Discovery Box2 Samuel 20:9-10 
Context20:9 Joab said to Amasa, “How are you, my brother?” With his right hand Joab took hold of Amasa’s beard as if to greet him with a kiss. 20:10 Amasa did not protect himself from the knife in Joab’s other hand, and Joab 1 stabbed him in the abdomen, causing Amasa’s 2 intestines to spill out on the ground. There was no need to stab him again; the first blow was fatal. 3 Then Joab and his brother Abishai pursued Sheba son of Bicri.
2 Samuel 20:20-21
Context20:20 Joab answered, “Get serious! 4 I don’t want to swallow up or destroy anything! 20:21 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 5 against King David. Give me just this one man, and I will leave the city.” The woman said to Joab, “This very minute 6 his head will be thrown over the wall to you!”
1 tn Heb “he”; the referent (Joab) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
2 tn Heb “his”; the referent (Amasa) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
3 tn Heb “and he did not repeat concerning him, and he died.”
4 tn Heb “Far be it, far be it from me.” The expression is clearly emphatic, as may be seen in part by the repetition. P. K. McCarter, however, understands it to be coarser than the translation adopted here. He renders it as “I’ll be damned if…” (II Samuel [AB], 426, 429), which (while it is not a literal translation) may not be too far removed from the way a soldier might have expressed himself.
5 tn Heb “lifted his hand.”
6 tn Heb “Look!”
