2 Samuel 3:29

3:29 May his blood whirl over ¹  the head of Joab and the entire house of his father! ²  May the males of Joab’s house ³  never cease to have ⁴  someone with a running sore or a skin disease or one who works at the spindle ⁵  or one who falls by the sword or one who lacks food!”

2 Samuel 11:25

11:25 David said to the messenger, “Tell Joab, ‘Don’t let this thing upset you. ⁶  There is no way to anticipate whom the sword will cut down. ⁷  Press the battle against the city and conquer ⁸  it.’ Encourage him with these words.” ⁹ 

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 bring ¹³  disaster on us and kill the city’s residents with the sword.” ¹⁴ 

2 Samuel 23:10

23:10 he stood his ground ¹⁵  and fought the Philistines until his hand grew so tired that it ¹⁶  seemed stuck to his sword. The Lord gave a great victory on that day. When the army returned to him, the only thing left to do was to plunder the corpses.

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¹ tn Heb “and may they whirl over.” In the Hebrew text the subject of the plural verb is unexpressed. The most likely subject is Abner’s “shed blood” (v. 28), which is a masculine plural form in Hebrew. The verb חוּל (khul, “whirl”) is used with the preposition עַל (’al) only here and in Jer 23:19; 30:23.

² tc 4QSam^a has “of Joab” rather than “of his father” read by the MT.

³ tn Heb “the house of Joab.” However, it is necessary to specify that David’s curse is aimed at Joab’s male descendants; otherwise it would not be clear that “one who works at the spindle” refers to a man doing woman’s work rather than a woman.

⁴ tn Heb “and may there not be cut off from the house of Joab.”

⁵ tn The expression used here is difficult. The translation “one who works at the spindle” follows a suggestion of S. R. Driver that the expression pejoratively describes an effeminate man who, rather than being a mighty warrior, is occupied with tasks that are normally fulfilled by women (S. R. Driver, Notes on the Hebrew Text and the Topography of the Books of Samuel, 250-51; cf. NAB “one unmanly”; TEV “fit only to do a woman’s work”; CEV “cowards”). But P. K. McCarter, following an alleged Phoenician usage of the noun to refer to “crutches,” adopts a different view. He translates the phrase “clings to a crutch,” seeing here a further description of physical lameness (II Samuel [AB], 118). Such an idea fits the present context well and is followed by NIV, NCV, and NLT, although the evidence for this meaning is questionable. According to DNWSI 2:915-16, the noun consistently refers to a spindle in Phoenician, as it does in Ugaritic (see UT 468).

⁶ tn Heb “let not this matter be evil in your eyes.”

⁷ tn Heb “according to this and according to this the sword devours.”

⁸ tn Heb “overthrow.”

⁹ tn The Hebrew text does not have “with these words.” They are supplied in the translation for clarity and for stylistic reasons.

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

¹¹ tn Heb “Arise!”

¹² tn Heb “let’s flee.”

¹³ tn Heb “thrust.”

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

¹⁵ tn Heb “arose.”

¹⁶ tn Heb “his hand.”