2 Samuel 11:11

11:11 Uriah replied to David, “The ark and Israel and Judah reside in temporary shelters, and my lord Joab and my lord’s soldiers are camping in the open field. Should I go to my house to eat and drink and have marital relations ¹  with my wife? As surely as you are alive, ²  I will not do this thing!”

2 Samuel 10:8

10:8 The Ammonites marched out and were deployed for battle at the entrance of the city gate, while the men from Aram Zobah, Rehob, Ish-tob, and Maacah were by themselves in the field.

2 Samuel 22:10

22:10 He made the sky sink ³  as he descended;

a thick cloud was under his feet.

2 Samuel 22:33

22:33 The one true God ⁴  is my mighty refuge; ⁵ 

he removes ⁶  the obstacles in my way. ⁷ 

2 Samuel 11:23

11:23 The messenger said to David, “The men overpowered us and attacked us ⁸  in the field. But we forced them to retreat all the way ⁹  to the door of the city gate.

2 Samuel 12:12

12:12 Although you have acted in secret, I will do this thing before all Israel, and in broad daylight.’” ¹⁰ 

2 Samuel 22:20

22:20 He brought me out into a wide open place;

he delivered me because he was pleased with me. ¹¹ 

2 Samuel 17:19

17:19 His wife then took the covering and spread it over the top of the well and scattered some grain over it. No one was aware of what she had done.

2 Samuel 7:27

7:27 for you, O Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, have told ¹²  your servant, ‘I will build you a dynastic house.’ ¹³  That is why your servant has had the courage ¹⁴  to pray this prayer to you.

2 Samuel 3:29

3:29 May his blood whirl over ¹⁵  the head of Joab and the entire house of his father! ¹⁶  May the males of Joab’s house ¹⁷  never cease to have ¹⁸  someone with a running sore or a skin disease or one who works at the spindle ¹⁹  or one who falls by the sword or one who lacks food!”

2 Samuel 6:20

6:20 When David went home to pronounce a blessing on his own house, ²⁰  Michal, Saul’s daughter, came out to meet him. ²¹  She said, “How the king of Israel has distinguished ²²  himself this day! He has exposed himself today before his servants’ slave girls the way a vulgar fool ²³  might do!”

2 Samuel 21:12

21:12 he ²⁴  went and took the bones of Saul and of his son Jonathan ²⁵  from the leaders ²⁶  of Jabesh Gilead. (They had secretly taken ²⁷  them from the plaza at Beth Shan. It was there that Philistines ²⁸  publicly exposed their corpses ²⁹  after ³⁰  they ³¹  had killed Saul at Gilboa.)

[11:11]  ¹ tn Heb “and lay.”

[11:11]  ² tn Heb “as you live and as your soul lives.”

[22:10]  ³ tn The verb נָטָה (natah) can carry the sense “[to cause to] bend; [to cause to] bow down” (see HALOT 693 s.v. נָטָה). For example, Gen 49:15 pictures Issachar as a donkey that “bends” its shoulder or back under a burden (cf. KJV, NASB, NRSV “He bowed the heavens”; NAB “He inclined the heavens”). Here the Lord causes the sky, pictured as a dome or vault, to bend or sink down as he descends in the storm.

[22:33]  ⁵ tn Heb “the God.” See the note at v. 31.

[22:33]  ⁶ tc 4QSam^a has מְאַזְּרֵנִי (mÿ’azzÿreni, “the one girding me with strength”) rather than the MT מָעוּזִּי (ma’uzzi, “my refuge”). See as well Ps 18:32.

[22:33]  ⁷ tn The prefixed verbal form with vav consecutive here carries along the generalizing tone of the preceding line.

[22:33]  ⁸ tn Heb “and he sets free (from the verb נָתַר, natar) [the] blameless, his [Kethib; “my” (Qere)] way.” The translation follows Ps 18:32 in reading “he made my path smooth.” The term תָּמִים (tamim, “smooth”) usually carries a moral or ethical connotation, “blameless, innocent.” However, in Ps 18:33 it refers to a pathway free of obstacles. The reality underlying the metaphor is the psalmist’s ability to charge into battle without tripping (see vv. 33, 36).

[11:23]  ⁷ tn Heb “and came out to us.”

[11:23]  ⁸ tn Heb “but we were on them.”

[12:12]  ⁹ tn Heb “and before the sun.”

[22:20]  ¹¹ tn Or “delighted in me” (so KJV, NASB, NIV, NRSV).

[7:27]  ¹³ tn Heb “have uncovered the ear of.”

[7:27]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “a house.” This maintains the wordplay from v. 11 (see the note on the word “house” there) and is continued in v. 29.

[7:27]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “has found his heart.”

[3:29]  ¹⁵ 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]  ¹⁶ tc 4QSam^a has “of Joab” rather than “of his father” read by the MT.

[3:29]  ¹⁷ 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]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “and may there not be cut off from the house of Joab.”

[3:29]  ¹⁹ 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).

[6:20]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “and David returned to bless his house.”

[6:20]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “David.” The name has been replaced by the pronoun (“him”) in the translation for stylistic reasons.

[6:20]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “honored.”

[6:20]  ²⁰ tn Heb “one of the foolish ones.”

[21:12]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “David.” For stylistic reasons the name has been replaced by the pronoun (“he”) in the translation.

[21:12]  ²⁰ tn Heb “the bones of Saul and the bones of Jonathan his son.” See also v. 13.

[21:12]  ²¹ tn Heb “lords.”

[21:12]  ²² tn Heb “stolen.”

[21:12]  ²³ tc Against the MT, this word is better read without the definite article. The MT reading is probably here the result of wrong word division, with the letter ה (he) belonging with the preceding word שָׁם (sham) as the he directive (i.e., שָׁמָּה, samah, “to there”).

[21:12]  ²⁴ tn Heb “had hung them.”

[21:12]  ²⁵ tn Heb “in the day.”

[21:12]  ²⁶ tn Heb “Philistines.”