2 Samuel 22:34

22:34 He gives me the agility of a deer; ¹ 

he enables me to negotiate the rugged terrain. ² 

2 Samuel 15:17

15:17 The king and all the people set out on foot, pausing ³  at a spot ⁴  some distance away.

2 Samuel 18:30

18:30 The king said, “Turn aside and take your place here.” So he turned aside and waited.

2 Samuel 20:12

20:12 Amasa was squirming in his own blood in the middle of the path, and this man had noticed that all the soldiers stopped. Having noticed that everyone who came across Amasa ⁵  stopped, the man ⁶  pulled him ⁷  away from the path and into the field and threw a garment over him.

2 Samuel 1:9

1:9 He said to me, ‘Stand over me and finish me off! ⁸  I’m very dizzy, ⁹  even though I’m still alive.’ ¹⁰ 

2 Samuel 2:25

2:25 The Benjaminites formed their ranks ¹¹  behind Abner and were like a single army, standing at the top of a certain hill.

2 Samuel 2:28

2:28 Then Joab blew the ram’s horn and all the people stopped in their tracks. ¹²  They stopped chasing Israel and ceased fighting. ¹³ 

2 Samuel 18:4

18:4 Then the king said to them, “I will do whatever seems best to you.”

So the king stayed beside the city gate, while all the army marched out by hundreds and by thousands.

2 Samuel 20:4

20:4 Then the king said to Amasa, “Call the men of Judah together for me in three days, ¹⁴  and you be present here with them too.”

2 Samuel 1:10

1:10 So I stood over him and put him to death, since I knew that he couldn’t live in such a condition. ¹⁵  Then I took the crown which was on his head and the ¹⁶  bracelet which was on his arm. I have brought them here to my lord.” ¹⁷ 

2 Samuel 2:23

2:23 But Asahel ¹⁸  refused to turn aside. So Abner struck him in the abdomen with the back end of his ¹⁹  spear. The spear came out his back; Asahel ²⁰  collapsed on the spot and died there right before Abner. ²¹  Everyone who now comes to the place where Asahel fell dead pauses in respect. ²² 

2 Samuel 17:17

17:17 Now Jonathan and Ahimaaz were staying in En Rogel. A female servant would go and inform them, and they would then go and inform King David. It was not advisable for them to be seen going into the city.

2 Samuel 20:15

20:15 So Joab’s men ²³  came and laid siege against him in Abel of Beth Maacah. They prepared a siege ramp outside the city which stood against its outer rampart. As all of Joab’s soldiers were trying to break through ²⁴  the wall so that it would collapse,

2 Samuel 15:2

15:2 Now Absalom used to get up early and stand beside the road that led to the city gate. Whenever anyone came by who had a complaint to bring to the king for arbitration, Absalom would call out to him, “What city are you from?” The person would answer, “I, your servant, ²⁵  am from one of the tribes of Israel.”

[22:34]  ¹ tc Heb “[the one who] makes his feet like [those of] a deer.” The translation follows the Qere and many medieval Hebrew mss in reading רַגְלַי (raglai, “my feet”) rather than the MT רַגְלָיו (raglav, “his feet”). See as well Ps 18:33.

[22:34]  ² tn Heb “and on my high places he makes me walk.” The imperfect verbal form emphasizes God’s characteristic provision. The psalmist compares his agility in battle to the ability of a deer to negotiate rugged, high terrain without falling or being injured. Habakkuk uses similar language to describe his faith during difficult times. See Hab 3:19.

[15:17]  ³ tn Heb “and they stood.”

[15:17]  ⁴ tn Heb “house.”

[20:12]  ⁵ tn Heb “him”; the referent (Amasa) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[20:12]  ⁶ tn Heb “he”; the referent (the man who spoke up in v. 11) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[20:12]  ⁷ tn Heb “Amasa.” For stylistic reasons the name has been replaced by the pronoun (“him”) in the translation.

[1:9]  ⁷ tn As P. K. McCarter (II Samuel [AB], 59) points out, the Polel of the verb מוּת (mut, “to die”) “refers to dispatching or ‘finishing off’ someone already wounded and near death.” Cf. NLT “put me out of my misery.”

[1:9]  ⁸ tn Heb “the dizziness has seized me.” On the meaning of the Hebrew noun translated “dizziness,” see P. K. McCarter, II Samuel (AB), 59-60. The point seems to be that he is unable to kill himself because he is weak and disoriented.

[1:9]  ⁹ tn The Hebrew text here is grammatically very awkward (Heb “because all still my life in me”). Whether the broken construct phrase is due to the fact that the alleged speaker is in a confused state of mind as he is on the verge of dying, or whether the MT has sustained corruption in the transmission process, is not entirely clear. The former seems likely, although P. K. McCarter understands the MT to be the result of conflation of two shorter forms of text (P. K. McCarter, II Samuel [AB], 57, n. 9). Early translators also struggled with the verse, apparently choosing to leave part of the Hebrew text untranslated. For example, the Lucianic recension of the LXX lacks “all,” while other witnesses (namely, one medieval Hebrew ms, codices A and B of the LXX, and the Syriac Peshitta) lack “still.”

[2:25]  ⁹ tn Heb “were gathered together.”

[2:28]  ¹¹ tn Heb “stood.”

[2:28]  ¹² tn Heb “they no longer chased after Israel and they no longer fought.”

[20:4]  ¹³ tn The present translation follows the Masoretic accentuation, with the major mark of disjunction (i.e., the atnach) placed at the word “days.” However, some scholars have suggested moving the atnach to “Judah” a couple of words earlier. This would yield the following sense: “Three days, and you be present here with them.” The difference in meaning is slight, and the MT is acceptable as it stands.

[1:10]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “after his falling”; NAB “could not survive his wound”; CEV “was too badly wounded to live much longer.”

[1:10]  ¹⁶ tc The MT lacks the definite article, but this is likely due to textual corruption. It is preferable to read the alef (א) of אֶצְעָדָה (’ets’adah) as a ה (he) giving הַצְּעָדָה (hatsÿ’adah). There is no reason to think that the soldier confiscated from Saul’s dead body only one of two or more bracelets that he was wearing (cf. NLT “one of his bracelets”).

[1:10]  ¹⁷ sn The claims that the soldier is making here seem to contradict the story of Saul’s death as presented in 1 Sam 31:3-5. In that passage it appears that Saul took his own life, not that he was slain by a passerby who happened on the scene. Some scholars account for the discrepancy by supposing that conflicting accounts have been brought together in the MT. However, it is likely that the young man is here fabricating the account in a self-serving way so as to gain favor with David, or so he supposes. He probably had come across Saul’s corpse, stolen the crown and bracelet from the body, and now hopes to curry favor with David by handing over to him these emblems of Saul’s royalty. But in so doing the Amalekite greatly miscalculated David’s response to this alleged participation in Saul’s death. The consequence of his lies will instead be his own death.

[2:23]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “he”; the referent (Asahel) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[2:23]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “the.” The article functions here as a possessive pronoun.

[2:23]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “he”; the referent (Asahel) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[2:23]  ²⁰ tn Heb “him”; the referent (Abner) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[2:23]  ²¹ tn Heb “and they stand.”

[20:15]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “they.” The following context makes it clear that this refers to Joab and his army.

[20:15]  ²⁰ tc The LXX has here ἐνοοῦσαν (enoousan, “were devising”), which apparently presupposes the Hebrew word מַחֲשָׁבִים (makhashavim) rather than the MT מַשְׁחִיתִם (mashkhitim, “were destroying”). With a number of other scholars Driver thinks that the Greek variant may preserve the original reading, but this seems to be an unnecessary conclusion (but see S. R. Driver, Notes on the Hebrew Text and the Topography of the Books of Samuel, 346).

[15:2]  ²¹ tn Heb “your servant.” So also in vv. 8, 15, 21.