2 Samuel 3:29

3:29 May his blood whirl over ¹  the head of Joab and the entire house of his father! ²  May the males of Joab’s house ³  never cease to have ⁴  someone with a running sore or a skin disease or one who works at the spindle ⁵  or one who falls by the sword or one who lacks food!”

2 Samuel 6:2

6:2 David and all the men who were with him traveled ⁶  to ⁷  Baalah ⁸  in Judah to bring up from there the ark of God which is called by the name ⁹  of the Lord of hosts, who sits enthroned between the cherubim that are on it.

2 Samuel 10:2

10:2 David said, “I will express my loyalty ¹⁰  to Hanun son of Nahash just as his father was loyal ¹¹  to me.” So David sent his servants with a message expressing sympathy over his father’s death. ¹²  When David’s servants entered the land of the Ammonites,

2 Samuel 12:11

12:11 This is what the Lord says: ‘I am about to bring disaster on you ¹³  from inside your own household! ¹⁴  Right before your eyes I will take your wives and hand them over to your companion. ¹⁵  He will have sexual relations with ¹⁶  your wives in broad daylight! ¹⁷ 

2 Samuel 12:31

12:31 He removed ¹⁸  the people who were in it and made them do hard labor with saws, iron picks, and iron axes, putting them to work at the brick kiln. This was his policy ¹⁹  with all the Ammonite cities. Then David and all the army returned to Jerusalem. ²⁰ 

2 Samuel 15:30

15:30 As David was going up the Mount of Olives, he was weeping as he went; his head was covered and his feet were bare. All the people who were with him also had their heads covered and were weeping as they went up.

2 Samuel 16:8

16:8 The Lord has punished you for ²¹  all the spilled blood of the house of Saul, in whose place you rule. Now the Lord has given the kingdom into the hand of your son Absalom. Disaster has overtaken you, for you are a man of bloodshed!”

2 Samuel 18:28

18:28 Then Ahimaaz called out and said to the king, “Greetings!” ²²  He bowed down before the king with his face toward the ground and said, “May the Lord your God be praised because he has defeated ²³  the men who opposed ²⁴  my lord the king!”

2 Samuel 24:3

24:3 Joab replied to the king, “May the Lord your God make the army a hundred times larger right before the eyes of my lord the king! But why does my master the king want to do this?”

2 Samuel 24:16

24:16 When the angel ²⁵  extended his hand to destroy Jerusalem, the Lord relented from his judgment. ²⁶  He told the angel who was killing the people, “That’s enough! Stop now!” ²⁷  (Now the Lord’s angel was near the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite.)

¹ 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.

² tc 4QSam^a has “of Joab” rather than “of his father” read by the MT.

³ 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.

⁴ tn Heb “and may there not be cut off from the house of Joab.”

⁵ 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 “arose and went.”

⁷ tn Heb “from,” but the following context indicates they traveled to this location.

⁸ tn This is another name for Kiriath-jearim (see 1 Chr 13:6).

⁹ tc The MT has here a double reference to the name (שֵׁם שֵׁם, shem shem). Many medieval Hebrew mss in the first occurrence point the word differently and read the adverb שָׁם (sham, “there”). This is also the understanding of the Syriac Peshitta (Syr., taman). While this yields an acceptable understanding to the text, it is more likely that the MT dittographic here. The present translation therefore reads שֵׁם only once.

¹¹ tn Heb “do loyalty.”

¹² tn Heb “did loyalty.”

¹³ tn Heb “and David sent to console him by the hand of his servants concerning his father.”

¹⁶ tn Heb “raise up against you disaster.”

¹⁷ tn Heb “house” (so NAB, NRSV); NCV, TEV, CEV “family.”

¹⁸ tn Or “friend.”

¹⁹ tn Heb “will lie with” (so NIV, NRSV); TEV “will have intercourse with”; CEV, NLT “will go to bed with.”

²⁰ tn Heb “in the eyes of this sun.”

²¹ tn Heb “brought out.”

²² tn Heb “and so he would do.”

²³ map For location see Map5-B1; Map6-F3; Map7-E2; Map8-F2; Map10-B3; JP1-F4; JP2-F4; JP3-F4; JP4-F4.

²⁶ tn Heb “has brought back upon you.”

³¹ tn Heb “Peace.”

³² tn Heb “delivered over.”

³³ tn Heb “lifted their hand against.”

³⁶ tn Heb “messenger.”

³⁷ tn Heb “concerning the calamity.”

³⁸ tn Heb “Now, drop your hand.”