2 Samuel 12:9-13

12:9 Why have you shown contempt for the word of the Lord by doing evil in my ¹  sight? You have struck down Uriah the Hittite with the sword and you have taken his wife as your own! ²  You have killed him with the sword of the Ammonites. 12:10 So now the sword will never depart from your house. For you have despised me by taking the wife of Uriah the Hittite as your own!’ 12:11 This is what the Lord says: ‘I am about to bring disaster on you ³  from inside your own household! ⁴  Right before your eyes I will take your wives and hand them over to your companion. ⁵  He will have sexual relations with ⁶  your wives in broad daylight! ⁷  12:12 Although you have acted in secret, I will do this thing before all Israel, and in broad daylight.’” ⁸ 

12:13 Then David exclaimed to Nathan, “I have sinned against the Lord!” Nathan replied to David, “Yes, and the Lord has forgiven ⁹  your sin. You are not going to die.

2 Samuel 12:20

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.

2 Samuel 16:5-12

Shimei Curses David and His Men

16:5 Then King David reached ¹⁰  Bahurim. There a man from Saul’s extended family named Shimei son of Gera came out, yelling curses as he approached. ¹¹  16:6 He threw stones at David and all of King David’s servants, as well as all the people and the soldiers who were on his right and on his left. 16:7 As he yelled curses, Shimei said, “Leave! Leave! You man of bloodshed, you wicked man! ¹²  16:8 The Lord has punished you for ¹³  all the spilled blood of the house of Saul, in whose place you rule. Now the Lord has given the kingdom into the hand of your son Absalom. Disaster has overtaken you, for you are a man of bloodshed!”

16:9 Then Abishai son of Zeruiah said to the king, “Why should this dead dog curse my lord the king? Let me go over and cut off his head!” 16:10 But the king said, “What do we have in common, ¹⁴  you sons of Zeruiah? If he curses because the Lord has said to him, ‘Curse David!’, who can say to him, ‘Why have you done this?’” 16:11 Then David said to Abishai and to all his servants, “My own son, my very own flesh and blood, ¹⁵  is trying to take my life. So also now this Benjaminite! Leave him alone so that he can curse, for the Lord has spoken to him. 16:12 Perhaps the Lord will notice my affliction ¹⁶  and this day grant me good in place of his curse.” ¹⁷ 

2 Samuel 24:10-25

24:10 David felt guilty ¹⁸  after he had numbered the army. David said to the Lord, “I have sinned greatly by doing this! Now, O Lord, please remove the guilt of your servant, for I have acted very foolishly.”

24:11 When David got up the next morning, the Lord had already spoken ¹⁹  to Gad the prophet, David’s seer: 24:12 “Go, tell David, ‘This is what the Lord says: I am offering you three forms of judgment. Pick one of them and I will carry it out against you.’”

24:13 Gad went to David and told him, “Shall seven ²⁰  years of famine come upon your land? Or shall you flee for three months from your enemy with him in hot pursuit? Or shall there be three days of plague in your land? Now decide ²¹  what I should tell the one who sent me.” 24:14 David said to Gad, “I am very upset! I prefer that we be attacked by the Lord, for his mercy is great; I do not want to be attacked by men!” ²² 

24:15 So the Lord sent a plague through Israel from the morning until the completion of the appointed time. Seventy thousand men died from Dan to Beer Sheba. 24:16 When the angel ²³  extended his hand to destroy Jerusalem, the Lord relented from his judgment. ²⁴  He told the angel who was killing the people, “That’s enough! Stop now!” ²⁵  (Now the Lord’s angel was near the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite.)

24:17 When he saw the angel who was destroying the people, David said to the Lord, “Look, it is I who have sinned and done this evil thing! As for these sheep – what have they done? Attack me and my family.” ²⁶ 

David Acquires a Threshing Floor and Constructs an Altar There

24:18 So Gad went to David that day and told him, “Go up and build an altar for the Lord on the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite.” 24:19 So David went up as Gad instructed him to do, according to the Lord’s instructions.

24:20 When Araunah looked out and saw the king and his servants approaching him, he ²⁷  went out and bowed to the king with his face ²⁸  to the ground. 24:21 Araunah said, “Why has my lord the king come to his servant?” David replied, “To buy from you the threshing floor so I can build an altar for the Lord, so that the plague may be removed from the people.” 24:22 Araunah told David, “My lord the king may take whatever he wishes ²⁹  and offer it. Look! Here are oxen for burnt offerings, and threshing sledges ³⁰  and harnesses ³¹  for wood. 24:23 I, the servant of my lord ³²  the king, give it all to the king!” Araunah also told the king, “May the Lord your God show you favor!” 24:24 But the king said to Araunah, “No, I insist on buying it from you! I will not offer to the Lord my God burnt sacrifices that cost me nothing.”

So David bought the threshing floor and the oxen for fifty pieces of silver. ³³  24:25 Then David built an altar for the Lord there and offered burnt sacrifices and peace offerings. And the Lord accepted prayers for the land, and the plague was removed from Israel.

[12:9]  ¹ tc So the Qere; the Kethib has “his.”

[12:9]  ² tn Heb “to you for a wife.” This expression also occurs at the end of v. 10.

[12:11]  ³ tn Heb “raise up against you disaster.”

[12:11]  ⁴ tn Heb “house” (so NAB, NRSV); NCV, TEV, CEV “family.”

[12:11]  ⁵ tn Or “friend.”

[12:11]  ⁶ tn Heb “will lie with” (so NIV, NRSV); TEV “will have intercourse with”; CEV, NLT “will go to bed with.”

[12:11]  ⁷ tn Heb “in the eyes of this sun.”

[12:12]  ⁸ tn Heb “and before the sun.”

[12:13]  ⁹ tn Heb “removed.”

[16:5]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “came to.” The form of the verb in the MT is odd. Some prefer to read וַיַּבֹא (vayyavo’), preterite with vav consecutive) rather than וּבָא (uva’), apparently perfect with vav), but this is probably an instance where the narrative offline vÿqatal construction introduces a new scene.

[16:5]  ¹¹ tn Heb “And look, from there a man was coming out from the clan of the house of Saul and his name was Shimei son of Gera, continually going out and cursing.”

[16:7]  ¹² tn Heb “man of worthlessness.”

[16:8]  ¹³ tn Heb “has brought back upon you.”

[16:10]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “What to me and to you?”

[16:11]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “who came out from my entrails.” David’s point is that is his own son, his child whom he himself had fathered, was now wanting to kill him.

[16:12]  ¹⁶ tc The Hebrew text is difficult here. It is probably preferable to read with the LXX, the Syriac Peshitta, and Vulgate בְּעוֹנִי (bÿ’onyi, “on my affliction”) rather than the Kethib of the MT בָּעַוֹנִי (ba’avoni, “on my wrongdoing”). While this Kethib reading is understandable as an objective genitive (i.e., “the wrong perpetrated upon me”), it does not conform to normal Hebrew idiom for this idea. The Qere of the MT בְּעֵינֵי (bÿ’eni, “on my eyes”), usually taken as synecdoche to mean “my tears,” does not commend itself as a likely meaning. The Hebrew word is one of the so-called tiqqune sopherim, or “emendations of the scribes.”

[16:12]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “and the Lord will restore to me good in place of his curse this day.”

[24:10]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “and the heart of David struck him.”

[24:11]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “and the word of the Lord came.”

[24:13]  ²⁰ tc The LXX has here “three” rather than “seven,” and is followed by NAB, NIV, NCV, NRSV, TEV, NLT. See 1 Chr 21:12.

[24:13]  ²¹ tn Heb “now know and see.”

[24:14]  ²² tn Heb “There is great distress to me. Let us fall into the hand of the Lord, for great is his mercy, but into the hand of man let me not fall.”

[24:16]  ²³ tn Heb “messenger.”

[24:16]  ²⁴ tn Heb “concerning the calamity.”

[24:16]  ²⁵ tn Heb “Now, drop your hand.”

[24:17]  ²⁶ tn Heb “let your hand be against me and against the house of my father.”

[24:20]  ²⁷ tn Heb “Araunah.” The name has been replaced in the translation by the pronoun (“he”) for stylistic reasons.

[24:20]  ²⁸ tn Heb “nostrils.”

[24:22]  ²⁹ tn Heb “what is good in his eyes.”

[24:22]  ³⁰ sn Threshing sledges were heavy boards used in ancient times for loosening grain from husks. On the bottom sides of these boards sharp stones were embedded, and the boards were then dragged across the grain on a threshing floor by an ox or donkey.

[24:22]  ³¹ tn Heb “the equipment of the oxen.”

[24:23]  ³² tc The Hebrew text is difficult here. The translation reads עֶבֶד אֲדֹנָי (’eved ’adoni, “the servant of my lord”) rather than the MT’s אֲרַוְנָה (’Aravnah). In normal court etiquette a subject would not use his own name in this way, but would more likely refer to himself in the third person. The MT probably first sustained loss of עֶבֶד (’eved, “servant”), leading to confusion of the word for “my lord” with the name of the Jebusite referred to here.

[24:24]  ³³ tn Heb “fifty shekels of silver.” This would have been about 20 ounces (568 grams) of silver by weight.