2 Samuel 20:20

20:20 Joab answered, “Get serious! ¹  I don’t want to swallow up or destroy anything!

2 Samuel 23:17

23:17 and said, “O Lord, I will not do this! ²  It is equivalent to the blood of the men who risked their lives by going.” ³  So he refused to drink it. Such were the exploits of the three elite warriors. ⁴ 

[20:20]  ¹ tn Heb “Far be it, far be it from me.” The expression is clearly emphatic, as may be seen in part by the repetition. P. K. McCarter, however, understands it to be coarser than the translation adopted here. He renders it as “I’ll be damned if…” (II Samuel [AB], 426, 429), which (while it is not a literal translation) may not be too far removed from the way a soldier might have expressed himself.

[23:17]  ² tn Heb “Far be it to me, O Lord, from doing this.”

[23:17]  ³ tn Heb “[Is it not] the blood of the men who were going with their lives?”

[23:17]  ⁴ tn Heb “These things the three warriors did.”