Discovery Box2 Samuel 3:27 
Context3:27 When Abner returned to Hebron, Joab took him aside at the gate as if to speak privately with him. Joab then stabbed him 1 in the abdomen and killed him, avenging the shed blood of his brother Asahel. 2
2 Samuel 3:31-39
Context3:31 David instructed Joab and all the people who were with him, “Tear your clothes! Put on sackcloth! Lament before Abner!” Now King David followed 3 behind the funeral bier. 3:32 So they buried Abner in Hebron. The king cried loudly 4 over Abner’s grave and all the people wept too. 3:33 The king chanted the following lament for Abner:
“Should Abner have died like a fool?
3:34 Your hands 5 were not bound,
and your feet were not put into irons.
You fell the way one falls before criminals.”
All the people 6 wept over him again. 3:35 Then all the people came and encouraged David to eat food while it was still day. But David took an oath saying, “God will punish me severely 7 if I taste bread or anything whatsoever before the sun sets!”
3:36 All the people noticed this and it pleased them. 8 In fact, everything the king did pleased all the people. 3:37 All the people and all Israel realized on that day that the killing of Abner son of Ner was not done at the king’s instigation. 9
3:38 Then the king said to his servants, “Do you not realize that a great leader 10 has fallen this day in Israel? 3:39 Today I am weak, even though I am anointed as king. These men, the sons of Zeruiah, are too much for me to bear! 11 May the Lord punish appropriately the one who has done this evil thing!” 12
1 tn Heb “and he struck him down there [in] the stomach.”
2 tn Heb “and he [i.e., Abner] died on account of the blood of Asahel his [i.e., Joab’s] brother.”
3 tn Heb “was walking.”
4 tn Heb “lifted up his voice and wept.” The expression is a verbal hendiadys.
5 tc The translation follows many medieval Hebrew manuscripts and several ancient versions in reading “your hands,” rather than “your hand.”
6 tc 4QSama lacks the words “all the people.”
7 tn Heb “Thus God will do to me and thus he will add.”
8 tn Heb “it was good in their eyes.”
9 tn Heb “from the king.”
10 tn Heb “a leader and a great one.” The expression is a hendiadys.
11 tn Heb “are hard from me.”
12 tn Heb “May the
