2 Samuel 23:12

23:12 But he made a stand in the middle of that area. He defended ¹  it and defeated the Philistines; the Lord gave them a great victory.

2 Samuel 14:30-31

14:30 So he said to his servants, “Look, Joab has a portion of field adjacent to mine and he has some barley there. Go and set it on fire.” ²  So Absalom’s servants set Joab’s ³  portion of the field on fire.

14:31 Then Joab got up and came to Absalom’s house. He said to him, “Why did your servants set my portion of field on fire?”

2 Samuel 23:11

23:11 Next in command ⁴  was Shammah son of Agee the Hararite. When the Philistines assembled at Lehi, ⁵  where there happened to be an area of a field that was full of lentils, the army retreated before the Philistines.

[23:12]  ¹ tn Heb “delivered.”

[14:30]  ² tc The LXX adds here the following words: “And the servants of Absalom burned them up. And the servants of Joab came to him, rending their garments. They said….”

[14:30]  ³ tn The word “Joab’s” is not in the Hebrew text, but has been supplied in the translation for stylistic reasons.

[23:11]  ³ tn Heb “after him.”

[23:11]  ⁴ tn The Hebrew text is difficult here. The MT reads לַחַיָּה (lachayyah), which implies a rare use of the word חַיָּה (chayyah). The word normally refers to an animal, but if the MT is accepted it would here have the sense of a troop or community of people. BDB 312 s.v. II. חַיָּה, for example, understands the similar reference in v. 13 to be to “a group of allied families, making a raid together.” But this works better in v. 13 than it does in v. 11, where the context seems to suggest a particular staging location for a military operation. (See 1 Chr 11:15.) It therefore seems best to understand the word in v. 11 as a place name with ה (he) directive. In that case the Masoretes mistook the word for the common term for an animal and then tried to make sense of it in this context.