2 Samuel 1:9

1:9 He said to me, ‘Stand over me and finish me off! ¹  I’m very dizzy, ²  even though I’m still alive.’ ³ 

2 Samuel 3:20

3:20 When Abner, accompanied by twenty men, came to David in Hebron, David prepared a banquet for Abner and the men who were with him.

2 Samuel 8:5

8:5 The Arameans of Damascus came to help King Hadadezer of Zobah, but David killed 22,000 of the Arameans.

2 Samuel 15:1

Absalom Leads an Insurrection against David

15:1 Some time later Absalom managed to acquire ⁴  a chariot and horses, as well as fifty men to serve as his royal guard. ⁵ 

2 Samuel 16:16

16:16 When David’s friend Hushai the Arkite came to Absalom, Hushai said to him, ⁶  “Long live the king! Long live the king!”

¹ 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.”

² 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.

³ 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.”

⁴ tn Heb “acquired for himself.”

⁵ tn Heb “to run ahead of him.”

⁶ tn Heb “to Absalom.” The proper name has been replaced by the pronoun “him” in the translation for stylistic reasons.