2 Samuel 2:9

2:9 He appointed him king over Gilead, the Geshurites, ¹  Jezreel, Ephraim, Benjamin, and all Israel.

2 Samuel 22:7

22:7 In my distress I called to the Lord;

I called to my God. ² 

From his heavenly temple ³  he heard my voice;

he listened to my cry for help. ⁴ 

2 Samuel 23:23

23:23 He received honor from ⁵  the thirty warriors, though he was not one of the three elite warriors. David put him in charge of his bodyguard.

2 Samuel 24:6

24:6 Then they went on to Gilead and to the region of Tahtim Hodshi, coming to Dan Jaan and on around to Sidon. ⁶ 

2 Samuel 3:29

3:29 May his blood whirl over ⁷  the head of Joab and the entire house of his father! ⁸  May the males of Joab’s house ⁹  never cease to have ¹⁰  someone with a running sore or a skin disease or one who works at the spindle ¹¹  or one who falls by the sword or one who lacks food!”

2 Samuel 11:13

11:13 Then David summoned him. He ate and drank with him, and got him drunk. But in the evening he went out to sleep on his bed with the servants of his lord; he did not go down to his own house.

2 Samuel 24:5

24:5 They crossed the Jordan and camped at Aroer, on the south side of the city, at ¹²  the wadi of Gad, near Jazer.

2 Samuel 1:21

1:21 O mountains of Gilboa,

may there be no dew or rain on you, nor fields of grain offerings! ¹³ 

For it was there that the shield of warriors was defiled; ¹⁴ 

the shield of Saul lies neglected without oil. ¹⁵ 

2 Samuel 3:31

3:31 David instructed Joab and all the people who were with him, “Tear your clothes! Put on sackcloth! Lament before Abner!” Now King David followed ¹⁶  behind the funeral bier.

2 Samuel 14:2

14:2 So Joab sent to Tekoa and brought from there a wise woman. He told her, “Pretend to be in mourning ¹⁷  and put on garments for mourning. Don’t anoint yourself with oil. Instead, act like a woman who has been mourning for the dead for some time. ¹⁸ 

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, ¹⁹  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 17:15

17:15 Then Hushai reported to Zadok and Abiathar the priests, “Here is what Ahithophel has advised Absalom and the leaders ²⁰  of Israel to do, and here is what I have advised.

2 Samuel 18:27

18:27 The watchman said, “It appears to me that the first runner is Ahimaaz ²¹  son of Zadok.” The king said, “He is a good man, and he comes with good news.”

2 Samuel 19:19

19:19 He said to the king, “Don’t think badly of me, my lord, and don’t recall the sin of your servant on the day when you, my lord the king, left ²²  Jerusalem! ²³  Please don’t call it to mind!

2 Samuel 21:1

The Gibeonites Demand Revenge

21:1 During David’s reign there was a famine for three consecutive years. So David inquired of the Lord. ²⁴  The Lord said, “It is because of Saul and his bloodstained family, ²⁵  because he murdered the Gibeonites.”

2 Samuel 3:8

3:8 These words of Ish-bosheth really angered Abner and he said, “Am I the head of a dog that belongs to Judah? This very day I am demonstrating ²⁶  loyalty to the house of Saul your father and to his relatives ²⁷  and his friends! I have not betrayed you into the hand of David. Yet you have accused me of sinning with this woman today! ²⁸ 

2 Samuel 19:11

19:11 Then King David sent a message to Zadok and Abiathar the priests saying, “Tell the elders of Judah, ‘Why should you delay any further in bringing the king back to his palace, ²⁹  when everything Israel is saying has come to the king’s attention. ³⁰ 

¹ tc The MT here reads “the Ashurite,” but this is problematic if it is taken to mean “the Assyrian.” Ish-bosheth’s kingdom obviously was not of such proportions as to extend to Assyria. The Syriac Peshitta renders the word as “the Geshurite,” while the Targum has “of the house of Ashur.” We should probably emend the Hebrew text to read “the Geshurite.” The Geshurites lived in the northeastern part of the land of Palestine.

² tn In this poetic narrative the two prefixed verbal forms in v. 7a are best understood as preterites indicating past tense, not imperfects. Note the use of the vav consecutive with the prefixed verbal form that follows in v. 7b.

³ tn Heb “from his temple.” Verse 10, which pictures God descending from the sky, indicates that the heavenly, not earthly, temple is in view.

⁴ tn Heb “and my cry for help [entered] his ears.”

³ tn Or “more than.”

⁴ map For location see Map1-A1; JP3-F3; JP4-F3.

⁵ tn Heb “and may they whirl over.” In the Hebrew text the subject of the plural verb is unexpressed. The most likely subject is Abner’s “shed blood” (v. 28), which is a masculine plural form in Hebrew. The verb חוּל (khul, “whirl”) is used with the preposition עַל (’al) only here and in Jer 23:19; 30:23.

⁶ tc 4QSam^a has “of Joab” rather than “of his father” read by the MT.

⁷ tn Heb “the house of Joab.” However, it is necessary to specify that David’s curse is aimed at Joab’s male descendants; otherwise it would not be clear that “one who works at the spindle” refers to a man doing woman’s work rather than a woman.

⁸ tn Heb “and may there not be cut off from the house of Joab.”

⁹ tn The expression used here is difficult. The translation “one who works at the spindle” follows a suggestion of S. R. Driver that the expression pejoratively describes an effeminate man who, rather than being a mighty warrior, is occupied with tasks that are normally fulfilled by women (S. R. Driver, Notes on the Hebrew Text and the Topography of the Books of Samuel, 250-51; cf. NAB “one unmanly”; TEV “fit only to do a woman’s work”; CEV “cowards”). But P. K. McCarter, following an alleged Phoenician usage of the noun to refer to “crutches,” adopts a different view. He translates the phrase “clings to a crutch,” seeing here a further description of physical lameness (II Samuel [AB], 118). Such an idea fits the present context well and is followed by NIV, NCV, and NLT, although the evidence for this meaning is questionable. According to DNWSI 2:915-16, the noun consistently refers to a spindle in Phoenician, as it does in Ugaritic (see UT 468).

⁶ tn Heb “in the middle of.”

⁷ tc Instead of the MT’s “fields of grain offerings” the Lucianic recension of the LXX reads “your high places are mountains of death.” Cf. the Old Latin montes mortis (“mountains of death”).

⁸ tn This is the only biblical occurrence of the Niphal of the verb גָּעַל (ga’al). This verb usually has the sense of “to abhor” or “loathe.” But here it seems to refer to the now dirty and unprotected condition of a previously well-maintained instrument of battle.

⁹ tc It is preferable to read here Hebrew מָשׁוּחַ (mashuakh) with many Hebrew mss, rather than מָשִׁיחַ (mashiakh) of the MT. Although the Syriac Peshitta understands the statement to pertain to Saul, the point here is not that Saul is not anointed. Rather, it is the shield of Saul that lies discarded and is no longer anointed. In ancient Near Eastern practice a warrior’s shield that was in normal use would have to be anointed regularly in order to ensure that the leather did not become dry and brittle. Like other warriors of his day Saul would have carefully maintained his tools of trade. But now that he is dead, the once-cared-for shield of the mighty warrior lies sadly discarded and woefully neglected, a silent but eloquent commentary on how different things are now compared to the way they were during Saul’s lifetime.

⁸ tn Heb “was walking.”

⁹ tn The Hebrew Hitpael verbal form here indicates pretended rather than genuine action.

¹⁰ tn Heb “these many days.”

¹⁰ 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.

¹¹ tn Heb “elders.”

¹² tn Heb “I am seeing the running of the first one like the running of Ahimaaz.”

¹³ tn Though this verb in the MT is 3rd person masculine singular, it should probably be read as 2nd person masculine singular. It is one of fifteen places where the Masoretes placed a dot over each of the letters of the word in question in order to call attention to their suspicion of the word. Their concern in this case apparently had to do with the fact that this verb and the two preceding verbs alternate from third person to second and back again to third. Words marked in this way in Hebrew manuscripts or printed editions are said to have puncta extrordinaria, or “extraordinary points.”

¹⁴ map For location see Map5-B1; Map6-F3; Map7-E2; Map8-F2; Map10-B3; JP1-F4; JP2-F4; JP3-F4; JP4-F4.

¹⁴ tn Heb “sought the face of the Lord.”

¹⁵ tn Heb “and the house of bloodshed.”

¹⁵ tn Heb “I do.”

¹⁶ tn Heb “brothers.”

¹⁷ tn Heb “and you have laid upon me the guilt of the woman today.”

¹⁶ tn Heb “his house.”

¹⁷ tc The Hebrew text adds “to his house” (= palace), but the phrase, which also appears earlier in the verse, is probably accidentally repeated here.