2 Samuel 3:27

3:27 When Abner returned to Hebron, Joab took him aside at the gate as if to speak privately with him. Joab then stabbed him ¹  in the abdomen and killed him, avenging the shed blood of his brother Asahel. ² 

2 Samuel 3:29

3:29 May his blood whirl over ³  the head of Joab and the entire house of his father! ⁴  May the males of Joab’s house ⁵  never cease to have ⁶  someone with a running sore or a skin disease or one who works at the spindle ⁷  or one who falls by the sword or one who lacks food!”

2 Samuel 3:34

3:34 Your hands ⁸  were not bound,

and your feet were not put into irons.

You fell the way one falls before criminals.”

All the people ⁹  wept over him again.

¹ tn Heb “and he struck him down there [in] the stomach.”

² tn Heb “and he [i.e., Abner] died on account of the blood of Asahel his [i.e., Joab’s] brother.”

³ 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.

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

⁵ 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.

⁶ tn Heb “and may there not be cut off from the house of Joab.”

⁷ 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).

⁸ tc The translation follows many medieval Hebrew manuscripts and several ancient versions in reading “your hands,” rather than “your hand.”

⁹ tc 4QSam^a lacks the words “all the people.”