2 Samuel 18:6

18:6 Then the army marched out to the field to fight against Israel. The battle took place in the forest of Ephraim.

2 Samuel 11:23

11:23 The messenger said to David, “The men overpowered us and attacked us¹ in the field. But we forced them to retreat all the way² to the door of the city gate.

2 Samuel 19:29

19:29 Then the king replied to him, “Why should you continue speaking like this? You and Ziba will inherit the field together.”

2 Samuel 23:11

23:11 Next in command³ was Shammah son of Agee the Hararite. When the Philistines assembled at Lehi,⁴ where there happened to be an area of a field that was full of lentils, the army retreated before the Philistines.

2 Samuel 20:12

20:12 Amasa was squirming in his own blood in the middle of the path, and this man had noticed that all the soldiers stopped. Having noticed that everyone who came across Amasa⁵ stopped, the man⁶ pulled him⁷ away from the path and into the field and threw a garment over him.

2 Samuel 21:10

21:10 Rizpah the daughter of Aiah took sackcloth and spread it out for herself on a rock. From the beginning of the harvest until the rain fell on them,⁸ she did not allow the birds of the air to feed⁹ on them by day, nor the wild animals¹⁰ by night.

2 Samuel 11:11

11:11 Uriah replied to David, “The ark and Israel and Judah reside in temporary shelters, and my lord Joab and my lord’s soldiers are camping in the open field. Should I go to my house to eat and drink and have marital relations¹¹ with my wife? As surely as you are alive,¹² I will not do this thing!”

¹tn Heb “and came out to us.”

²tn Heb “but we were on them.”

¹tn Heb “after him.”

²tn The Hebrew text is difficult here. The MT reads לַחַיָּה (lachayyah), which implies a rare use of the word חַיָּה (chayyah). The word normally refers to an animal, but if the MT is accepted it would here have the sense of a troop or community of people. BDB 312 s.v. II. חַיָּה, for example, understands the similar reference in v. 13 to be to “a group of allied families, making a raid together.” But this works better in v. 13 than it does in v. 11, where the context seems to suggest a particular staging location for a military operation. (See 1 Chr 11:15.) It therefore seems best to understand the word in v. 11 as a place name with ה (he) directive. In that case the Masoretes mistook the word for the common term for an animal and then tried to make sense of it in this context.

¹tn Heb “him”; the referent (Amasa) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

²tn Heb “he”; the referent (the man who spoke up in v. 11) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

³tn Heb “Amasa.” For stylistic reasons the name has been replaced by the pronoun (“him”) in the translation.

¹tn Heb “until water was poured on them from the sky.”

²tn Heb “rest.”

³tn Heb “the beasts of the field.”

¹tn Heb “and lay.”

²tn Heb “as you live and as your soul lives.”