2 Samuel 3:29

3:29 May his blood whirl over ¹  the head of Joab and the entire house of his father! ²  May the males of Joab’s house ³  never cease to have ⁴  someone with a running sore or a skin disease or one who works at the spindle ⁵  or one who falls by the sword or one who lacks food!”

2 Samuel 6:19

6:19 He then handed out to each member of the entire assembly of Israel, ⁶  both men and women, a portion of bread, a date cake, ⁷  and a raisin cake. Then all the people went home. ⁸ 

2 Samuel 9:7

9:7 David said to him, “Don’t be afraid, because I will certainly extend kindness to you for the sake of Jonathan your father. You will be a regular guest at my table.” ⁹ 

2 Samuel 12:20-21

12:20 So David got up from the ground, bathed, put on oil, and changed his clothes. He went to the house of the Lord and worshiped. Then, when he entered his palace, he requested that food be brought to him, and he ate.

12:21 His servants said to him, “What is this that you have done? While ¹⁰  the child was still alive, you fasted and wept. Once the child was dead you got up and ate food!”

2 Samuel 13:5

13:5 Jonadab replied to him, “Lie down on your bed and pretend to be sick. ¹¹  When your father comes in to see you, say to him, ‘Please let my sister Tamar come in so she can fix some food for me. Let her prepare the food in my sight so I can watch. Then I will eat from her hand.’”

2 Samuel 16:1-2

David Receives Gifts from Ziba

16:1 When David had gone a short way beyond the summit, Ziba the servant of Mephibosheth was there to meet him. He had a couple of donkeys that were saddled, and on them were two hundred loaves of bread, a hundred raisin cakes, a hundred baskets of summer fruit, ¹²  and a container of wine.

16:2 The king asked Ziba, “Why did you bring these things?” ¹³  Ziba replied, “The donkeys are for the king’s family to ride on, the loaves of bread ¹⁴  and the summer fruit are for the attendants to eat, and the wine is for those who get exhausted in the desert.” ¹⁵ 

[3:29]  ¹ tn Heb “and may they whirl over.” In the Hebrew text the subject of the plural verb is unexpressed. The most likely subject is Abner’s “shed blood” (v. 28), which is a masculine plural form in Hebrew. The verb חוּל (khul, “whirl”) is used with the preposition עַל (’al) only here and in Jer 23:19; 30:23.

[3:29]  ² tc 4QSam^a has “of Joab” rather than “of his father” read by the MT.

[3:29]  ³ tn Heb “the house of Joab.” However, it is necessary to specify that David’s curse is aimed at Joab’s male descendants; otherwise it would not be clear that “one who works at the spindle” refers to a man doing woman’s work rather than a woman.

[3:29]  ⁴ tn Heb “and may there not be cut off from the house of Joab.”

[3:29]  ⁵ tn The expression used here is difficult. The translation “one who works at the spindle” follows a suggestion of S. R. Driver that the expression pejoratively describes an effeminate man who, rather than being a mighty warrior, is occupied with tasks that are normally fulfilled by women (S. R. Driver, Notes on the Hebrew Text and the Topography of the Books of Samuel, 250-51; cf. NAB “one unmanly”; TEV “fit only to do a woman’s work”; CEV “cowards”). But P. K. McCarter, following an alleged Phoenician usage of the noun to refer to “crutches,” adopts a different view. He translates the phrase “clings to a crutch,” seeing here a further description of physical lameness (II Samuel [AB], 118). Such an idea fits the present context well and is followed by NIV, NCV, and NLT, although the evidence for this meaning is questionable. According to DNWSI 2:915-16, the noun consistently refers to a spindle in Phoenician, as it does in Ugaritic (see UT 468).

[6:19]  ⁶ tn Heb “to all the people, to all the throng of Israel.”

[6:19]  ⁷ tn The Hebrew word used here אֶשְׁפָּר (’espar) is found in the OT only here and in the parallel passage found in 1 Chr 16:3. Its exact meaning is uncertain, although the context indicates that it was a food of some sort (cf. KJV “a good piece of flesh”; NRSV “a portion of meat”). The translation adopted here (“date cake”) follows the lead of the Greek translations of the LXX, Aquila, and Symmachus (cf. NASB, NIV, NLT).

[6:19]  ⁸ tn Heb “and all the people went, each to his house.”

[9:7]  ¹¹ tn Heb “and you will eat food over my table continually.”

[12:21]  ¹⁶ tc For the MT בַּעֲבוּר (ba’avur, “for the sake of”) we should probably read בְּעוֹד (bÿ’od, “while”). See the Lucianic Greek recension, the Syriac Peshitta, and the Targum.

[13:5]  ²¹ tn This verb is used in the Hitpael stem only in this chapter of the Hebrew Bible. With the exception of v. 2 it describes not a real sickness but one pretended in order to entrap Tamar. The Hitpael sometimes, as here, describes the subject making oneself appear to be of a certain character. On this use of the stem, see GKC 149-50 §54.e.

[16:1]  ²⁶ tn Heb “a hundred summer fruit.”

[16:2]  ³¹ tn Heb “What are these to you?”

[16:2]  ³² 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]  ³³ tn The Hebrew text adds “to drink.”