Discovery Box2 Samuel 2:8 
Context2:8 Now Abner son of Ner, the general in command of Saul’s army, had taken Saul’s son Ish-bosheth 1 and had brought him to Mahanaim.
2 Samuel 3:23
Context3:23 When Joab and all the army that was with him arrived, Joab was told: “Abner the son of Ner came to the king; he sent him away, and he left in peace!”
2 Samuel 5:24
Context5:24 When you hear the sound of marching in the tops of the trees, act decisively. For at that moment the Lord is going before you to strike down the army 2 of the Philistines.”
2 Samuel 10:18
Context10:18 The Arameans fled before Israel. David killed 700 Aramean charioteers and 40,000 foot soldiers. 3 He also struck down Shobach, the general in command of the army, who died there.
2 Samuel 11:1
Context11:1 In the spring of the year, at the time when kings 4 normally conduct wars, 5 David sent out Joab with his officers 6 and the entire Israelite army. 7 They defeated the Ammonites and besieged Rabbah. But David stayed behind in Jerusalem. 8
2 Samuel 17:2
Context17:2 When I catch up with 9 him he will be exhausted and worn out. 10 I will rout him, and the entire army that is with him will flee. I will kill only the king
2 Samuel 18:4-5
Context18:4 Then the king said to them, “I will do whatever seems best to you.”
So the king stayed beside the city gate, while all the army marched out by hundreds and by thousands. 18:5 The king gave this order to Joab, Abishai, and Ittai: “For my sake deal gently with the young man Absalom.” Now the entire army was listening when the king gave all the leaders this order concerning Absalom.
2 Samuel 19:13
Context19:13 Say to Amasa, ‘Are you not my flesh and blood? 11 God will punish me severely, 12 if from this time on you are not the commander of my army in place of Joab!’”
2 Samuel 23:11
Context23:11 Next in command 13 was Shammah son of Agee the Hararite. When the Philistines assembled at Lehi, 14 where there happened to be an area of a field that was full of lentils, the army retreated before the Philistines.
2 Samuel 24:3
Context24:3 Joab replied to the king, “May the Lord your God make the army a hundred times larger right before the eyes of my lord the king! But why does my master the king want to do this?”
2 Samuel 24:10
Context24:10 David felt guilty 15 after he had numbered the army. David said to the Lord, “I have sinned greatly by doing this! Now, O Lord, please remove the guilt of your servant, for I have acted very foolishly.”
1 sn The name Ish-bosheth means in Hebrew “man of shame.” It presupposes an earlier form such as Ish-baal (“man of the Lord”), with the word “baal” being used of Israel’s God. But because the Canaanite storm god was named “Baal,” that part of the name was later replaced with the word “shame.”
2 tn Heb “camp” (so NAB).
3 tn Heb “horsemen” (so KJV, NASB, NCV, NRSV, NLT) but the Lucianic recension of the LXX reads “foot soldiers,” as does the parallel text in 1 Chr 19:18. Cf. NAB, NIV.
4 tc Codex Leningrad (B19A), on which BHS is based, has here “messengers” (הַמַּלְאכִים, hammal’khim), probably as the result of contamination from the occurrence of that word in v. 4. The present translation follows most Hebrew
5 tn Heb “go out.”
6 tn Heb “and his servants with him.”
7 tn Heb “all Israel.”
8 tn The disjunctive clause contrasts David’s inactivity with the army’s activity.
map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.
9 tn Heb “and I will come upon him.”
10 tn Heb “exhausted and slack of hands.”
11 tn Heb “my bone and my flesh.”
12 tn Heb “Thus God will do to me and thus he will add.”
13 tn Heb “after him.”
14 tn The Hebrew text is difficult here. The MT reads לַחַיָּה (lachayyah), which implies a rare use of the word חַיָּה (chayyah). The word normally refers to an animal, but if the MT is accepted it would here have the sense of a troop or community of people. BDB 312 s.v. II. חַיָּה, for example, understands the similar reference in v. 13 to be to “a group of allied families, making a raid together.” But this works better in v. 13 than it does in v. 11, where the context seems to suggest a particular staging location for a military operation. (See 1 Chr 11:15.) It therefore seems best to understand the word in v. 11 as a place name with ה (he) directive. In that case the Masoretes mistook the word for the common term for an animal and then tried to make sense of it in this context.
15 tn Heb “and the heart of David struck him.”
