2 Samuel 11:3

11:3 So David sent someone to inquire about the woman. The messenger ¹  said, “Isn’t this Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam, the wife of Uriah the Hittite?”

2 Samuel 11:26-27

11:26 When Uriah’s wife heard that her husband Uriah was dead, she mourned for him. ²  11:27 When the time of mourning passed, David had her brought to his palace. ³  She became his wife and she bore him a son. But what David had done upset the Lord. ⁴ 

2 Samuel 11:1

David Commits Adultery with Bathsheba

11:1 In the spring of the year, at the time when kings ⁵  normally conduct wars, ⁶  David sent out Joab with his officers ⁷  and the entire Israelite army. ⁸  They defeated the Ammonites and besieged Rabbah. But David stayed behind in Jerusalem. ⁹ 

2 Samuel 1:11-17

1:11 David then grabbed his own clothes ¹⁰  and tore them, as did all the men who were with him. 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.

1:13 David said to the young man who told this to him, “Where are you from?” He replied, “I am an Amalekite, the son of a resident foreigner.” ¹¹  1:14 David replied to him, “How is it that you were not afraid to reach out your hand to destroy the Lord’s anointed?” 1:15 Then David called one of the soldiers ¹²  and said, “Come here and strike him down!” So he struck him down, and he died. 1:16 David said to him, “Your blood be on your own head! Your own mouth has testified against you, saying ‘I have put the Lord’s anointed to death.’”

David’s Tribute to Saul and Jonathan

1:17 Then David chanted this lament over Saul and his son Jonathan.

2 Samuel 1:1

David Learns of the Deaths of Saul and Jonathan

1:1 After the death of Saul, ¹³  when David had returned from defeating the Amalekites, ¹⁴  he stayed at Ziklag ¹⁵  for two days.

2 Samuel 15:5

15:5 When someone approached to bow before him, Absalom ¹⁶  would extend his hand and embrace him and kiss him.

Romans 8:3

8:3 For God achieved what the law could not do because ¹⁷  it was weakened through the flesh. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and concerning sin, he condemned sin in the flesh,

[11:3]  ¹ tn Heb “he”; the referent (the messenger) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[11:26]  ² tn Heb “for her lord.”

[11:27]  ³ tn Heb “David sent and gathered her to his house.”

[11:27]  ⁴ tn Heb “and the thing which David had done was evil in the eyes of the Lord.” Note the verbal connection with v. 25. Though David did not regard the matter as evil, the Lord certainly did.

[11:1]  ⁵ 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]  ⁶ tn Heb “go out.”

[11:1]  ⁷ tn Heb “and his servants with him.”

[11:1]  ⁸ tn Heb “all Israel.”

[11:1]  ⁹ tn The disjunctive clause contrasts David’s inactivity with the army’s activity.

[1:11]  ¹⁰ tc The present translation follows the Qere and many medieval Hebrew mss in reading “his garments,” rather than “his garment,” the reading of the Kethib.

[1:13]  ¹¹ tn The Hebrew word used here refers to a foreigner whose social standing was something less than that of native residents of the land, but something more than that of a nonresident alien who was merely passing through.

[1:15]  ¹² tn Heb “young men.”

[1:1]  ¹³ sn This chapter is closely linked to 1 Sam 31. It should be kept in mind that 1 and 2 Samuel were originally a single book, not separate volumes. Whereas in English Bible tradition the books of Samuel, Kings, Chronicles, and Ezra-Nehemiah are each regarded as two separate books, this was not the practice in ancient Hebrew tradition. Early canonical records, for example, counted them as single books respectively. The division into two books goes back to the Greek translation of the OT and was probably initiated because of the cumbersome length of copies due to the Greek practice (unlike that of Hebrew) of writing vowels. The present division into two books can be a little misleading in terms of perceiving the progression of the argument of the book; in some ways it is preferable to treat the books of 1-2 Samuel in a unified fashion.

[1:1]  ¹⁴ sn The Amalekites were a nomadic people who inhabited Judah and the Transjordan. They are mentioned in Gen 36:15-16 as descendants of Amalek who in turn descended from Esau. In Exod 17:8-16 they are described as having acted in a hostile fashion toward Israel as the Israelites traveled to Canaan from Egypt. In David’s time the Amalekites were viewed as dangerous enemies who raided, looted, and burned Israelite cities (see 1 Sam 30).

[1:1]  ¹⁵ sn Ziklag was a city in the Negev which had been given to David by Achish king of Gath. For more than a year David used it as a base from which he conducted military expeditions (see 1 Sam 27:5-12). According to 1 Sam 30:1-19, Ziklag was destroyed by the Amalekites while Saul fought the Philistines.

[15:5]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “he”; the referent (Absalom) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[8:3]  ¹⁷ tn Grk “in that.”