Discovery Box2 Samuel 3:31-35 
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 1 behind the funeral bier. 3:32 So they buried Abner in Hebron. The king cried loudly 2 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 3 were not bound,
and your feet were not put into irons.
You fell the way one falls before criminals.”
All the people 4 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 5 if I taste bread or anything whatsoever before the sun sets!”
1 tn Heb “was walking.”
2 tn Heb “lifted up his voice and wept.” The expression is a verbal hendiadys.
3 tc The translation follows many medieval Hebrew manuscripts and several ancient versions in reading “your hands,” rather than “your hand.”
4 tc 4QSama lacks the words “all the people.”
5 tn Heb “Thus God will do to me and thus he will add.”
