3:30 So Joab and his brother Abishai killed Abner, because he had killed their brother Asahel in Gibeon during the battle.
10:9 When Joab saw that the battle would be fought on two fronts, he chose some of Israel’s best men and deployed them against the Arameans. 3 10:10 He put his brother Abishai in charge of the rest of the army 4 and they were deployed 5 against the Ammonites.
18:12 The man replied to Joab, “Even if 8 I were receiving 9 a thousand pieces of silver, 10 I would not strike 11 the king’s son! In our very presence 12 the king gave this order to you and Abishai and Ittai, ‘Protect the young man Absalom for my sake.’ 13
23:18 Abishai son of Zeruiah, the brother of Joab, was head of the three. 14 He killed three hundred men with his spear and gained fame among the three. 15
23:1 These are the final words of David:
“The oracle of David son of Jesse,
the oracle of the man raised up as
the ruler chosen by the God of Jacob, 16
Israel’s beloved 17 singer of songs:
1:1 After the death of Saul, 19 when David had returned from defeating the Amalekites, 20 he stayed at Ziklag 21 for two days.
18:12 The man replied to Joab, “Even if 22 I were receiving 23 a thousand pieces of silver, 24 I would not strike 25 the king’s son! In our very presence 26 the king gave this order to you and Abishai and Ittai, ‘Protect the young man Absalom for my sake.’ 27
1 tn Heb “are hard from me.”
2 tn Heb “May the
3 tn Heb “and Joab saw that the face of the battle was to him before and behind and he chose from all the best in Israel and arranged to meet Aram.”
4 tn Heb “people.”
5 tn Heb “he arranged.”
6 tn Heb “and Joab returned from against the sons of Ammon and entered.”
7 map For location see Map5-B1; Map6-F3; Map7-E2; Map8-F2; Map10-B3; JP1-F4; JP2-F4; JP3-F4; JP4-F4.
8 tc The translation follows the Qere and many medieval Hebrew
9 tn Heb “weighing out in my hand.”
10 tn Heb “a thousand [shekels] of silver.” This would have been about 25 pounds (11.4 kg) of silver by weight.
11 tn Heb “extend my hand against.”
12 tn Heb “in our ears.”
13 tc The Hebrew text is very difficult here. The MT reads מִי (mi, “who”), apparently yielding the following sense: “Show care, whoever you might be, for the youth Absalom.” The Syriac Peshitta reads li (“for me”), the Hebrew counterpart of which may also lie behind the LXX rendering μοι (moi, “for me”). This reading seems preferable here, since it restores sense to the passage and most easily explains the rise of the variant.
14 tc The translation follows the Qere, many medieval Hebrew
15 tn Heb “and he was wielding his spear against three hundred, [who were] slain, and to him there was a name among the three.”
16 tn Heb “the anointed one of the God of Jacob.”
17 tn Or “pleasant.”
18 tc The Syriac Peshitta and one
19 sn This chapter is closely linked to 1 Sam 31. It should be kept in mind that 1 and 2 Samuel were originally a single book, not separate volumes. Whereas in English Bible tradition the books of Samuel, Kings, Chronicles, and Ezra-Nehemiah are each regarded as two separate books, this was not the practice in ancient Hebrew tradition. Early canonical records, for example, counted them as single books respectively. The division into two books goes back to the Greek translation of the OT and was probably initiated because of the cumbersome length of copies due to the Greek practice (unlike that of Hebrew) of writing vowels. The present division into two books can be a little misleading in terms of perceiving the progression of the argument of the book; in some ways it is preferable to treat the books of 1-2 Samuel in a unified fashion.
20 sn The Amalekites were a nomadic people who inhabited Judah and the Transjordan. They are mentioned in Gen 36:15-16 as descendants of Amalek who in turn descended from Esau. In Exod 17:8-16 they are described as having acted in a hostile fashion toward Israel as the Israelites traveled to Canaan from Egypt. In David’s time the Amalekites were viewed as dangerous enemies who raided, looted, and burned Israelite cities (see 1 Sam 30).
21 sn Ziklag was a city in the Negev which had been given to David by Achish king of Gath. For more than a year David used it as a base from which he conducted military expeditions (see 1 Sam 27:5-12). According to 1 Sam 30:1-19, Ziklag was destroyed by the Amalekites while Saul fought the Philistines.
22 tc The translation follows the Qere and many medieval Hebrew
23 tn Heb “weighing out in my hand.”
24 tn Heb “a thousand [shekels] of silver.” This would have been about 25 pounds (11.4 kg) of silver by weight.
25 tn Heb “extend my hand against.”
26 tn Heb “in our ears.”
27 tc The Hebrew text is very difficult here. The MT reads מִי (mi, “who”), apparently yielding the following sense: “Show care, whoever you might be, for the youth Absalom.” The Syriac Peshitta reads li (“for me”), the Hebrew counterpart of which may also lie behind the LXX rendering μοι (moi, “for me”). This reading seems preferable here, since it restores sense to the passage and most easily explains the rise of the variant.