2 Samuel 6:2

6:2 David and all the men who were with him traveled ¹  to ²  Baalah ³  in Judah to bring up from there the ark of God which is called by the name ⁴  of the Lord of hosts, who sits enthroned between the cherubim that are on it.

2 Samuel 20:1

Sheba’s Rebellion

20:1 Now a wicked man ⁵  named Sheba son of Bicri, a Benjaminite, ⁶  happened to be there. He blew the trumpet ⁷  and said,

“We have no share in David;

we have no inheritance in this son of Jesse!

Every man go home, ⁸  O Israel!”

¹ tn Heb “arose and went.”

² tn Heb “from,” but the following context indicates they traveled to this location.

³ tn This is another name for Kiriath-jearim (see 1 Chr 13:6).

⁴ 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.

⁵ tn Heb “a man of worthlessness.”

⁶ tn The expression used here יְמִינִי (yÿmini) is a short form of the more common “Benjamin.” It appears elsewhere in 1 Sam 9:4 and Esth 2:5. Cf. 1 Sam 9:1.

⁷ tn Heb “the shophar” (the ram’s horn trumpet). So also v. 22.

⁸ tc The MT reads לְאֹהָלָיו (lÿ’ohalav, “to his tents”). For a similar idiom, see 19:9. An ancient scribal tradition understands the reading to be לְאלֹהָיו (le’lohav, “to his gods”). The word is a tiqqun sopherim, and the scribes indicate that they changed the word from “gods” to “tents” so as to soften its theological implications. In a consonantal Hebrew text the change involved only the metathesis of two letters.