….”
26 tn The word “Joab’s” is not in the Hebrew text, but has been supplied in the translation for stylistic reasons.
27 map For location see Map5-B1; Map6-F3; Map7-E2; Map8-F2; Map10-B3; JP1-F4; JP2-F4; JP3-F4; JP4-F4.
28 tn Heb “Arise!”
29 tn Heb “let’s flee.”
30 tn Heb “thrust.”
31 tn Heb “and strike the city with the edge of the sword.”
32 tn 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.
33 tn Heb “commanded.”
34 sn This marks the beginning of ch. 19 in the Hebrew text. Beginning with 18:33, the verse numbers through 19:43 in the English Bible differ from the verse numbers in the Hebrew text (BHS), with 18:33 ET = 19:1 HT, 19:1 ET = 19:2 HT, 19:2 ET = 19:3 HT, etc., through 19:43 ET = 19:44 HT. From 20:1 the versification in the English Bible and the Hebrew Bible is again the same.
35 tc One medieval Hebrew
36 tc The Lucianic Greek recension and Syriac Peshitta lack this repeated occurrence of “my son” due to haplography.
37 tn Though this verb in the MT is 3rd person masculine singular, it should probably be read as 2nd person masculine singular. It is one of fifteen places where the Masoretes placed a dot over each of the letters of the word in question in order to call attention to their suspicion of the word. Their concern in this case apparently had to do with the fact that this verb and the two preceding verbs alternate from third person to second and back again to third. Words marked in this way in Hebrew manuscripts or printed editions are said to have puncta extrordinaria, or “extraordinary points.”
38 map For location see Map5-B1; Map6-F3; Map7-E2; Map8-F2; Map10-B3; JP1-F4; JP2-F4; JP3-F4; JP4-F4.
39 tn Heb “a man of worthlessness.”
40 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.
41 tn Heb “the shophar” (the ram’s horn trumpet). So also v. 22.
42 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.
43 tn 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”).
44 tn Heb “lifted his hand.”
45 tn Heb “Look!”
46 tc The translation follows the Qere and several medieval Hebrew
47 tn Heb “house.”
48 tn Heb “and he said”; the referent (David) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
49 tn Heb “fifty shekels of silver.” This would have been about 20 ounces (568 grams) of silver by weight.