2 Samuel 11:18-21

11:18 Then Joab sent a full battle report to David. ¹  11:19 He instructed the messenger as follows: “When you finish giving the battle report to the king, 11:20 if the king becomes angry and asks you, ‘Why did you go so close to the city to fight? Didn’t you realize they would shoot from the wall? 11:21 Who struck down Abimelech the son of Jerub-Besheth? Didn’t a woman throw an upper millstone ²  down on him from the wall so that he died in Thebez? Why did you go so close to the wall?’ just say to him, ‘Your servant Uriah the Hittite is also dead.’”

2 Samuel 11:1

David Commits Adultery with Bathsheba

11:1 In the spring of the year, at the time when kings ³  normally conduct wars, ⁴  David sent out Joab with his officers ⁵  and the entire Israelite army. ⁶  They defeated the Ammonites and besieged Rabbah. But David stayed behind in Jerusalem. ⁷ 

2 Samuel 21:14

21:14 They buried the bones of Saul and his son Jonathan in the land of Benjamin at Zela in the grave of his father Kish. After they had done everything ⁸  that the king had commanded, God responded to their prayers ⁹  for the land.

Mark 6:28

6:28 He brought his head on a platter and gave it to the girl, and the girl gave it to her mother.

[11:18]  ¹ tn Heb “Joab sent and related to David all the matters of the battle.”

[11:21]  ² sn The upper millstone (Heb “millstone of riding”) refers to the heavy circular stone that was commonly rolled over a circular base in order to crush and grind such things as olives.

[11:1]  ³ tc Codex Leningrad (B19A), on which BHS is based, has here “messengers” (הַמַּלְאכִים, hammal’khim), probably as the result of contamination from the occurrence of that word in v. 4. The present translation follows most Hebrew mss and the ancient versions, which read “kings” (הַמֶּלָאכִים, hammela’kim).

[11:1]  ⁴ tn Heb “go out.”

[11:1]  ⁵ tn Heb “and his servants with him.”

[11:1]  ⁶ tn Heb “all Israel.”

[11:1]  ⁷ tn The disjunctive clause contrasts David’s inactivity with the army’s activity.

[21:14]  ⁸ tc Many medieval Hebrew mss have here כְּכֹל (kÿkhol, “according to all”).

[21:14]  ⁹ tn Heb “was entreated.” The verb is an example of the so-called niphal tolerativum, with the sense that God allowed himself to be supplicated through prayer (cf. GKC 137 §51.c).