2 Samuel 12:30

12:30 He took the crown of their king ¹  from his head – it was gold, weighed about seventy-five pounds, ²  and held a precious stone – and it was placed on David’s head. He also took from the city a great deal of plunder.

2 Samuel 14:14

14:14 Certainly we must die, and are like water spilled on the ground that cannot be gathered up again. But God does not take away life; instead he devises ways for the banished to be restored. ³ 

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, ⁴  whoever hears about it will say, ‘Absalom’s army has been slaughtered!’

2 Samuel 21:10

21:10 Rizpah the daughter of Aiah took sackcloth and spread it out for herself on a rock. From the beginning of the harvest until the rain fell on them, ⁵  she did not allow the birds of the air to feed ⁶  on them by day, nor the wild animals ⁷  by night.

[12:30]  ¹ tn Part of the Greek tradition wrongly understands Hebrew מַלְכָּם (malkam, “their king”) as a proper name (“Milcom”). Some English versions follow the Greek here, rendering the phrase “the crown of Milcom” (so NRSV; cf. also NAB, CEV). TEV takes this as a reference not to the Ammonite king but to “the idol of the Ammonite god Molech.”

[12:30]  ² tn Heb “and its weight [was] a talent of gold.” The weight of this ornamental crown was approximately 75 lbs (34 kg). See P. K. McCarter, II Samuel (AB), 313.

[14:14]  ³ tn Heb “he devises plans for the one banished from him not to be banished.”

[17:9]  ⁵ 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].”

[21:10]  ⁷ tn Heb “until water was poured on them from the sky.”

[21:10]  ⁸ tn Heb “rest.”

[21:10]  ⁹ tn Heb “the beasts of the field.”