2 Samuel 16:5-13

Shimei Curses David and His Men

16:5 Then King David reached ¹  Bahurim. There a man from Saul’s extended family named Shimei son of Gera came out, yelling curses as he approached. ²  16:6 He threw stones at David and all of King David’s servants, as well as all the people and the soldiers who were on his right and on his left. 16:7 As he yelled curses, Shimei said, “Leave! Leave! You man of bloodshed, you wicked man! ³  16:8 The Lord has punished you for ⁴  all the spilled blood of the house of Saul, in whose place you rule. Now the Lord has given the kingdom into the hand of your son Absalom. Disaster has overtaken you, for you are a man of bloodshed!”

16:9 Then Abishai son of Zeruiah said to the king, “Why should this dead dog curse my lord the king? Let me go over and cut off his head!” 16:10 But the king said, “What do we have in common, ⁵  you sons of Zeruiah? If he curses because the Lord has said to him, ‘Curse David!’, who can say to him, ‘Why have you done this?’” 16:11 Then David said to Abishai and to all his servants, “My own son, my very own flesh and blood, ⁶  is trying to take my life. So also now this Benjaminite! Leave him alone so that he can curse, for the Lord has spoken to him. 16:12 Perhaps the Lord will notice my affliction ⁷  and this day grant me good in place of his curse.” ⁸ 

16:13 So David and his men went on their way. But Shimei kept going along the side of the hill opposite him, yelling curses as he threw stones and dirt at them. ⁹ 

John 8:9

8:9 Now when they heard this, they began to drift away one at a time, starting with the older ones, ¹⁰  until Jesus was left alone with the woman standing before him.

Romans 2:15

2:15 They ¹¹  show that the work of the law is written ¹²  in their hearts, as their conscience bears witness and their conflicting thoughts accuse or else defend ¹³  them, ¹⁴ 

Romans 2:1

The Condemnation of the Moralist

2:1 ¹⁵ Therefore ¹⁶  you are without excuse, ¹⁷  whoever you are, ¹⁸  when you judge someone else. ¹⁹  For on whatever grounds ²⁰  you judge another, you condemn yourself, because you who judge practice the same things.

Romans 3:20

3:20 For no one is declared righteous before him ²¹  by the works of the law, ²²  for through the law comes ²³  the knowledge of sin.

[16:5]  ¹ tn Heb “came to.” The form of the verb in the MT is odd. Some prefer to read וַיַּבֹא (vayyavo’), preterite with vav consecutive) rather than וּבָא (uva’), apparently perfect with vav), but this is probably an instance where the narrative offline vÿqatal construction introduces a new scene.

[16:5]  ² tn Heb “And look, from there a man was coming out from the clan of the house of Saul and his name was Shimei son of Gera, continually going out and cursing.”

[16:7]  ³ tn Heb “man of worthlessness.”

[16:8]  ⁴ tn Heb “has brought back upon you.”

[16:10]  ⁵ tn Heb “What to me and to you?”

[16:11]  ⁶ tn Heb “who came out from my entrails.” David’s point is that is his own son, his child whom he himself had fathered, was now wanting to kill him.

[16:12]  ⁷ tc The Hebrew text is difficult here. It is probably preferable to read with the LXX, the Syriac Peshitta, and Vulgate בְּעוֹנִי (bÿ’onyi, “on my affliction”) rather than the Kethib of the MT בָּעַוֹנִי (ba’avoni, “on my wrongdoing”). While this Kethib reading is understandable as an objective genitive (i.e., “the wrong perpetrated upon me”), it does not conform to normal Hebrew idiom for this idea. The Qere of the MT בְּעֵינֵי (bÿ’eni, “on my eyes”), usually taken as synecdoche to mean “my tears,” does not commend itself as a likely meaning. The Hebrew word is one of the so-called tiqqune sopherim, or “emendations of the scribes.”

[16:12]  ⁸ tn Heb “and the Lord will restore to me good in place of his curse this day.”

[16:13]  ⁹ tn Heb “and he cursed and threw stones, opposite him, pelting [them] with dirt.” The offline vÿqatal construction in the last clause indicates an action that was complementary to the action described in the preceding clause. He simultaneously threw stones and dirt.

[8:9]  ¹⁰ tn Or “beginning from the eldest.”

[2:15]  ¹¹ tn Grk “who.” The relative pronoun was converted to a personal pronoun and, because of the length and complexity of the Greek sentence, a new sentence was started here in the translation.

[2:15]  ¹² tn Grk “show the work of the law [to be] written,” with the words in brackets implied by the Greek construction.

[2:15]  ¹³ tn Or “excuse.”

[2:15]  ¹⁴ tn Grk “their conscience bearing witness and between the thoughts accusing or also defending one another.”

[2:1]  ¹⁵ sn Rom 2:1-29 presents unusual difficulties for the interpreter. There have been several major approaches to the chapter and the group(s) it refers to: (1) Rom 2:14 refers to Gentile Christians, not Gentiles who obey the Jewish law. (2) Paul in Rom 2 is presenting a hypothetical viewpoint: If anyone could obey the law, that person would be justified, but no one can. (3) The reference to “the ones who do the law” in 2:13 are those who “do” the law in the right way, on the basis of faith, not according to Jewish legalism. (4) Rom 2:13 only speaks about Christians being judged in the future, along with such texts as Rom 14:10 and 2 Cor 5:10. (5) Paul’s material in Rom 2 is drawn heavily from Diaspora Judaism, so that the treatment of the law presented here cannot be harmonized with other things Paul says about the law elsewhere (E. P. Sanders, Paul, the Law, and the Jewish People, 123); another who sees Rom 2 as an example of Paul’s inconsistency in his treatment of the law is H. Räisänen, Paul and the Law [WUNT], 101-9. (6) The list of blessings and curses in Deut 27–30 provide the background for Rom 2; the Gentiles of 2:14 are Gentile Christians, but the condemnation of Jews in 2:17-24 addresses the failure of Jews as a nation to keep the law as a whole (A. Ito, “Romans 2: A Deuteronomistic Reading,” JSNT 59 [1995]: 21-37).

[2:1]  ¹⁶ tn Some interpreters (e.g., C. K. Barrett, Romans [HNTC], 43) connect the inferential Διό (dio, “therefore”) with 1:32a, treating 1:32b as a parenthetical comment by Paul.

[2:1]  ¹⁷ tn That is, “you have nothing to say in your own defense” (so translated by TCNT).

[2:1]  ¹⁸ tn Grk “O man.”

[2:1]  ¹⁹ tn Grk “Therefore, you are without excuse, O man, everyone [of you] who judges.”

[2:1]  ²⁰ tn Grk “in/by (that) which.”

[3:20]  ²¹ sn An allusion to Ps 143:2.

[3:20]  ²² tn Grk “because by the works of the law no flesh is justified before him.” Some recent scholars have understood the phrase ἒργα νόμου (erga nomou, “works of the law”) to refer not to obedience to the Mosaic law generally, but specifically to portions of the law that pertain to things like circumcision and dietary laws which set the Jewish people apart from the other nations (e.g., J. D. G. Dunn, Romans [WBC], 1:155). Other interpreters, like C. E. B. Cranfield (“‘The Works of the Law’ in the Epistle to the Romans,” JSNT 43 [1991]: 89-101) reject this narrow interpretation for a number of reasons, among which the most important are: (1) The second half of v. 20, “for through the law comes the knowledge of sin,” is hard to explain if the phrase “works of the law” is understood in a restricted sense; (2) the plural phrase “works of the law” would have to be understood in a different sense from the singular phrase “the work of the law” in 2:15; (3) similar phrases involving the law in Romans (2:13, 14; 2:25, 26, 27; 7:25; 8:4; and 13:8) which are naturally related to the phrase “works of the law” cannot be taken to refer to circumcision (in fact, in 2:25 circumcision is explicitly contrasted with keeping the law). Those interpreters who reject the “narrow” interpretation of “works of the law” understand the phrase to refer to obedience to the Mosaic law in general.

[3:20]  ²³ tn Grk “is.”