2 Samuel 6:14

6:14 Now David, wearing a linen ephod, was dancing with all his strength before the Lord. ¹ 

2 Samuel 6:20

6:20 When David went home to pronounce a blessing on his own house, ²  Michal, Saul’s daughter, came out to meet him. ³  She said, “How the king of Israel has distinguished ⁴  himself this day! He has exposed himself today before his servants’ slave girls the way a vulgar fool ⁵  might do!”

Isaiah 20:2

20:2 At that time the Lord announced through ⁶  Isaiah son of Amoz: “Go, remove the sackcloth from your waist and take your sandals off your feet.” He did as instructed and walked around in undergarments ⁷  and barefoot.

Micah 1:8

1:8 For this reason I ⁸  will mourn and wail;

I will walk around barefoot ⁹  and without my outer garments. ¹⁰ 

I will howl ¹¹  like a wild dog, ¹² 

and screech ¹³  like an owl. ¹⁴ 

¹ tn Heb “and David was dancing with all his strength before the Lord, and David was girded with a linen ephod.”

² tn Heb “and David returned to bless his house.”

³ tn Heb “David.” The name has been replaced by the pronoun (“him”) in the translation for stylistic reasons.

⁴ tn Heb “honored.”

⁵ tn Heb “one of the foolish ones.”

⁶ tn Heb “spoke by the hand of.”

⁷ tn The word used here (עָרוֹם, ’arom) sometimes means “naked,” but here it appears to mean simply “lightly dressed,” i.e., stripped to one’s undergarments. See HALOT 883 s.v. עָרוֹם. The term also occurs in vv. 3, 4.

⁸ tn The prophet is probably the speaker here.

⁹ tn Or “stripped.” The precise meaning of this Hebrew word is unclear. It may refer to walking barefoot (see 2 Sam 15:30) or to partially stripping oneself (see Job 12:17-19).

¹⁰ tn Heb “naked.” This probably does not refer to complete nudity, but to stripping off one’s outer garments as an outward sign of the destitution felt by the mourner.

¹¹ tn Heb “I will make lamentation.”

¹² tn Or “a jackal”; CEV “howling wolves.”

¹³ tn Heb “[make] a mourning.”

¹⁴ tn Or perhaps “ostrich” (cf. ASV, NAB, NASB, NRSV, NLT).