6:21 David replied to Michal, “It was before the Lord! I was celebrating before the Lord, who chose me over your father and his entire family 6 and appointed me as leader over the Lord’s people Israel.
17:23 When Ahithophel realized that his advice had not been followed, he saddled his donkey and returned to his house in his hometown. After setting his household in order, he hanged himself. So he died and was buried in the grave 13 of his father.
21:14 They buried the bones of Saul and his son Jonathan in the land of Benjamin at Zela in the grave of his father Kish. After they had done everything 18 that the king had commanded, God responded to their prayers 19 for the land.
24:17 When he saw the angel who was destroying the people, David said to the Lord, “Look, it is I who have sinned and done this evil thing! As for these sheep – what have they done? Attack me and my family.” 20
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 4QSama 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 “all his house”; CEV “anyone else in your family.”
11 tn Heb “Is David honoring your father in your eyes when he sends to you ones consoling?”
12 tn Heb “Is it not to explore the city and to spy on it and to overthrow it [that] David has sent his servants to you?”
16 tn This verb is used in the Hitpael stem only in this chapter of the Hebrew Bible. With the exception of v. 2 it describes not a real sickness but one pretended in order to entrap Tamar. The Hitpael sometimes, as here, describes the subject making oneself appear to be of a certain character. On this use of the stem, see GKC 149-50 §54.e.
21 tn Heb “son.”
22 map For location see Map5-B1; Map6-F3; Map7-E2; Map8-F2; Map10-B3; JP1-F4; JP2-F4; JP3-F4; JP4-F4.
23 tn Heb “my father’s.”
26 tc The Greek recensions of Origen and Lucian have here “house” for “grave.”
31 tn Heb “father.”
32 tn Heb “and you placed your servant among those who eat at your table.”
33 tn Heb “to cry out to.”
36 tn Heb “your servant.”
41 tc Many medieval Hebrew
42 tn Heb “was entreated.” The verb is an example of the so-called niphal tolerativum, with the sense that God allowed himself to be supplicated through prayer (cf. GKC 137 §51.c).
46 tn Heb “let your hand be against me and against the house of my father.”