16:5 Then King David reached 1 Bahurim. There a man from Saul’s extended family named Shimei son of Gera came out, yelling curses as he approached. 2
16:13 So David and his men went on their way. But Shimei kept going along the side of the hill opposite him, yelling curses as he threw stones and dirt at them. 4
16:1 When David had gone a short way beyond the summit, Ziba the servant of Mephibosheth was there to meet him. He had a couple of donkeys that were saddled, and on them were two hundred loaves of bread, a hundred raisin cakes, a hundred baskets of summer fruit, 5 and a container of wine.
1 tn Heb “came to.” The form of the verb in the MT is odd. Some prefer to read וַיַּבֹא (vayyavo’), preterite with vav consecutive) rather than וּבָא (uva’), apparently perfect with vav), but this is probably an instance where the narrative offline vÿqatal construction introduces a new scene.
2 tn Heb “And look, from there a man was coming out from the clan of the house of Saul and his name was Shimei son of Gera, continually going out and cursing.”
3 tn Heb “man of worthlessness.”
4 tn Heb “and he cursed and threw stones, opposite him, pelting [them] with dirt.” The offline vÿqatal construction in the last clause indicates an action that was complementary to the action described in the preceding clause. He simultaneously threw stones and dirt.
5 tn Heb “a hundred summer fruit.”
6 map For location see Map1-A1; JP3-F3; JP4-F3.
7 tn As P. K. McCarter (II Samuel [AB], 59) points out, the Polel of the verb מוּת (mut, “to die”) “refers to dispatching or ‘finishing off’ someone already wounded and near death.” Cf. NLT “put me out of my misery.”
8 tn Heb “the dizziness has seized me.” On the meaning of the Hebrew noun translated “dizziness,” see P. K. McCarter, II Samuel (AB), 59-60. The point seems to be that he is unable to kill himself because he is weak and disoriented.
9 tn The Hebrew text here is grammatically very awkward (Heb “because all still my life in me”). Whether the broken construct phrase is due to the fact that the alleged speaker is in a confused state of mind as he is on the verge of dying, or whether the MT has sustained corruption in the transmission process, is not entirely clear. The former seems likely, although P. K. McCarter understands the MT to be the result of conflation of two shorter forms of text (P. K. McCarter, II Samuel [AB], 57, n. 9). Early translators also struggled with the verse, apparently choosing to leave part of the Hebrew text untranslated. For example, the Lucianic recension of the LXX lacks “all,” while other witnesses (namely, one medieval Hebrew