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, ¹  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 17:9

17:9 At this very moment he is hiding out in one of the caves or in some other similar place. If it should turn out that he attacks our troops first, ²  whoever hears about it will say, ‘Absalom’s army has been slaughtered!’

2 Samuel 20:6

20:6 Then David said to Abishai, “Now Sheba son of Bicri will cause greater disaster for us than Absalom did! Take your lord’s servants and pursue him. Otherwise he will secure ³  fortified cities for himself and get away from us.”

2 Samuel 24:16

24:16 When the angel ⁴  extended his hand to destroy Jerusalem, the Lord relented from his judgment. ⁵  He told the angel who was killing the people, “That’s enough! Stop now!” ⁶  (Now the Lord’s angel was near the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite.)

¹ 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.

² tn Heb “that he falls on them [i.e., Absalom’s troops] at the first [encounter]; or “that some of them [i.e., Absalom’s troops] fall at the first [encounter].”

³ tn Heb “find.” The perfect verbal form is unexpected with the preceding word “otherwise.” We should probably read instead the imperfect. Although it is possible to understand the perfect here as indicating that the feared result is thought of as already having taken place (cf. BDB 814 s.v. פֶּן 2), it is more likely that the perfect is simply the result of scribal error. In this context the imperfect would be more consistent with the following verb וְהִצִּיל (vÿhitsil, “and he will get away”).

⁴ tn Heb “messenger.”

⁵ tn Heb “concerning the calamity.”

⁶ tn Heb “Now, drop your hand.”