Discovery Box2 Samuel 2:23 
Context2:23 But Asahel 1 refused to turn aside. So Abner struck him in the abdomen with the back end of his 2 spear. The spear came out his back; Asahel 3 collapsed on the spot and died there right before Abner. 4 Everyone who now comes to the place where Asahel fell dead pauses in respect. 5
2 Samuel 3:22
Context3:22 Now David’s soldiers 6 and Joab were coming back from a raid, bringing a great deal of plunder with them. Abner was no longer with David in Hebron, for David 7 had sent him away and he had left in peace.
2 Samuel 4:2
Context4:2 Now Saul’s son 8 had two men who were in charge of raiding units; one was named Baanah and the other Recab. They were sons of Rimmon the Beerothite, who was a Benjaminite. (Beeroth is regarded as belonging to Benjamin,
2 Samuel 4:4
Context4:4 Now Saul’s son Jonathan had a son who was crippled in both feet. He was five years old when the news about Saul and Jonathan arrived from Jezreel. His nurse picked him up and fled, but in her haste to get away, he fell and was injured. 9 Mephibosheth was his name.
2 Samuel 9:10
Context9:10 You will cultivate 10 the land for him – you and your sons and your servants. You will bring its produce 11 and it will be 12 food for your master’s grandson to eat. 13 But Mephibosheth, your master’s grandson, will be a regular guest at my table.” (Now Ziba had fifteen sons and twenty servants.)
2 Samuel 14:15
Context14:15 I have now come to speak with my lord the king about this matter, because the people have made me fearful. 14 But your servant said, ‘I will speak to the king! Perhaps the king will do what his female servant 15 asks.
2 Samuel 15:2
Context15:2 Now Absalom used to get up early and stand beside the road that led to the city gate. Whenever anyone came by who had a complaint to bring to the king for arbitration, Absalom would call out to him, “What city are you from?” The person would answer, “I, your servant, 16 am from one of the tribes of Israel.”
2 Samuel 15:34
Context15:34 But you will be able to counter the advice of Ahithophel if you go back to the city and say to Absalom, ‘I will be your servant, O king! Previously I was your father’s servant, and now I will be your servant.’
2 Samuel 16:8
Context16:8 The Lord has punished you for 17 all the spilled blood of the house of Saul, in whose place you rule. Now the Lord has given the kingdom into the hand of your son Absalom. Disaster has overtaken you, for you are a man of bloodshed!”
2 Samuel 16:11
Context16:11 Then David said to Abishai and to all his servants, “My own son, my very own flesh and blood, 18 is trying to take my life. So also now this Benjaminite! Leave him alone so that he can curse, for the Lord has spoken to him.
2 Samuel 17:14
Context17:14 Then Absalom and all the men of Israel said, “The advice of Hushai the Arkite sounds better than the advice of Ahithophel.” Now the Lord had decided 19 to frustrate the sound advice of Ahithophel, so that the Lord could bring disaster on Absalom.
2 Samuel 17:16
Context17:16 Now send word quickly to David and warn him, 20 “Don’t spend the night at the fords of the desert 21 tonight. Instead, be sure you cross over, 22 or else the king and everyone who is with him may be overwhelmed.” 23
2 Samuel 17:25
Context17:25 Absalom had made Amasa general in command of the army in place of Joab. (Now Amasa was the son of an Israelite man named Jether, who had married 24 Abigail the daughter of Nahash and sister of Zeruiah, Joab’s mother.)
2 Samuel 18:9
Context18:9 Then Absalom happened to come across David’s men. Now as Absalom was riding on his 25 mule, it 26 went under the branches of a large oak tree. His head got caught in the oak and he was suspended in midair, 27 while the mule he had been riding kept going.
2 Samuel 19:6-7
Context19:6 You seem to love your enemies and hate your friends! For you have as much as declared today that leaders and servants don’t matter to you. I realize now 28 that if 29 Absalom were alive and all of us were dead today, 30 it would be all right with you. 19:7 So get up now and go out and give some encouragement to 31 your servants. For I swear by the Lord that if you don’t go out there, not a single man will stay here with you tonight! This disaster will be worse for you than any disaster that has overtaken you from your youth right to the present time!”
2 Samuel 19:9
Context19:9 All the people throughout all the tribes of Israel were arguing among themselves saying, “The king delivered us from the hand of our enemies. He rescued us from the hand of the Philistines, but now he has fled from the land because of Absalom.
2 Samuel 20:1
Context20:1 Now a wicked man 32 named Sheba son of Bicri, a Benjaminite, 33 happened to be there. He blew the trumpet 34 and said,
“We have no share in David;
we have no inheritance in this son of Jesse!
Every man go home, 35 O Israel!”
2 Samuel 20:6
Context20:6 Then David said to Abishai, “Now Sheba son of Bicri will cause greater disaster for us than Absalom did! Take your lord’s servants and pursue him. Otherwise he will secure 36 fortified cities for himself and get away from us.”
2 Samuel 21:2
Context21:2 So the king summoned the Gibeonites and spoke with them. (Now the Gibeonites were not descendants of Israel; they were a remnant of the Amorites. The Israelites had made a promise to 37 them, but Saul tried to kill them because of his zeal for the people of Israel and Judah.)
2 Samuel 24:13
Context24:13 Gad went to David and told him, “Shall seven 38 years of famine come upon your land? Or shall you flee for three months from your enemy with him in hot pursuit? Or shall there be three days of plague in your land? Now decide 39 what I should tell the one who sent me.”
1 tn Heb “he”; the referent (Asahel) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
2 tn Heb “the.” The article functions here as a possessive pronoun.
3 tn Heb “he”; the referent (Asahel) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
4 tn Heb “him”; the referent (Abner) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
5 tn Heb “and they stand.”
6 tn Heb “And look, the servants of David.”
7 tn Heb “he”; the referent (David) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
8 tc The present translation, “Saul’s son had two men,” is based on the reading “to the son of Saul,” rather than the MT’s “the son of Saul.” The context requires the preposition to indicate the family relationship.
9 tn Heb “and was lame.”
10 tn Heb “work.”
11 tn The Hebrew text implies, but does not actually contain, the words “its produce” here.
12 tc The words “it will be,” though present in the MT, are absent from the LXX, the Syriac Peshitta, and Vulgate.
13 tn Heb “and he will eat it.”
14 tc The LXX (ὄψεταί με, opsetai me) has misunderstood the Hebrew יֵרְאֻנִי (yerÿ’uni, Piel perfect, “they have made me fearful”), taking the verb to be a form of the verb רָאָה (ra’ah, “to see”) rather than the verb יָרֵא (yare’, “to fear”). The fact that the Greek translators were working with an unvocalized Hebrew text (i.e., consonants only) made them very susceptible to this type of error.
15 tn Here and in v. 16 the woman refers to herself as the king’s אָמָה (’amah), a term that refers to a higher level female servant toward whom the master might have some obligation. Like the other term, this word expresses her humility, but it also suggests that the king might have some obligation to treat her in accordance with the principles of justice.
16 tn Heb “your servant.” So also in vv. 8, 15, 21.
17 tn Heb “has brought back upon you.”
18 tn Heb “who came out from my entrails.” David’s point is that is his own son, his child whom he himself had fathered, was now wanting to kill him.
19 tn Heb “commanded.”
20 tn Heb “send quickly and tell David saying.”
21 tn Or “wilderness” (so KJV, NASB, NRSV, TEV).
22 tn That is, “cross over the Jordan River.”
23 tn Heb “swallowed up.”
24 tn Heb “come to.”
25 tn Heb “the.”
26 tn Heb “the donkey.”
27 tn Heb “between the sky and the ground.”
28 tn Heb “today.”
29 tc The translation follows the Qere, 4QSama, and many medieval Hebrew
30 tc The Lucianic Greek recension and Syriac Peshitta lack “today.”
31 tn Heb “and speak to the heart of.”
32 tn Heb “a man of worthlessness.”
33 tn The expression used here יְמִינִי (yÿmini) is a short form of the more common “Benjamin.” It appears elsewhere in 1 Sam 9:4 and Esth 2:5. Cf. 1 Sam 9:1.
34 tn Heb “the shophar” (the ram’s horn trumpet). So also v. 22.
35 tc The MT reads לְאֹהָלָיו (lÿ’ohalav, “to his tents”). For a similar idiom, see 19:9. An ancient scribal tradition understands the reading to be לְאלֹהָיו (le’lohav, “to his gods”). The word is a tiqqun sopherim, and the scribes indicate that they changed the word from “gods” to “tents” so as to soften its theological implications. In a consonantal Hebrew text the change involved only the metathesis of two letters.
36 tn Heb “find.” The perfect verbal form is unexpected with the preceding word “otherwise.” We should probably read instead the imperfect. Although it is possible to understand the perfect here as indicating that the feared result is thought of as already having taken place (cf. BDB 814 s.v. פֶּן 2), it is more likely that the perfect is simply the result of scribal error. In this context the imperfect would be more consistent with the following verb וְהִצִּיל (vÿhitsil, “and he will get away”).
37 tn Heb “swore an oath to.”
38 tc The LXX has here “three” rather than “seven,” and is followed by NAB, NIV, NCV, NRSV, TEV, NLT. See 1 Chr 21:12.
39 tn Heb “now know and see.”
