2 Samuel 7:13

7:13 He will build a house for my name, and I will make his dynasty permanent. ¹ 

2 Samuel 7:1

The Lord Establishes a Covenant with David

7:1 The king settled into his palace, ²  for the Lord gave him relief ³  from all his enemies on all sides. ⁴ 

2 Samuel 17:12

17:12 We will come against him wherever he happens to be found. We will descend on him like the dew falls on the ground. Neither he nor any of the men who are with him will be spared alive – not one of them!

2 Samuel 22:10-11

22:10 He made the sky sink ⁵  as he descended;

a thick cloud was under his feet.

22:11 He mounted ⁶  a winged angel ⁷  and flew;

he glided ⁸  on the wings of the wind. ⁹ 

2 Samuel 1:6

1:6 The young man who was telling him this ¹⁰  said, “I just happened to be on Mount Gilboa and came across Saul leaning on his spear for support. The chariots and leaders of the horsemen were in hot pursuit of him.

2 Samuel 1:10

1:10 So I stood over him and put him to death, since I knew that he couldn’t live in such a condition. ¹¹  Then I took the crown which was on his head and the ¹²  bracelet which was on his arm. I have brought them here to my lord.” ¹³ 

2 Samuel 1:20

1:20 Don’t report it in Gath,

don’t spread the news in the streets of Ashkelon, ¹⁴ 

or the daughters of the Philistines will rejoice,

the daughters of the uncircumcised will celebrate!

2 Samuel 1:2

1:2 On the third day a man arrived from the camp of Saul with his clothes torn and dirt on his head. ¹⁵  When he approached David, the man ¹⁶  threw himself to the ground. ¹⁷ 

2 Samuel 6:2

6:2 David and all the men who were with him traveled ¹⁸  to ¹⁹  Baalah ²⁰  in Judah to bring up from there the ark of God which is called by the name ²¹  of the Lord of hosts, who sits enthroned between the cherubim that are on it.

¹ tn Heb “and I will establish the throne of his kingdom permanently.”

² tn Heb “house” (also in the following verse).

³ tn Or “rest.”

⁴ tn The translation understands the disjunctive clause in v. 1b as circumstantial-causal.

⁵ tn The verb נָטָה (natah) can carry the sense “[to cause to] bend; [to cause to] bow down” (see HALOT 693 s.v. נָטָה). For example, Gen 49:15 pictures Issachar as a donkey that “bends” its shoulder or back under a burden (cf. KJV, NASB, NRSV “He bowed the heavens”; NAB “He inclined the heavens”). Here the Lord causes the sky, pictured as a dome or vault, to bend or sink down as he descends in the storm.

⁶ tn Or “rode upon.”

⁷ tn Heb “a cherub” (so KJV, NAB, NRSV); NIV “the cherubim” (plural); TEV “his winged creature”; CEV “flying creatures.”

⁸ tc The translation follows very many medieval Hebrew mss in reading וַיֵּדֶא (vayyÿde’, “and he glided”; cf. NIV “soared”; NCV “raced”) rather than MT וַיֵּרָא (vayyera’, “and he appeared,” so NASB, CEV). See as well the Syriac Peshitta, Targum, Vulgate, and the parallel version in Ps 18:10, which preserves the original reading (see the note there).

⁹ sn The wings of the wind. Verse 10 may depict the Lord mounting a cherub, which is in turn propelled by the wind current. Another option is that two different vehicles (a cherub and the wind) are envisioned. A third option is that the wind is personified as a cherub. For a discussion of ancient Near Eastern parallels to the imagery in v. 10, see M. Weinfeld, “‘Rider of the Clouds’ and ‘Gatherer of the Clouds’,” JANESCU 5 (1973): 422-24.

¹⁰ tc The Syriac Peshitta and one ms of the LXX lack the words “who was telling him this” of the MT.

¹¹ tn Heb “after his falling”; NAB “could not survive his wound”; CEV “was too badly wounded to live much longer.”

¹² tc The MT lacks the definite article, but this is likely due to textual corruption. It is preferable to read the alef (א) of אֶצְעָדָה (’ets’adah) as a ה (he) giving הַצְּעָדָה (hatsÿ’adah). There is no reason to think that the soldier confiscated from Saul’s dead body only one of two or more bracelets that he was wearing (cf. NLT “one of his bracelets”).

¹³ sn The claims that the soldier is making here seem to contradict the story of Saul’s death as presented in 1 Sam 31:3-5. In that passage it appears that Saul took his own life, not that he was slain by a passerby who happened on the scene. Some scholars account for the discrepancy by supposing that conflicting accounts have been brought together in the MT. However, it is likely that the young man is here fabricating the account in a self-serving way so as to gain favor with David, or so he supposes. He probably had come across Saul’s corpse, stolen the crown and bracelet from the body, and now hopes to curry favor with David by handing over to him these emblems of Saul’s royalty. But in so doing the Amalekite greatly miscalculated David’s response to this alleged participation in Saul’s death. The consequence of his lies will instead be his own death.

¹⁴ sn The cities of Gath and Ashkelon are mentioned here by synecdoche of part for the whole. As major Philistine cities they in fact represent all of Philistia. The point is that when the sad news of fallen Israelite leadership reaches the Philistines, it will be for these enemies of Israel the occasion of great joy rather than grief.

¹⁵ sn Tearing one’s clothing and throwing dirt on one’s head were outward expressions of grief in the ancient Near East, where such demonstrable reactions were a common response to tragic news.

¹⁶ tn Heb “he”; the referent (the man mentioned at the beginning of v. 2) has been specified in the translation to avoid confusion as to who fell to the ground.

¹⁷ tn Heb “he fell to the ground and did obeisance.”

¹⁸ tn Heb “arose and went.”

¹⁹ tn Heb “from,” but the following context indicates they traveled to this location.

²⁰ tn This is another name for Kiriath-jearim (see 1 Chr 13:6).

²¹ 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.