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 1:4

1:4 David inquired, “How were things going? ⁴  Tell me!” He replied, “The people fled from the battle and many of them ⁵  fell dead. ⁶  Even Saul and his son Jonathan are dead!”

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. ⁷  Then I took the crown which was on his head and the ⁸  bracelet which was on his arm. I have brought them here to my lord.” ⁹ 

2 Samuel 1:12

1:12 They lamented and wept and fasted until evening because Saul, his son Jonathan, the Lord’s people, and the house of Israel had fallen by the sword.

2 Samuel 3:29

3:29 May his blood whirl over ¹⁰  the head of Joab and the entire house of his father! ¹¹  May the males of Joab’s house ¹²  never cease to have ¹³  someone with a running sore or a skin disease or one who works at the spindle ¹⁴  or one who falls by the sword or one who lacks food!”

2 Samuel 4:4

4:4 Now Saul’s son Jonathan had a son who was crippled in both feet. He was five years old when the news about Saul and Jonathan arrived from Jezreel. His nurse picked him up and fled, but in her haste to get away, he fell and was injured. ¹⁵  Mephibosheth was his name.

2 Samuel 14:11

14:11 She replied, “In that case, ¹⁶  let the king invoke the name of ¹⁷  the Lord your God so that the avenger of blood may not kill! Then they will not destroy my son!” He replied, “As surely as the Lord lives, not a single hair of your son’s head ¹⁸  will fall to the ground.”

2 Samuel 14:22

14:22 Then Joab bowed down with his face toward the ground and thanked ¹⁹  the king. Joab said, “Today your servant knows that I have found favor in your sight, my lord the king, because the king has granted the request of your ²⁰  servant!”

2 Samuel 17:9

17:9 At this very moment he is hiding out in one of the caves or in some other similar place. If it should turn out that he attacks our troops first, ²¹  whoever hears about it will say, ‘Absalom’s army has been slaughtered!’

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 19:18

19:18 They crossed at the ford in order to help the king’s household cross and to do whatever he thought appropriate.

Now after he had crossed the Jordan, Shimei son of Gera threw himself down before the king.

2 Samuel 20:8

20:8 When they were near the big rock that is in Gibeon, Amasa came to them. Now Joab was dressed in military attire and had a dagger in its sheath belted to his waist. When he advanced, it fell out. ²² 

2 Samuel 20:15

20:15 So Joab’s men ²³  came and laid siege against him in Abel of Beth Maacah. They prepared a siege ramp outside the city which stood against its outer rampart. As all of Joab’s soldiers were trying to break through ²⁴  the wall so that it would collapse,

2 Samuel 21:9

21:9 He turned them over to the Gibeonites, and they executed them on a hill before the Lord. The seven of them ²⁵  died ²⁶  together; they were put to death during harvest time – during the first days of the beginning ²⁷  of the barley harvest.

[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.”

[1:4]  ⁴ tn Heb “What was the word?”

[1:4]  ⁵ tn Heb “from the people.”

[1:4]  ⁶ tn Heb “fell and died.”

[1:10]  ⁷ tn Heb “after his falling”; NAB “could not survive his wound”; CEV “was too badly wounded to live much longer.”

[1:10]  ⁸ 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]  ⁹ 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.

[3:29]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “and may they whirl over.” In the Hebrew text the subject of the plural verb is unexpressed. The most likely subject is Abner’s “shed blood” (v. 28), which is a masculine plural form in Hebrew. The verb חוּל (khul, “whirl”) is used with the preposition עַל (’al) only here and in Jer 23:19; 30:23.

[3:29]  ¹¹ tc 4QSam^a has “of Joab” rather than “of his father” read by the MT.

[3:29]  ¹² tn Heb “the house of Joab.” However, it is necessary to specify that David’s curse is aimed at Joab’s male descendants; otherwise it would not be clear that “one who works at the spindle” refers to a man doing woman’s work rather than a woman.

[3:29]  ¹³ tn Heb “and may there not be cut off from the house of Joab.”

[3:29]  ¹⁴ tn The expression used here is difficult. The translation “one who works at the spindle” follows a suggestion of S. R. Driver that the expression pejoratively describes an effeminate man who, rather than being a mighty warrior, is occupied with tasks that are normally fulfilled by women (S. R. Driver, Notes on the Hebrew Text and the Topography of the Books of Samuel, 250-51; cf. NAB “one unmanly”; TEV “fit only to do a woman’s work”; CEV “cowards”). But P. K. McCarter, following an alleged Phoenician usage of the noun to refer to “crutches,” adopts a different view. He translates the phrase “clings to a crutch,” seeing here a further description of physical lameness (II Samuel [AB], 118). Such an idea fits the present context well and is followed by NIV, NCV, and NLT, although the evidence for this meaning is questionable. According to DNWSI 2:915-16, the noun consistently refers to a spindle in Phoenician, as it does in Ugaritic (see UT 468).

[4:4]  ¹³ tn Heb “and was lame.”

[14:11]  ¹⁶ tn The words “in that case” are not in the Hebrew text, but may be inferred from the context. They are supplied in the translation for the sake of clarification.

[14:11]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “let the king remember.”

[14:11]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “of your son.”

[14:22]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “blessed.”

[14:22]  ²⁰ tc The present translation reads with the Qere “your” rather than the MT “his.”

[17:9]  ²² tn Heb “that he falls on them [i.e., Absalom’s troops] at the first [encounter]; or “that some of them [i.e., Absalom’s troops] fall at the first [encounter].”

[20:8]  ²⁵ sn The significance of the statement it fell out here is unclear. If the dagger fell out of its sheath before Joab got to Amasa, how then did he kill him? Josephus, Ant. 7.11.7 (7.284), suggested that as Joab approached Amasa he deliberately caused the dagger to fall to the ground at an opportune moment as though by accident. When he bent over and picked it up, he then stabbed Amasa with it. Others have tried to make a case for thinking that two swords are referred to – the one that fell out and another that Joab kept concealed until the last moment. But nothing in the text clearly supports this view. Perhaps Josephus’ understanding is best, but it is by no means obvious in the text either.

[20:15]  ²⁸ tn Heb “they.” The following context makes it clear that this refers to Joab and his army.

[20:15]  ²⁹ tc The LXX has here ἐνοοῦσαν (enoousan, “were devising”), which apparently presupposes the Hebrew word מַחֲשָׁבִים (makhashavim) rather than the MT מַשְׁחִיתִם (mashkhitim, “were destroying”). With a number of other scholars Driver thinks that the Greek variant may preserve the original reading, but this seems to be an unnecessary conclusion (but see S. R. Driver, Notes on the Hebrew Text and the Topography of the Books of Samuel, 346).

[21:9]  ³¹ tc The translation follows the Qere and several medieval Hebrew mss in reading שְׁבַעְתָּם (shÿva’tam, “the seven of them”) rather than MT שִׁבַעְתִּים (shiva’tim, “seventy”).

[21:9]  ³² tn Heb “fell.”

[21:9]  ³³ tc The translation follows the Qere and many medieval Hebrew mss in reading בִּתְחִלַּת (bithkhillat, “in the beginning”) rather than MT תְחִלַּת (tÿkhillat, “beginning of”).