2 Samuel 3:16

3:16 Her husband went along behind her, weeping all the way to Bahurim. Finally Abner said to him, “Go back!” ¹  So he returned home.

2 Samuel 15:7

15:7 After four ²  years Absalom said to the king, “Let me go and repay my vow that I made to the Lord while I was in Hebron.

2 Samuel 24:1

David Displeases the Lord by Taking a Census

24:1 The Lord’s anger again raged against Israel, and he incited David against them, saying, “Go count Israel and Judah.” ³ 

2 Samuel 24:12

24:12 “Go, tell David, ‘This is what the Lord says: I am offering you three forms of judgment. Pick one of them and I will carry it out against you.’”

2 Samuel 24:18

David Acquires a Threshing Floor and Constructs an Altar There

24:18 So Gad went to David that day and told him, “Go up and build an altar for the Lord on the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite.”

¹ tn Heb “Go, return.”

² tc The MT has here “forty,” but this is presumably a scribal error for “four.” The context will not tolerate a period of forty years prior to the rebellion of Absalom. The Lucianic Greek recension (τέσσαρα ἔτη, tessara ete), the Syriac Peshitta (’arba’ sanin), and Vulgate (post quattuor autem annos) in fact have the expected reading “four years.” Most English translations follow the versions in reading “four” here, although some (e.g. KJV, ASV, NASB, NKJV), following the MT, read “forty.”

³ sn The parallel text in 1 Chr 21:1 says, “An adversary opposed Israel, inciting David to count how many warriors Israel had.” The Samuel version gives an underlying theological perspective, while the Chronicler simply describes what happened from a human perspective. The adversary in 1 Chr 21:1 is likely a human enemy, probably a nearby nation whose hostility against Israel pressured David into numbering the people so he could assess his military strength. See the note at 1 Chr 21:1.