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 6:20

6:20 When David went home to pronounce a blessing on his own house, ¹⁰  Michal, Saul’s daughter, came out to meet him. ¹¹  She said, “How the king of Israel has distinguished ¹²  himself this day! He has exposed himself today before his servants’ slave girls the way a vulgar fool ¹³  might do!”

2 Samuel 14:14

14:14 Certainly we must die, and are like water spilled on the ground that cannot be gathered up again. But God does not take away life; instead he devises ways for the banished to be restored. ¹⁴ 

2 Samuel 16:21

16:21 Ahithophel replied to Absalom, “Have sex with ¹⁵  your father’s concubines whom he left to care for the palace. All Israel will hear that you have made yourself repulsive to your father. Then your followers will be motivated to support you.” ¹⁶ 

2 Samuel 17:8

17:8 Hushai went on to say, “You know your father and his men – they are soldiers and are as dangerous as a bear out in the wild that has been robbed of her cubs. ¹⁷  Your father is an experienced soldier; he will not stay overnight with the army.

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, ¹⁸  when everything Israel is saying has come to the king’s attention. ¹⁹ 

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 “and David returned to bless his house.”

¹² tn Heb “David.” The name has been replaced by the pronoun (“him”) in the translation for stylistic reasons.

¹³ tn Heb “honored.”

¹⁴ tn Heb “one of the foolish ones.”

¹⁶ tn Heb “he devises plans for the one banished from him not to be banished.”

²¹ tn Heb “go to”; NAB “have (+ sexual NCV) relations with”; TEV “have intercourse with”; NLT “Go and sleep with.”

²² tn Heb “and the hands of all who are with you will be strengthened.”

²⁶ tc The LXX (with the exception of the recensions of Origen and Lucian) repeats the description as follows: “Just as a female bear bereft of cubs in a field.”

³¹ tn Heb “his house.”

³² tc The Hebrew text adds “to his house” (= palace), but the phrase, which also appears earlier in the verse, is probably accidentally repeated here.