2 Samuel 8:2

8:2 He defeated the Moabites. He made them lie on the ground and then used a rope to measure them off. He put two-thirds of them to death and spared the other third. ¹  The Moabites became David’s subjects and brought tribute. ² 

2 Samuel 11:27

11:27 When the time of mourning passed, David had her brought to his palace. ³  She became his wife and she bore him a son. But what David had done upset the Lord. ⁴ 

2 Samuel 12:3

12:3 But the poor man had nothing except for a little lamb he had acquired. He raised it, and it grew up alongside him and his children. ⁵  It used to ⁶  eat his food, ⁷  drink from his cup, and sleep in his arms. ⁸  It was just like a daughter to him.

2 Samuel 12:30

12:30 He took the crown of their king ⁹  from his head – it was gold, weighed about seventy-five pounds, ¹⁰  and held a precious stone – and it was placed on David’s head. He also took from the city a great deal of plunder.

2 Samuel 21:19-20

21:19 Yet another battle occurred with the Philistines in Gob. On that occasion Elhanan the son of Jair ¹¹  the Bethlehemite killed the brother of Goliath the Gittite, ¹²  the shaft of whose spear was like a weaver’s beam. 21:20 Yet another battle occurred in Gath. On that occasion there was a large man ¹³  who had six fingers on each hand and six toes on each foot, twenty-four in all! He too was a descendant of Rapha.

2 Samuel 24:9

24:9 Joab reported the number of warriors ¹⁴  to the king. In Israel there were 800,000 sword-wielding warriors, and in Judah there were 500,000 soldiers.

¹ tn Heb “and he measured [with] two [lengths] of rope to put to death and [with] the fullness of the rope to keep alive.”

² tn Heb “and the Moabites were servants of David, carriers of tribute.”

³ tn Heb “David sent and gathered her to his house.”

⁴ tn Heb “and the thing which David had done was evil in the eyes of the Lord.” Note the verbal connection with v. 25. Though David did not regard the matter as evil, the Lord certainly did.

⁵ tn Heb “his sons.”

⁶ tn The three Hebrew imperfect verbal forms in this sentence have a customary nuance; they describe past actions that were repeated or typical.

⁷ tn Heb “from his morsel.”

⁸ tn Heb “and on his chest [or perhaps, “lap”] it would lay.”

⁷ tn Part of the Greek tradition wrongly understands Hebrew מַלְכָּם (malkam, “their king”) as a proper name (“Milcom”). Some English versions follow the Greek here, rendering the phrase “the crown of Milcom” (so NRSV; cf. also NAB, CEV). TEV takes this as a reference not to the Ammonite king but to “the idol of the Ammonite god Molech.”

⁸ tn Heb “and its weight [was] a talent of gold.” The weight of this ornamental crown was approximately 75 lbs (34 kg). See P. K. McCarter, II Samuel (AB), 313.

⁹ tn Heb “Jaare-Oregim,” but the second word, which means “weavers,” is probably accidentally included. It appears at the end of the verse. The term is omitted in the parallel account in 1 Chr 20:5, which has simply “Jair.”

¹⁰ sn The Hebrew text as it stands reads, “Elhanan son of Jaare-Oregim the Bethlehemite killed Goliath the Gittite.” Who killed Goliath the Gittite? According to 1 Sam 17:4-58 it was David who killed Goliath, but according to the MT of 2 Sam 21:19 it was Elhanan who killed him. Many scholars believe that the two passages are hopelessly at variance with one another. Others have proposed various solutions to the difficulty, such as identifying David with Elhanan or positing the existence of two Goliaths. But in all likelihood the problem is the result of difficulties in the textual transmission of the Samuel passage; in fact, from a text-critical point of view the books of Samuel are the most poorly preserved of all the books of the Hebrew Bible. The parallel passage in 1 Chr 20:5 reads, “Elhanan son of Jair killed Lahmi the brother of Goliath.” Both versions are textually corrupt. The Chronicles text has misread “Bethlehemite” (בֵּית הַלַּחְמִי, bet hallakhmi) as the accusative sign followed by a proper name אֶת לַחְמִי (’et lakhmi). (See the note at 1 Chr 20:5.) The Samuel text misread the word for “brother” (אַח, ’akh) as the accusative sign (אֵת, ’et), thereby giving the impression that Elhanan, not David, killed Goliath. Thus in all probability the original text read, “Elhanan son of Jair the Bethlehemite killed the brother of Goliath.”

¹¹ tn Heb “a man of stature.”

¹³ tn Heb “and Joab gave the number of the numbering of the people.”