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. ¹  When he approached David, the man ²  threw himself to the ground. ³ 

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. ⁴  Then I took the crown which was on his head and the ⁵  bracelet which was on his arm. I have brought them here to my lord.” ⁶ 

2 Samuel 12:30

12:30 He took the crown of their king ⁷  from his head – it was gold, weighed about seventy-five pounds, ⁸  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 15:30

15:30 As David was going up the Mount of Olives, he was weeping as he went; his head was covered and his feet were bare. All the people who were with him also had their heads covered and were weeping as they went up.

2 Samuel 16:9

16:9 Then Abishai son of Zeruiah said to the king, “Why should this dead dog curse my lord the king? Let me go over and cut off his head!”

2 Samuel 18:9

18:9 Then Absalom happened to come across David’s men. Now as Absalom was riding on his ⁹  mule, it ¹⁰  went under the branches of a large oak tree. His head got caught in the oak and he was suspended in midair, ¹¹  while the mule he had been riding kept going.

[1:2]  ¹ 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.

[1:2]  ² 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.

[1:2]  ³ tn Heb “he fell to the ground and did obeisance.”

[1:10]  ⁴ tn Heb “after his falling”; NAB “could not survive his wound”; CEV “was too badly wounded to live much longer.”

[1:10]  ⁵ 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”).

[1:10]  ⁶ 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.

[12:30]  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.”

[12:30]  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.

[18:9]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “the.”

[18:9]  ¹¹ tn Heb “the donkey.”

[18:9]  ¹² tn Heb “between the sky and the ground.”