2 Samuel 22:11

22:11 He mounted ¹  a winged angel ²  and flew;

he glided ³  on the wings of the wind. ⁴ 

2 Samuel 6:2

6:2 David and all the men who were with him traveled ⁵  to ⁶  Baalah ⁷  in Judah to bring up from there the ark of God which is called by the name ⁸  of the Lord of hosts, who sits enthroned between the cherubim that are on it.

[22:11]  ¹ tn Or “rode upon.”

[22:11]  ² tn Heb “a cherub” (so KJV, NAB, NRSV); NIV “the cherubim” (plural); TEV “his winged creature”; CEV “flying creatures.”

[22:11]  ³ tc The translation follows very many medieval Hebrew mss in reading וַיֵּדֶא (vayyÿde’, “and he glided”; cf. NIV “soared”; NCV “raced”) rather than MT וַיֵּרָא (vayyera’, “and he appeared,” so NASB, CEV). See as well the Syriac Peshitta, Targum, Vulgate, and the parallel version in Ps 18:10, which preserves the original reading (see the note there).

[22:11]  ⁴ sn The wings of the wind. Verse 10 may depict the Lord mounting a cherub, which is in turn propelled by the wind current. Another option is that two different vehicles (a cherub and the wind) are envisioned. A third option is that the wind is personified as a cherub. For a discussion of ancient Near Eastern parallels to the imagery in v. 10, see M. Weinfeld, “‘Rider of the Clouds’ and ‘Gatherer of the Clouds’,” JANESCU 5 (1973): 422-24.

[6:2]  ⁵ tn Heb “arose and went.”

[6:2]  ⁶ tn Heb “from,” but the following context indicates they traveled to this location.

[6:2]  ⁷ tn This is another name for Kiriath-jearim (see 1 Chr 13:6).

[6:2]  ⁸ tc The MT has here a double reference to the name (שֵׁם שֵׁם, shem shem). Many medieval Hebrew mss in the first occurrence point the word differently and read the adverb שָׁם (sham, “there”). This is also the understanding of the Syriac Peshitta (Syr., taman). While this yields an acceptable understanding to the text, it is more likely that the MT dittographic here. The present translation therefore reads שֵׁם only once.