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 1 at David’s table, 2 just as though he were one of the king’s sons.
20:3 Then David went to his palace 3 in Jerusalem. The king took the ten concubines he had left to care for the palace and placed them under confinement. 4 Though he provided for their needs, he did not have sexual relations with them. 5 They remained in confinement until the day they died, living out the rest of their lives as widows.
1 tn Heb “eating.”
2 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.
3 tn Heb “house.”
4 tn Heb “and he placed them in a guarded house.”
5 tn Heb “he did not come to them”; NAB “has no further relations with them”; NIV “did not lie with them”; TEV “did not have intercourse with them”; NLT “would no longer sleep with them.”