20:23 Now Joab was the general in command of all the army of Israel. Benaiah the son of Jehoida was over the Kerethites and the Perethites.
20:1 Now a wicked man 2 named Sheba son of Bicri, a Benjaminite, 3 happened to be there. He blew the trumpet 4 and said,
“We have no share in David;
we have no inheritance in this son of Jesse!
Every man go home, 5 O Israel!”
22:14 The Lord thundered 6 from the sky;
the sovereign One 7 shouted loudly. 8
1 tn Heb “Betah” (so KJV, NASB, NRSV), but the name should probably be corrected to “Tebah.” See the parallel text in 1 Chr 18:8.
2 tn Heb “a man of worthlessness.”
3 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.
4 tn Heb “the shophar” (the ram’s horn trumpet). So also v. 22.
5 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.
6 tn The shortened theme vowel indicates that the prefixed verbal form is a preterite.
7 tn Heb “the Most High.” This divine title (עֶלְיוֹן, ’elyon) pictures God as the exalted ruler of the universe who vindicates the innocent and judges the wicked. See especially Ps 47:2.
8 tn Heb “offered his voice.” In this poetic narrative context the prefixed verbal form is best understood as a preterite indicating past tense, not an imperfect. Note the preterite form in the preceding line. The text of Ps 18:13 adds at this point, “hail and coals of fire.” These words are probably accidentally added from v. 12b; they do not appear in 2 Sam 22:14.