2 Samuel 12:5

12:5 Then David became very angry at this man. He said to Nathan, “As surely as the Lord lives, the man who did this deserves to die! ¹ 

2 Samuel 14:16

14:16 Yes! ²  The king may ³  listen and deliver his female servant ⁴  from the hand of the man who seeks to remove ⁵  both me and my son from the inheritance God has given us!’ ⁶ 

2 Samuel 17:3

17:3 and will bring the entire army back to you. In exchange for the life of the man you are seeking, you will get back everyone. ⁷  The entire army will return unharmed.” ⁸ 

2 Samuel 21:5

21:5 They replied to the king, “As for this man who exterminated us and who schemed against us so that we were destroyed and left without status throughout all the borders of Israel –

¹ tn Heb “the man doing this [is] a son of death.” See 1 Sam 20:31 for another use of this expression, which must mean “he is as good as dead” or “he deserves to die,” as 1 Sam 20:32 makes clear.

² tn Or “for.”

³ tn Or “will.” The imperfect verbal form can have either an indicative or modal nuance. The use of “perhaps” in v. 15b suggests the latter here.

⁴ tn Heb “in order to deliver his maid.”

⁵ tn Heb “destroy.”

⁶ tn Heb “from the inheritance of God.” The expression refers to the property that was granted to her family line in the division of the land authorized by God.

³ tc Heb “like the returning of all, the man whom you are seeking.” The LXX reads differently: “And I will return all the people to you the way a bride returns to her husband, except for the life of the one man whom you are seeking.” The other early versions also struggled with this verse. Modern translations are divided as well: the NAB, NRSV, REB, and NLT follow the LXX, while the NASB and NIV follow the Hebrew text.

⁴ tn Heb “all of the people will be safe.”