Discovery Box2 Samuel 1:10 
Context1:10 So I stood over him and put him to death, since I knew that he couldn’t live in such a condition. 1 Then I took the crown which was on his head and the 2 bracelet which was on his arm. I have brought them here to my lord.” 3
2 Samuel 3:29
Context3:29 May his blood whirl over 4 the head of Joab and the entire house of his father! 5 May the males of Joab’s house 6 never cease to have 7 someone with a running sore or a skin disease or one who works at the spindle 8 or one who falls by the sword or one who lacks food!”
2 Samuel 4:12
Context4:12 So David issued orders to the soldiers and they put them to death. Then they cut off their hands and feet and hung them 9 near the pool in Hebron. But they took the head of Ish-bosheth 10 and buried it in the tomb of Abner 11 in Hebron. 12
2 Samuel 14:11
Context14:11 She replied, “In that case, 13 let the king invoke the name of 14 the Lord your God so that the avenger of blood may not kill! Then they will not destroy my son!” He replied, “As surely as the Lord lives, not a single hair of your son’s head 15 will fall to the ground.”
2 Samuel 15:30
Context15:30 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 18:9
Context18:9 Then Absalom happened to come across David’s men. Now as Absalom was riding on his 16 mule, it 17 went under the branches of a large oak tree. His head got caught in the oak and he was suspended in midair, 18 while the mule he had been riding kept going.
2 Samuel 20:21-22
Context20:21 That’s not the way things are. There is a man from the hill country of Ephraim named Sheba son of Bicri. He has rebelled 19 against King David. Give me just this one man, and I will leave the city.” The woman said to Joab, “This very minute 20 his head will be thrown over the wall to you!”
20:22 Then the woman went to all the people with her wise advice and they cut off Sheba’s head and threw it out to Joab. Joab 21 blew the trumpet, and his men 22 dispersed from the city, each going to his own home. 23 Joab returned to the king in Jerusalem.
1 tn Heb “after his falling”; NAB “could not survive his wound”; CEV “was too badly wounded to live much longer.”
2 tc The MT lacks the definite article, but this is likely due to textual corruption. It is preferable to read the alef (א) of אֶצְעָדָה (’ets’adah) as a ה (he) giving הַצְּעָדָה (hatsÿ’adah). There is no reason to think that the soldier confiscated from Saul’s dead body only one of two or more bracelets that he was wearing (cf. NLT “one of his bracelets”).
3 sn The claims that the soldier is making here seem to contradict the story of Saul’s death as presented in 1 Sam 31:3-5. In that passage it appears that Saul took his own life, not that he was slain by a passerby who happened on the scene. Some scholars account for the discrepancy by supposing that conflicting accounts have been brought together in the MT. However, it is likely that the young man is here fabricating the account in a self-serving way so as to gain favor with David, or so he supposes. He probably had come across Saul’s corpse, stolen the crown and bracelet from the body, and now hopes to curry favor with David by handing over to him these emblems of Saul’s royalty. But in so doing the Amalekite greatly miscalculated David’s response to this alleged participation in Saul’s death. The consequence of his lies will instead be his own death.
4 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.
5 tc 4QSama has “of Joab” rather than “of his father” read by the MT.
6 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.
7 tn Heb “and may there not be cut off from the house of Joab.”
8 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).
9 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.”
10 tc 4QSama mistakenly reads “Mephibosheth” here.
11 tc The LXX adds “the son of Ner” by conformity with common phraseology elsewhere.
12 tc Some
13 tn The words “in that case” are not in the Hebrew text, but may be inferred from the context. They are supplied in the translation for the sake of clarification.
14 tn Heb “let the king remember.”
15 tn Heb “of your son.”
16 tn Heb “the.”
17 tn Heb “the donkey.”
18 tn Heb “between the sky and the ground.”
19 tn Heb “lifted his hand.”
20 tn Heb “Look!”
21 tn Heb “he”; the referent (Joab) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
22 tn Heb “they”; the referent (Joab’s men) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
23 tn Heb “his tents.”
