¹ tn Or “loyalty and devotion.”

² tn Heb “will do with you this good.”

³ tn Heb “elders.”

⁴ tn Heb “and the king, David, cut for them a covenant.”

⁵ tn Heb “anointed.”

⁶ tn Heb “camp” (so NAB).

⁷ tn Heb “because the Lord broke out [with] a breaking out [i.e., an outburst] against Uzzah.”

⁸ sn The name Perez Uzzah means in Hebrew “the outburst [against] Uzzah.”

⁹ tc The Syriac Peshitta lacks “in its place.”

¹⁰ tn Heb “house” (also in the following verse).

¹¹ tn Or “rest.”

¹² tn The translation understands the disjunctive clause in v. 1b as circumstantial-causal.

¹³ tn Or “delivered.”

¹⁴ tn Or “wherever he went.”

¹⁵ tc The MT is repetitious here: “He placed in Edom garrisons; in all Edom he placed garrisons.” The Vulgate lacks “in all Edom”; most of the Greek tradition (with the exception of the Lucianic recension and the recension of Origen) and the Syriac Peshitta lack “he placed garrisons.” The MT reading appears here to be the result of a conflation of variant readings.

¹⁶ tc A few medieval Hebrew mss, the LXX, and the Syriac Peshitta add “the prophet.” The words are included in a few modern English version (e.g., TEV, CEV, NLT).

¹⁷ tn Heb “him”; the referent (David) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

¹⁸ tn Heb “he”; the referent (Nathan) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

¹⁹ tn The Hebrew text repeats “to him.”

²⁰ tn Heb “the man doing this [is] a son of death.” See 1 Sam 20:31 for another use of this expression, which must mean “he is as good as dead” or “he deserves to die,” as 1 Sam 20:32 makes clear.

²¹ tn Heb “and the Lord struck the child…and he was ill.” It is necessary to repeat “the child” in the translation to make clear who became ill, since “the Lord struck the child that Uriah’s wife had borne to David, and he became very ill” could be understood to mean that David himself became ill.

²² tn Heb “and he lay with her.”

²³ tn Heb “he”; the referent (David) has been specified in the translation for clarity. While some translations render the pronoun as third person plural (“they”), implying that both David and Bathsheba together named the child, it is likely that the name “Solomon,” which is related to the Hebrew word for “peace” (and may be derived from it) had special significance for David, who would have regarded the birth of a second child to Bathsheba as a confirming sign that God had forgiven his sin and was at peace with him.

²⁴ tn Heb “him,” referring to the child.

²⁵ tc The MT has here “forty,” but this is presumably a scribal error for “four.” The context will not tolerate a period of forty years prior to the rebellion of Absalom. The Lucianic Greek recension (τέσσαρα ἔτη, tessara ete), the Syriac Peshitta (’arba’ sanin), and Vulgate (post quattuor autem annos) in fact have the expected reading “four years.” Most English translations follow the versions in reading “four” here, although some (e.g. KJV, ASV, NASB, NKJV), following the MT, read “forty.”

²⁶ tn Heb “for your servant vowed a vow.” The formal court style of referring to one’s self in third person (“your servant”) has been translated here as first person for clarity.

²⁷ map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.

²⁸ tc The translation follows 4QSam^a, part of the Greek tradition, the Syriac Peshitta, Targum, and Vulgate uldavid in reading “and to David,” rather than MT וְדָוִד (vÿdavid, “and David”). As Driver points out, the Hebrew verb הִגִּיד (higgid, “he related”) never uses the accusative for the person to whom something is told (S. R. Driver, Notes on the Hebrew Text and the Topography of the Books of Samuel, 316).

²⁹ tn Heb “said.”

³⁰ tn Heb “No for with the one whom the Lord has chosen, and this people, and all the men of Israel, I will be and with him I will stay.” The translation follows the Qere and several medieval Hebrew mss in reading לוֹ (lo, “[I will be] to him”) rather than the MT לֹא (lo’, “[I will] not be”), which makes very little sense here.

³¹ tn Heb “that the Lord has vindicated him from the hand of his enemies.”

³² tn Heb “And look, the Cushite came and the Cushite said.”

³³ tn Heb “for the Lord has vindicated you today from the hand of all those rising against you.”

³⁴ tn Heb “a city and a mother.” The expression is a hendiadys, meaning that this city was an important one in Israel and had smaller cities dependent on it.

³⁵ tn After the preceding imperfect verbal form, the subordinated imperative indicates purpose/result. S. R. Driver comments, “…the imper. is used instead of the more normal voluntative, for the purpose of expressing with somewhat greater force the intention of the previous verb” (S. R. Driver, Notes on the Hebrew Text and the Topography of the Books of Samuel, 350).

³⁶ tn Or “channels.”

³⁷ tn Or “foundations.”

³⁸ tn The noun is derived from the verb גָעַר (nag’ar) which is often understood to mean “rebuke.” In some cases it is apparent that scolding or threatening is in view (see Gen 37:10; Ruth 2:16; Zech 3:2). However, in militaristic contexts this translation is inadequate, for the verb refers in this setting to the warrior’s battle cry, which terrifies and paralyzes the enemy. See A. Caquot, TDOT 3:53, and note the use of the verb in Pss 68:30; 106:9; and Nah 1:4, as well as the related noun in Job 26:11; Pss 9:5; 76:6; 104:7; Isa 50:2; 51:20; 66:15.

³⁹ tn Heb “blast of the breath” (literally, “breath of breath”) employs an appositional genitive. Synonyms are joined in a construct relationship to emphasize the single idea. For a detailed discussion of the grammatical point with numerous examples, see Y. Avishur, “Pairs of Synonymous Words in the Construct State (and in Appositional Hendiadys) in Biblical Hebrew,” Semitics 2 (1971): 17-81.

⁴⁰ tn Heb “delivered.”

⁴¹ sn The parallel text in 1 Chr 21:1 says, “An adversary opposed Israel, inciting David to count how many warriors Israel had.” The Samuel version gives an underlying theological perspective, while the Chronicler simply describes what happened from a human perspective. The adversary in 1 Chr 21:1 is likely a human enemy, probably a nearby nation whose hostility against Israel pressured David into numbering the people so he could assess his military strength. See the note at 1 Chr 21:1.

⁴² tn Heb “There is great distress to me. Let us fall into the hand of the Lord, for great is his mercy, but into the hand of man let me not fall.”