Text -- 2 Samuel 3:33-39 (NET)

3:33 The king chanted the following lament for Abner: “Should Abner have died like a fool? 3:34 Your hands were not bound, and your feet were not put into irons. You fell the way one falls before criminals.” All the people 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 if I taste bread or anything whatsoever before the sun sets!” 3:36 All the people noticed this and it pleased them. 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. 3:38 Then the king said to his servants, “Do you not realize that a great leader 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! May the Lord punish appropriately the one who has done this evil thing!”

Commentary -- Verse Notes / Footnotes

NET Notes: 2Sa 3:34

¹ tc The translation follows many medieval Hebrew manuscripts and several ancient versions in reading “your hands,” rather than “your hand.”

² tc 4QSam^a lacks the words “all the people.”

NET Notes: 2Sa 3:35

¹ tn Heb “Thus God will do to me and thus he will add.”

NET Notes: 2Sa 3:36

¹ tn Heb “it was good in their eyes.”

NET Notes: 2Sa 3:37

¹ tn Heb “from the king.”

NET Notes: 2Sa 3:38

¹ tn Heb “a leader and a great one.” The expression is a hendiadys.

NET Notes: 2Sa 3:39

¹ tn Heb “are hard from me.”

² tn Heb “May the Lord repay the doer of the evil according to his evil” (NASB similar).