2 Samuel 1:9

1:9 He said to me, ‘Stand over me and finish me off! ¹  I’m very dizzy, ²  even though I’m still alive.’ ³ 

2 Samuel 2:27

2:27 Joab replied, “As surely as God lives, if you had not said this, it would have been morning before the people would have abandoned pursuit ⁴  of their brothers!”

2 Samuel 3:9

3:9 God will severely judge Abner ⁵  if I do not do for David exactly what the Lord has promised him, ⁶ 

2 Samuel 12:19

12:19 When David saw that his servants were whispering to one another, he ⁷  realized that the child was dead. So David asked his servants, “Is the child dead?” They replied, “Yes, he’s dead.”

[1:9]  ¹ tn As P. K. McCarter (II Samuel [AB], 59) points out, the Polel of the verb מוּת (mut, “to die”) “refers to dispatching or ‘finishing off’ someone already wounded and near death.” Cf. NLT “put me out of my misery.”

[1:9]  ² tn Heb “the dizziness has seized me.” On the meaning of the Hebrew noun translated “dizziness,” see P. K. McCarter, II Samuel (AB), 59-60. The point seems to be that he is unable to kill himself because he is weak and disoriented.

[1:9]  ³ tn The Hebrew text here is grammatically very awkward (Heb “because all still my life in me”). Whether the broken construct phrase is due to the fact that the alleged speaker is in a confused state of mind as he is on the verge of dying, or whether the MT has sustained corruption in the transmission process, is not entirely clear. The former seems likely, although P. K. McCarter understands the MT to be the result of conflation of two shorter forms of text (P. K. McCarter, II Samuel [AB], 57, n. 9). Early translators also struggled with the verse, apparently choosing to leave part of the Hebrew text untranslated. For example, the Lucianic recension of the LXX lacks “all,” while other witnesses (namely, one medieval Hebrew ms, codices A and B of the LXX, and the Syriac Peshitta) lack “still.”

[2:27]  ⁴ tn The Hebrew verb נַעֲלָה (na’alah) used here is the Niphal perfect 3rd person masculine singular of עָלָה (’alah, “to go up”). In the Niphal this verb “is used idiomatically, of getting away from so as to abandon…especially of an army raising a siege…” (see S. R. Driver, Notes on the Hebrew Text and the Topography of the Books of Samuel, 244).

[3:9]  ⁷ tn Heb “So will God do to Abner and so he will add to him.”

[3:9]  ⁸ tc Heb “has sworn to David.” The LXX, with the exception of the recension of Origen, adds “in this day.”

[12:19]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “David.” The name has been replaced in the translation by the pronoun (“he”) for stylistic reasons.