2 Samuel 4:7

4:7 They had entered ¹  the house while Ish-bosheth ²  was resting on his bed in his bedroom. They mortally wounded him ³  and then cut off his head. ⁴  Taking his head, ⁵  they traveled on the way of the Arabah all that night.

2 Samuel 6:2

6:2 David and all the men who were with him traveled ⁶  to ⁷  Baalah ⁸  in Judah to bring up from there the ark of God which is called by the name ⁹  of the Lord of hosts, who sits enthroned between the cherubim that are on it.

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¹ tn After the concluding disjunctive clause at the end of v. 6, the author now begins a more detailed account of the murder and its aftermath.

² tn Heb “he”; the referent (Ish-bosheth) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

³ tn Heb “they struck him down and killed him.” The expression is a verbal hendiadys.

⁴ tn Heb “and they removed his head.” The Syriac Peshitta and Vulgate lack these words.

⁵ tc The Lucianic Greek recension lacks the words “his head.”

⁶ tn Heb “arose and went.”

⁷ tn Heb “from,” but the following context indicates they traveled to this location.

⁸ tn This is another name for Kiriath-jearim (see 1 Chr 13:6).

⁹ tc The MT has here a double reference to the name (שֵׁם שֵׁם, shem shem). Many medieval Hebrew mss in the first occurrence point the word differently and read the adverb שָׁם (sham, “there”). This is also the understanding of the Syriac Peshitta (Syr., taman). While this yields an acceptable understanding to the text, it is more likely that the MT dittographic here. The present translation therefore reads שֵׁם only once.