2 Samuel 1:14

1:14 David replied to him, “How is it that you were not afraid to reach out your hand to destroy the Lord’s anointed?”

2 Samuel 20:20

20:20 Joab answered, “Get serious! ¹  I don’t want to swallow up or destroy anything!

2 Samuel 24:16

24:16 When the angel ²  extended his hand to destroy Jerusalem, the Lord relented from his judgment. ³  He told the angel who was killing the people, “That’s enough! Stop now!” ⁴  (Now the Lord’s angel was near the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite.)

2 Samuel 11:1

David Commits Adultery with Bathsheba

11:1 In the spring of the year, at the time when kings ⁵  normally conduct wars, ⁶  David sent out Joab with his officers ⁷  and the entire Israelite army. ⁸  They defeated the Ammonites and besieged Rabbah. But David stayed behind in Jerusalem. ⁹ 

2 Samuel 14:11

14:11 She replied, “In that case, ¹⁰  let the king invoke the name of ¹¹  the Lord your God so that the avenger of blood may not kill! Then they will not destroy my son!” He replied, “As surely as the Lord lives, not a single hair of your son’s head ¹²  will fall to the ground.”

2 Samuel 20:15

20:15 So Joab’s men ¹³  came and laid siege against him in Abel of Beth Maacah. They prepared a siege ramp outside the city which stood against its outer rampart. As all of Joab’s soldiers were trying to break through ¹⁴  the wall so that it would collapse,

¹ 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.

¹ tn Heb “messenger.”

² tn Heb “concerning the calamity.”

³ tn Heb “Now, drop your hand.”

¹ tc Codex Leningrad (B19A), on which BHS is based, has here “messengers” (הַמַּלְאכִים, hammal’khim), probably as the result of contamination from the occurrence of that word in v. 4. The present translation follows most Hebrew mss and the ancient versions, which read “kings” (הַמֶּלָאכִים, hammela’kim).

² tn Heb “go out.”

³ tn Heb “and his servants with him.”

⁴ tn Heb “all Israel.”

⁵ tn The disjunctive clause contrasts David’s inactivity with the army’s activity.

¹ tn The words “in that case” are not in the Hebrew text, but may be inferred from the context. They are supplied in the translation for the sake of clarification.

² tn Heb “let the king remember.”

³ tn Heb “of your son.”

¹ tn Heb “they.” The following context makes it clear that this refers to Joab and his army.

² tc The LXX has here ἐνοοῦσαν (enoousan, “were devising”), which apparently presupposes the Hebrew word מַחֲשָׁבִים (makhashavim) rather than the MT מַשְׁחִיתִם (mashkhitim, “were destroying”). With a number of other scholars Driver thinks that the Greek variant may preserve the original reading, but this seems to be an unnecessary conclusion (but see S. R. Driver, Notes on the Hebrew Text and the Topography of the Books of Samuel, 346).