2 Samuel 12:4

12:4 “When a traveler arrived at the rich man’s home, ¹  he did not want to use one of his own sheep or cattle to feed ²  the traveler who had come to visit him. ³  Instead, he took the poor man’s lamb and cooked ⁴  it for the man who had come to visit him.”

2 Samuel 12:30

12:30 He took the crown of their king ⁵  from his head – it was gold, weighed about seventy-five pounds, ⁶  and held a precious stone – and it was placed on David’s head. He also took from the city a great deal of plunder.

2 Samuel 14:2

14:2 So Joab sent to Tekoa and brought from there a wise woman. He told her, “Pretend to be in mourning ⁷  and put on garments for mourning. Don’t anoint yourself with oil. Instead, act like a woman who has been mourning for the dead for some time. ⁸ 

2 Samuel 20:3

20:3 Then David went to his palace ⁹  in Jerusalem. The king took the ten concubines he had left to care for the palace and placed them under confinement. ¹⁰  Though he provided for their needs, he did not have sexual relations with them. ¹¹  They remained in confinement until the day they died, living out the rest of their lives as widows.

2 Samuel 21:8

21:8 So the king took Armoni and Mephibosheth, the two sons of Aiah’s daughter Rizpah whom she had born to Saul, and the five sons of Saul’s daughter Merab ¹²  whom she had born to Adriel the son of Barzillai the Meholathite.

¹ tn Heb “came to the rich man.” In the translation “arrived at the rich man’s home” has been used for stylistic reasons.

² tn Heb “and he refused to take from his flock and from his herd to prepare [a meal] for.”

³ tn Heb “who had come to him” (also a second time later in this verse). The word “visit” has been supplied in the translation for stylistic reasons and for clarity.

⁴ tn Heb “and prepared.”

⁵ tn Part of the Greek tradition wrongly understands Hebrew מַלְכָּם (malkam, “their king”) as a proper name (“Milcom”). Some English versions follow the Greek here, rendering the phrase “the crown of Milcom” (so NRSV; cf. also NAB, CEV). TEV takes this as a reference not to the Ammonite king but to “the idol of the Ammonite god Molech.”

⁶ tn Heb “and its weight [was] a talent of gold.” The weight of this ornamental crown was approximately 75 lbs (34 kg). See P. K. McCarter, II Samuel (AB), 313.

⁹ tn The Hebrew Hitpael verbal form here indicates pretended rather than genuine action.

¹⁰ tn Heb “these many days.”

¹³ tn Heb “house.”

¹⁴ tn Heb “and he placed them in a guarded house.”

¹⁵ tn Heb “he did not come to them”; NAB “has no further relations with them”; NIV “did not lie with them”; TEV “did not have intercourse with them”; NLT “would no longer sleep with them.”

¹⁷ tc The MT reads “Michal” here, but two Hebrew manuscripts read “Merab,” along with some LXX manuscripts. Cf. 1 Sam 18:19.