Discovery Box2 Samuel 15:25 
Context15:25 Then the king said to Zadok, “Take the ark of God back to the city. If I find favor in the Lord’s sight he will bring me back and enable me to see both it and his dwelling place again.
2 Samuel 21:14
Context21:14 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 1 that the king had commanded, God responded to their prayers 2 for the land.
2 Samuel 22:3
Context22:3 My God 3 is my rocky summit where I take shelter, 4
my shield, the horn that saves me, 5 my stronghold,
my refuge, my savior. You save me from violence! 6
2 Samuel 23:5
Context23:5 My dynasty is approved by God, 7
for he has made a perpetual covenant with me,
arranged in all its particulars and secured.
He always delivers me,
and brings all I desire to fruition. 8
1 tc Many medieval Hebrew
2 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).
3 tc The translation (along with many English versions, e.g., NAB, NIV, NRSV, NLT) follows the LXX in reading אֱלֹהִי (’elohi, “my God”) rather than MT’s אֱלֹהֵי (’elohe, “the God of”). See Ps 18:2.
4 tn Or “in whom.”
5 tn Heb “the horn of my salvation,” or “my saving horn.”
sn Though some see “horn” as referring to a horn-shaped peak of a hill, or to the “horns” of an altar where one could find refuge, it is more likely that the horn of an ox underlies the metaphor (see Deut 33:17; 1 Kgs 22:11; Ps 92:10). The horn of the wild ox is frequently a metaphor for military strength; the idiom “exalt the horn” signifies military victory (see 1 Sam 2:10; Pss 89:17, 24; 92:10; Lam 2:17). In the ancient Near East powerful warrior-kings would sometimes compare themselves to a goring bull that uses its horns to kill its enemies. For examples, see P. Miller, “El the Warrior,” HTR 60 (1967): 422-25, and R. B. Chisholm, “An Exegetical and Theological Study of Psalm 18/2 Samuel 22” (Th.D. diss., Dallas Theological Seminary, 1983), 135-36. 2 Sam 22:3 uses the metaphor of the horn in a slightly different manner. Here the Lord himself is compared to a horn. He is to the psalmist what the horn is to the ox, a source of defense and victory.
6 tn The parallel version of the song in Ps 18 does not include this last line.
7 tn Heb “For not thus [is] my house with God?”
8 tn Heb “for all my deliverance and every desire, surely does he not make [it] grow?”
