¹ 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.”

² tc The translation follows the Qere and many medieval Hebrew mss in reading וְלוּ (vÿlu, “and if”) rather than MT וְלֹא (vÿlo’, “and not”).

³ tn Heb “weighing out in my hand.”

⁴ tn Heb “a thousand [shekels] of silver.” This would have been about 25 pounds (11.4 kg) of silver by weight.

⁵ tn Heb “extend my hand against.”

⁶ tn Heb “in our ears.”

⁷ tc The Hebrew text is very difficult here. The MT reads מִי (mi, “who”), apparently yielding the following sense: “Show care, whoever you might be, for the youth Absalom.” The Syriac Peshitta reads li (“for me”), the Hebrew counterpart of which may also lie behind the LXX rendering μοι (moi, “for me”). This reading seems preferable here, since it restores sense to the passage and most easily explains the rise of the variant.