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
12:4 “When a traveler arrived at the rich man’s home, 9 he did not want to use one of his own sheep or cattle to feed 10 the traveler who had come to visit him. 11 Instead, he took the poor man’s lamb and cooked 12 it for the man who had come to visit him.”
12:7 Nathan said to David, “You are that man! This is what the Lord God of Israel says: ‘I chose 13 you to be king over Israel and I rescued you from the hand of Saul.
18:12 The man replied to Joab, “Even if 18 I were receiving 19 a thousand pieces of silver, 20 I would not strike 21 the king’s son! In our very presence 22 the king gave this order to you and Abishai and Ittai, ‘Protect the young man Absalom for my sake.’ 23
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.”
4 tn Heb “came to the rich man.” In the translation “arrived at the rich man’s home” has been used for stylistic reasons.
5 tn Heb “and he refused to take from his flock and from his herd to prepare [a meal] for.”
6 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.
7 tn Heb “and prepared.”
5 tn Heb “anointed.”
6 tn Heb “him”; the referent (Amasa) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
7 tn Heb “he”; the referent (the man who spoke up in v. 11) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
8 tn Heb “Amasa.” For stylistic reasons the name has been replaced by the pronoun (“him”) in the translation.
7 tn Heb “your servant.” So also in vv. 8, 15, 21.
8 tc The translation follows the Qere and many medieval Hebrew
9 tn Heb “weighing out in my hand.”
10 tn Heb “a thousand [shekels] of silver.” This would have been about 25 pounds (11.4 kg) of silver by weight.
11 tn Heb “extend my hand against.”
12 tn Heb “in our ears.”
13 tc The Hebrew text is very difficult here. The MT reads מִי (mi, “who”), apparently yielding the following sense: “Show care, whoever you might be, for the youth Absalom.” The Syriac Peshitta reads li (“for me”), the Hebrew counterpart of which may also lie behind the LXX rendering μοι (moi, “for me”). This reading seems preferable here, since it restores sense to the passage and most easily explains the rise of the variant.