8:16 Joab son of Zeruiah was general in command of 1 the army; Jehoshaphat son of Ahilud was secretary;
20:1 Now a wicked man 4 named Sheba son of Bicri, a Benjaminite, 5 happened to be there. He blew the trumpet 6 and said,
“We have no share in David;
we have no inheritance in this son of Jesse!
Every man go home, 7 O Israel!”
1 tn Heb “was over.”
2 tn Heb “Adoram” (so KJV, NAB, NRSV, CEV), but see 1 Kgs 4:6; 5:14.
3 tn Heb “was over the forced labor.”
4 tn Heb “a man of worthlessness.”
5 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.
6 tn Heb “the shophar” (the ram’s horn trumpet). So also v. 22.
7 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.
8 tn Heb “until this day.”
9 tc The present translation, “Saul’s son had two men,” is based on the reading “to the son of Saul,” rather than the MT’s “the son of Saul.” The context requires the preposition to indicate the family relationship.
10 tc The present translation reads with the Qere and many medieval Hebrew