2 Samuel 17:11-13

17:11 My advice therefore is this: Let all Israel from Dan to Beer Sheba – in number like the sand by the sea! – be mustered to you, and you lead them personally into battle. 17:12 We will come against him wherever he happens to be found. We will descend on him like the dew falls on the ground. Neither he nor any of the men who are with him will be spared alive – not one of them! 17:13 If he regroups in a city, all Israel will take up ropes to that city and drag it down to the valley, so that not a single pebble will be left there!”

2 Samuel 17:1

The Death of Ahithophel

17:1 Ahithophel said to Absalom, “Let me pick out twelve thousand men. Then I will go and pursue David this very night.

2 Samuel 18:10

18:10 When one ¹  of the men saw this, he reported it to Joab saying, “I saw Absalom hanging in an oak tree.

Proverbs 1:16

1:16 for they ²  are eager ³  to inflict harm, ⁴ 

and they hasten ⁵  to shed blood. ⁶ 

Romans 3:15-16

3:15 “Their feet are swift to shed blood,

3:16 ruin and misery are in their paths,

¹ tc 4QSam^a lacks the word “one.”

² tn Heb “their feet.” The term “feet” is a synecdoche of the part (= their feet) for the whole person (= they), stressing the eagerness of the robbers.

³ tn Heb “run.” The verb רוּץ (ruts, “run”) functions here as a metonymy of association, meaning “to be eager” to do something (BDB 930 s.v.).

⁴ tn Heb “to harm.” The noun רַע (ra’) has a four-fold range of meanings: (1) “pain, harm” (Prov 3:30), (2) “calamity, disaster” (13:21), (3) “distress, misery” (14:32) and (4) “moral evil” (8:13; see BDB 948-49 s.v.). The parallelism with “swift to shed blood” suggests it means “to inflict harm, injury.”

⁵ tn The imperfect tense verbs may be classified as habitual or progressive imperfects describing their ongoing continual activity.

⁶ tc The BHS editors suggest deleting this entire verse from MT because it does not appear in several versions (Codex B of the LXX, Coptic, Arabic) and is similar to Isa 59:7a. It is possible that it was a scribal gloss (intentional addition) copied into the margin from Isaiah. But this does not adequately explain the differences. It does fit the context well enough to be original.