2 Samuel 4:12

4:12 So David issued orders to the soldiers and they put them to death. Then they cut off their hands and feet and hung them ¹  near the pool in Hebron. But they took the head of Ish-bosheth ²  and buried it in the tomb of Abner ³  in Hebron. ⁴ 

2 Samuel 7:23

7:23 Who is like your people, Israel, a unique nation ⁵  on the earth? Their God ⁶  went ⁷  to claim ⁸  a nation for himself and to make a name for himself! You did great and awesome acts for your land, ⁹  before your people whom you delivered for yourself from the Egyptian empire and its gods. ¹⁰ 

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? ¹¹  No, David has sent his servants to you to get information about the city and spy on it so they can overthrow it!” ¹² 

2 Samuel 12:30

12:30 He took the crown of their king ¹³  from his head – it was gold, weighed about seventy-five pounds, ¹⁴  and held a precious stone – and it was placed on David’s head. He also took from the city a great deal of plunder.

2 Samuel 15:30

15:30 As David was going up the Mount of Olives, he was weeping as he went; his head was covered and his feet were bare. All the people who were with him also had their heads covered and were weeping as they went up.

2 Samuel 19:8

19:8 So the king got up and sat at the city gate. When all the people were informed that the king was sitting at the city gate, they ¹⁵  all came before him.

David Goes Back to Jerusalem

But the Israelite soldiers ¹⁶  had all fled to their own homes. ¹⁷ 

2 Samuel 21:12

21:12 he ¹⁸  went and took the bones of Saul and of his son Jonathan ¹⁹  from the leaders ²⁰  of Jabesh Gilead. (They had secretly taken ²¹  them from the plaza at Beth Shan. It was there that Philistines ²²  publicly exposed their corpses ²³  after ²⁴  they ²⁵  had killed Saul at Gilboa.)

2 Samuel 21:14

21:14 They buried the bones of Saul and his son Jonathan in the land of Benjamin at Zela in the grave of his father Kish. After they had done everything ²⁶  that the king had commanded, God responded to their prayers ²⁷  for the land.

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¹ tn The antecedent of the pronoun “them” (which is not present in the Hebrew text, but implied) is not entirely clear. Presumably it is the corpses that were hung and not merely the detached hands and feet; cf. NIV “hung the (their NRSV, NLT) bodies”; the alternative is represented by TEV “cut off their hands and feet, which they hung up.”

² tc 4QSam^a mistakenly reads “Mephibosheth” here.

³ tc The LXX adds “the son of Ner” by conformity with common phraseology elsewhere.

⁴ tc Some mss of the LXX lack the phrase “in Hebron.”

⁵ tn Heb “a nation, one.”

⁶ tn Heb “whose God” or “because God.” In the Hebrew text this clause is subordinated to what precedes. The clauses are separated in the translation for stylistic reasons.

⁷ tn The verb is plural in Hebrew, agreeing grammatically with the divine name, which is a plural of degree.

⁸ tn Heb “redeem.”

⁹ tn Heb “and to do for you [plural form] the great [thing] and awesome [things] for your land.”

¹⁰ tn Heb “from Egypt, nations and their gods.” The LXX has “nations and tents,” which reflects a mistaken metathesis of letters in אֶלֹהָיו (e’lohav, “its gods”) and אֹהָלָיו (’ohalav, “its tents”).

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 Part of the Greek tradition wrongly understands Hebrew מַלְכָּם (malkam, “their king”) as a proper name (“Milcom”). Some English versions follow the Greek here, rendering the phrase “the crown of Milcom” (so NRSV; cf. also NAB, CEV). TEV takes this as a reference not to the Ammonite king but to “the idol of the Ammonite god Molech.”

¹⁴ tn Heb “and its weight [was] a talent of gold.” The weight of this ornamental crown was approximately 75 lbs (34 kg). See P. K. McCarter, II Samuel (AB), 313.

¹⁵ tn Heb “all the people.”

¹⁶ tn The Hebrew text has simply “Israel” (see 18:16-17).

¹⁷ tn Heb “had fled, each to his tent.”

¹⁸ tn Heb “David.” For stylistic reasons the name has been replaced by the pronoun (“he”) in the translation.

¹⁹ tn Heb “the bones of Saul and the bones of Jonathan his son.” See also v. 13.

²⁰ tn Heb “lords.”

²¹ tn Heb “stolen.”

²² tc Against the MT, this word is better read without the definite article. The MT reading is probably here the result of wrong word division, with the letter ה (he) belonging with the preceding word שָׁם (sham) as the he directive (i.e., שָׁמָּה, samah, “to there”).

²³ tn Heb “had hung them.”

²⁴ tn Heb “in the day.”

²⁵ tn Heb “Philistines.”

²⁶ tc Many medieval Hebrew mss have here כְּכֹל (kÿkhol, “according to all”).

²⁷ tn Heb “was entreated.” The verb is an example of the so-called niphal tolerativum, with the sense that God allowed himself to be supplicated through prayer (cf. GKC 137 §51.c).