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 ¹  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. ² 

2 Samuel 14:22

14:22 Then Joab bowed down with his face toward the ground and thanked ³  the king. Joab said, “Today your servant knows that I have found favor in your sight, my lord the king, because the king has granted the request of your ⁴  servant!”

2 Samuel 16:11

16:11 Then David said to Abishai and to all his servants, “My own son, my very own flesh and blood, ⁵  is trying to take my life. So also now this Benjaminite! Leave him alone so that he can curse, for the Lord has spoken to him.

2 Samuel 18:28

18:28 Then Ahimaaz called out and said to the king, “Greetings!” ⁶  He bowed down before the king with his face toward the ground and said, “May the Lord your God be praised because he has defeated ⁷  the men who opposed ⁸  my lord the king!”

2 Samuel 18:33

18:33 (19:1) ⁹  The king then became very upset. He went up to the upper room over the gate and wept. As he went he said, “My son, Absalom! My son, my son, ¹⁰  Absalom! If only I could have died in your place! Absalom, my son, my son!” ¹¹ 

2 Samuel 20:3

20:3 Then David went to his palace ¹²  in Jerusalem. The king took the ten concubines he had left to care for the palace and placed them under confinement. ¹³  Though he provided for their needs, he did not have sexual relations with them. ¹⁴  They remained in confinement until the day they died, living out the rest of their lives as widows.

2 Samuel 21:2

21:2 So the king summoned the Gibeonites and spoke with them. (Now the Gibeonites were not descendants of Israel; they were a remnant of the Amorites. The Israelites had made a promise to ¹⁵  them, but Saul tried to kill them because of his zeal for the people of Israel and Judah.)

2 Samuel 24:24

24:24 But the king said to Araunah, “No, I insist on buying it from you! I will not offer to the Lord my God burnt sacrifices that cost me nothing.”

So David bought the threshing floor and the oxen for fifty pieces of silver. ¹⁶ 

¹ tn The Hebrew Hitpael verbal form here indicates pretended rather than genuine action.

² tn Heb “these many days.”

³ tn Heb “blessed.”

⁴ tc The present translation reads with the Qere “your” rather than the MT “his.”

⁵ tn Heb “who came out from my entrails.” David’s point is that is his own son, his child whom he himself had fathered, was now wanting to kill him.

⁷ tn Heb “Peace.”

⁸ tn Heb “delivered over.”

⁹ tn Heb “lifted their hand against.”

⁹ sn This marks the beginning of ch. 19 in the Hebrew text. Beginning with 18:33, the verse numbers through 19:43 in the English Bible differ from the verse numbers in the Hebrew text (BHS), with 18:33 ET = 19:1 HT, 19:1 ET = 19:2 HT, 19:2 ET = 19:3 HT, etc., through 19:43 ET = 19:44 HT. From 20:1 the versification in the English Bible and the Hebrew Bible is again the same.

¹⁰ tc One medieval Hebrew ms, some mss of the LXX, and the Vulgate lack this repeated occurrence of “my son” due to haplography.

¹¹ tc The Lucianic Greek recension and Syriac Peshitta lack this repeated occurrence of “my son” due to haplography.

¹¹ tn Heb “house.”

¹² tn Heb “and he placed them in a guarded house.”

¹³ 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.”

¹³ tn Heb “swore an oath to.”

¹⁵ tn Heb “fifty shekels of silver.” This would have been about 20 ounces (568 grams) of silver by weight.