2 Samuel 13:3-5

13:3 Now Amnon had a friend named Jonadab, the son of David’s brother Shimeah. Jonadab was a very crafty man. 13:4 He asked Amnon, ¹  “Why are you, the king’s son, ²  so depressed every morning? Can’t you tell me?” So Amnon said to him, “I’m in love with Tamar the sister of my brother Absalom.” 13:5 Jonadab replied to him, “Lie down on your bed and pretend to be sick. ³  When your father comes in to see you, say to him, ‘Please let my sister Tamar come in so she can fix some food for me. Let her prepare the food in my sight so I can watch. Then I will eat from her hand.’”

2 Samuel 13:1

The Rape of Tamar

13:1 Now David’s son Absalom had a beautiful sister named Tamar. In the course of time David’s son Amnon fell madly in love with her. ⁴ 

2 Samuel 21:7

21:7 The king had mercy on Mephibosheth son of Jonathan, the son of Saul, in light of the Lord’s oath that had been taken between David and Jonathan son of Saul.

2 Samuel 21:1-2

The Gibeonites Demand Revenge

21:1 During David’s reign there was a famine for three consecutive years. So David inquired of the Lord. ⁵  The Lord said, “It is because of Saul and his bloodstained family, ⁶  because he murdered the Gibeonites.”

21:2 So the king summoned the Gibeonites and spoke with them. (Now the Gibeonites were not descendants of Israel; they were a remnant of the Amorites. The Israelites had made a promise to ⁷  them, but Saul tried to kill them because of his zeal for the people of Israel and Judah.)

2 Samuel 22:3-4

22:3 My God ⁸  is my rocky summit where I take shelter, ⁹ 

my shield, the horn that saves me, ¹⁰  my stronghold,

my refuge, my savior. You save me from violence! ¹¹ 

22:4 I called ¹²  to the Lord, who is worthy of praise, ¹³ 

and I was delivered from my enemies.

Mark 6:19-24

6:19 So Herodias nursed a grudge against him and wanted to kill him. But ¹⁴  she could not 6:20 because Herod stood in awe of ¹⁵  John and protected him, since he knew that John ¹⁶  was a righteous and holy man. When Herod ¹⁷  heard him, he was thoroughly baffled, ¹⁸  and yet ¹⁹  he liked to listen to John. ²⁰ 

6:21 But ²¹  a suitable day ²²  came, when Herod gave a banquet on his birthday for his court officials, military commanders, and leaders of Galilee. 6:22 When his daughter Herodias ²³  came in and danced, she pleased Herod and his dinner guests. The king said to the girl, “Ask me for whatever you want and I will give it to you.” 6:23 He swore to her, ²⁴  “Whatever you ask I will give you, up to half my kingdom.” ²⁵  6:24 So ²⁶  she went out and said to her mother, “What should I ask for?” Her mother ²⁷  said, “The head of John the baptizer.” ²⁸ 

[13:4]  ¹ tn Heb “and he said to him.”

[13:4]  ² tn An more idiomatic translation might be “Why are you of all people…?”

[13:5]  ³ tn This verb is used in the Hitpael stem only in this chapter of the Hebrew Bible. With the exception of v. 2 it describes not a real sickness but one pretended in order to entrap Tamar. The Hitpael sometimes, as here, describes the subject making oneself appear to be of a certain character. On this use of the stem, see GKC 149-50 §54.e.

[13:1]  ⁴ tn Heb “Amnon the son of David loved her.” The following verse indicates the extreme nature of his infatuation, so the translation uses “madly in love” here.

[21:1]  ⁵ tn Heb “sought the face of the Lord.”

[21:1]  ⁶ tn Heb “and the house of bloodshed.”

[21:2]  ⁷ tn Heb “swore an oath to.”

[22:3]  ⁸ tc The translation (along with many English versions, e.g., NAB, NIV, NRSV, NLT) follows the LXX in reading אֱלֹהִי (’elohi, “my God”) rather than MT’s אֱלֹהֵי (’elohe, “the God of”). See Ps 18:2.

[22:3]  ⁹ tn Or “in whom.”

[22:3]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “the horn of my salvation,” or “my saving horn.”

[22:3]  ¹¹ tn The parallel version of the song in Ps 18 does not include this last line.

[22:4]  ¹² tn In this song of thanksgiving, where David recalls how the Lord delivered him, the prefixed verbal form is best understood as a preterite indicating past tense (cf. CEV “I prayed”), not an imperfect (as in many English versions).

[22:4]  ¹³ tn Heb “worthy of praise, I cried out [to] the Lord.” Some take מְהֻלָּל (mÿhullal, “worthy of praise”) with what precedes and translate, “the praiseworthy one,” or “praiseworthy.” However, the various epithets in vv. 1-2 have the first person pronominal suffix, unlike מְהֻלָּל. If one follows the traditional verse division and takes מְהֻלָּל with what follows, it is best understood as substantival and as appositional to יְהוָה (yÿhvah, “Yahweh”), resulting in “[to the] praiseworthy one I cried out, [to the] Lord.”

[6:19]  ¹⁴ tn Grk “and.” Here καί (kai) has been translated as “but” to indicate the contrast present in this context.

[6:20]  ¹⁵ tn Grk “was fearing,” “was respecting”; the imperfect tense connotes an ongoing fear or respect for John.

[6:20]  ¹⁶ tn Grk “he”; the referent (John) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[6:20]  ¹⁷ tn Grk “he”; the referent (Herod) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[6:20]  ¹⁸ tc In place of ἠπόρει (hporei, “he was baffled”) the majority of mss (A C D ˹ 33 Ï lat sy) have ἐποίει (epoiei, “he did”; cf. KJV’s “he did many things.”) The best mss (א B L [W] Θ 2427 co) support the reading followed in the translation. The variation may be no more than a simple case of confusion of letters, since the two readings look very much alike. The verb ποιέω (poiew, “I do”) certainly occurs more frequently than ἀπορέω (aporew, “I am at a loss”), so a scribe would be more likely to write a more familiar word. Further, even though the reading ἐποίει is the harder reading in terms of the sense, it is virtually nonsensical here, rendering it most likely an unintentional corruption.

[6:20]  ¹⁹ tn Grk “and.” Here καί (kai) has been translated as “and yet” to indicate the concessive nature of the final clause.

[6:20]  ²⁰ tn Grk “him”; the referent (John) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[6:21]  ²¹ tn Grk “And.” Here καί (kai) has been translated as “but” to indicate the contrast present in this context.

[6:21]  ²² tn Grk “a day of opportunity”; cf. BDAG 407 s.v. εὔκαιρος, “in our lit. only pert. to time than is considered a favorable occasion for some event or circumstance, well-timed, suitable.”

[6:22]  ²³ tc Behind “his daughter Herodias” is a most difficult textual problem. The reading adopted in the translation, τῆς θυγατρὸς αὐτοῦ ῾Ηρῳδιάδος (th" qugatro" aujtou Jerwdiado"), is supported by א B D L Δ 565 pc; it is also the most difficult reading internally since it describes Herodias as Herod’s daughter. Other readings are less awkward, but they do not have adequate external support. The reading τῆς θυγατρὸς αὐτῆς τῆς ῾Ηρῳδιάδος (th" qugatro" auth" th" &erwdiado", “the daughter of Herodias herself”) is supported by A C (W) Θ Ë¹³ 33 Ï, but this is also grammatically awkward. The easiest reading, τῆς θυγατρὸς τῆς ῾Ηρῳδιάδος (“the daughter of Herodias”) is supported by ˹ pc, but this reading probably arose from an accidental omission of αὐτῆς in the previous reading. The reading τῆς θυγατρὸς αὐτοῦ ῾Ηρῳδιάδος, despite its historical difficulties, is most likely original due to external attestation and the fact that it most likely gave rise to the other readings as scribes sought to correct it.

[6:23]  ²⁴ tc ‡ The witnesses here support several different readings: αὐτῇ πολλά (auth polla, “to her insistently”) is found in D Θ 565 700 it; πολλά is the reading of Ì^45vid 28; both words are lacking in L pc; and א A B C^2vid ˹³ 33 2427 Ï lat have just αὐτῇ. The best candidates for authenticity, on external grounds, are αὐτῇ πολλά and αὐτῇ. So the issue revolves around whether πολλά is part of the text. On the one hand, πολλά used adverbially is a distinctive Markanism (10 of the 16 NT instances are found in Mark; of the other Gospels, Matthew alone adds a single example [Matt 9:14]). It could be argued that such an unremarkable term would go unnoticed by the scribes, and consequently would not have been inserted in imitation of Mark’s style observed elsewhere. On the other hand, the largest cluster of instances of an adverbial πολλά are in Mark 5-6, with the most recent example coming just three verses earlier (Mark 5:23, 38, 43; 6:20). Scribes may well have imitated the usage so recently and so frequently seen. Further, the best Alexandrian witnesses, as well as good representatives of the Western and Byzantines texts, lack πολλά. On the whole, though a decision is difficult, it is probably best to read the text without πολλά. NA²⁷ places the word in brackets, indicating some doubt as to its authenticity.

[6:23]  ²⁵ sn The expression up to half my kingdom is a proverbial comment meaning “great wealth.”

[6:24]  ²⁶ tn Here καί (kai) has been translated as “so” to indicate the implied result of previous action(s) in the narrative.

[6:24]  ²⁷ tn Grk “She said”; the referent (the girl’s mother) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[6:24]  ²⁸ tn While Matthew and Luke consistently use the noun βαπτίστης (baptisths, “the Baptist”) to refer to John, as a kind of a title, Mark employs the substantival participle ὁ βαπτίζων (Jo baptizwn, “the one who baptizes, the baptizer”) to describe him (though twice he does use the noun [Mark 6:25; 8:28]).