2 Samuel 2:14

2:14 Abner said to Joab, “Let the soldiers get up and fight ¹  before us.” Joab said, “So be it!” ² 

2 Samuel 4:12

4:12 So David issued orders to the soldiers and they put them to death. Then they cut off their hands and feet and hung them ³  near the pool in Hebron. But they took the head of Ish-bosheth ⁴  and buried it in the tomb of Abner ⁵  in Hebron. ⁶ 

2 Samuel 16:2

16:2 The king asked Ziba, “Why did you bring these things?” ⁷  Ziba replied, “The donkeys are for the king’s family to ride on, the loaves of bread ⁸  and the summer fruit are for the attendants to eat, and the wine is for those who get exhausted in the desert.” ⁹ 

2 Samuel 13:32

13:32 Jonadab, the son of David’s brother Shimeah, said, “My lord should not say, ‘They have killed all the young men who are the king’s sons.’ For only Amnon is dead. This is what Absalom has talked about ¹⁰  from the day that Amnon ¹¹  humiliated his sister Tamar.

[2:14]  ¹ tn Heb “play.” What is in view here is a gladiatorial contest in which representative groups of soldiers engage in mortal combat before the watching armies. Cf. NAB “perform for us”; NASB “hold (have NRSV) a contest before us”; NLT “put on an exhibition of hand-to-hand combat.”

[2:14]  ² tn Heb “let them arise.”

[4:12]  ³ tn The antecedent of the pronoun “them” (which is not present in the Hebrew text, but implied) is not entirely clear. Presumably it is the corpses that were hung and not merely the detached hands and feet; cf. NIV “hung the (their NRSV, NLT) bodies”; the alternative is represented by TEV “cut off their hands and feet, which they hung up.”

[4:12]  ⁴ tc 4QSam^a mistakenly reads “Mephibosheth” here.

[4:12]  ⁵ tc The LXX adds “the son of Ner” by conformity with common phraseology elsewhere.

[4:12]  ⁶ tc Some mss of the LXX lack the phrase “in Hebron.”

[16:2]  ⁵ tn Heb “What are these to you?”

[16:2]  ⁶ tc The translation follows the Qere and many medieval Hebrew mss in reading וְהַלֶּחֶם (vÿhallekhem, “and the bread”) rather than וּלְהַלֶּחֶם (ulÿhallekhem, “and to the bread”) of the Kethib. The syntax of the MT is confused here by the needless repetition of the preposition, probably taken from the preceding word.

[16:2]  ⁷ tn The Hebrew text adds “to drink.”

[13:32]  ⁷ tn Heb “it was placed on the mouth of Absalom.”

[13:32]  ⁸ tn Heb “he”; the referent (Amnon) has been specified in the translation for clarity.