2 Samuel 1:6

1:6 The young man who was telling him this ¹  said, “I just happened to be on Mount Gilboa and came across Saul leaning on his spear for support. The chariots and leaders of the horsemen were in hot pursuit of him.

2 Samuel 3:26

3:26 Then Joab left David and sent messengers after Abner. They brought him back from the well of Sirah. (But David was not aware of it.)

2 Samuel 5:23

5:23 So David asked the Lord what he should do. ²  This time ³  the Lord ⁴  said to him, “Don’t march straight up. Instead, circle around behind them and come against them opposite the trees. ⁵ 

2 Samuel 11:19

11:19 He instructed the messenger as follows: “When you finish giving the battle report to the king,

2 Samuel 13:2

13:2 But Amnon became frustrated because he was so lovesick ⁶  over his sister Tamar. For she was a virgin, and to Amnon it seemed out of the question to do anything to her.

2 Samuel 13:10

13:10 Then Amnon said to Tamar, “Bring the cakes into the bedroom; then I will eat from your hand.” So Tamar took the cakes that she had prepared and brought them to her brother Amnon in the bedroom.

2 Samuel 13:34

13:34 In the meantime Absalom fled. When the servant who was the watchman looked up, he saw many people coming from the west ⁷  on a road beside the hill.

2 Samuel 14:30

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.” ⁸  So Absalom’s servants set Joab’s ⁹  portion of the field on fire.

2 Samuel 21:16

21:16 Now Ishbi-Benob, one of the descendants of Rapha, ¹⁰  had a spear ¹¹  that weighed three hundred bronze shekels, ¹²  and he was armed with a new weapon. ¹³  He had said that he would kill David.

2 Samuel 23:13

23:13 At the time of ¹⁴  the harvest three ¹⁵  of the thirty leaders went down to ¹⁶  David at the cave of Adullam. A band of Philistines was camped in the valley of Rephaim.

[1:6]  ¹ tc The Syriac Peshitta and one ms of the LXX lack the words “who was telling him this” of the MT.

[5:23]  ² tn The words “what to do” are not in the Hebrew text.

[5:23]  ³ tn The words “this time” are not in the Hebrew text.

[5:23]  ⁴ tn Heb “he”; the referent (the Lord) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[5:23]  ⁵ tn Some translate as “balsam trees” (cf. NASB, NIV, NRSV, NJB, NLT); cf. KJV, NKJV, ASV “mulberry trees”; NAB “mastic trees”; NEB, REB “aspens.” The exact identification of the type of tree or plant is uncertain.

[13:2]  ⁶ tn Heb “and there was distress to Amnon so that he made himself sick.”

[13:34]  ⁷ tn Heb “behind him.”

[14:30]  ⁸ 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]  ⁹ tn The word “Joab’s” is not in the Hebrew text, but has been supplied in the translation for stylistic reasons.

[21:16]  ¹⁰ tn This name has the definite article and may be intended to refer to a group of people rather than a single individual with this name.

[21:16]  ¹¹ tn This is the only occurrence of this Hebrew word in the OT. Its precise meaning is therefore somewhat uncertain. As early as the LXX the word was understood to refer to a “spear,” and this seems to be the most likely possibility. Some scholars have proposed emending the text of 2 Sam 21:16 to כוֹבַעוֹ (khova’o; “his helmet”), but in spite of the fact that the word “helmet” appears in 1 Sam 17:5, there is not much evidence for reading that word here.

[21:16]  ¹² tn Either the word “shekels” should be supplied here, or the Hebrew word מִשְׁקַל (mishqal, “weight”) right before “bronze” is a corrupted form of the word for shekel. If the latter is the case the problem probably resulted from another occurrence of the word מִשְׁקַל just four words earlier in the verse.

[21:16]  sn Three hundred bronze shekels would have weighed about 7.5 pounds (3.4 kg).

[21:16]  ¹³ tn The Hebrew text reads simply “a new [thing],” prompting one to ask “A new what?” Several possibilities have been proposed to resolve the problem: perhaps a word has dropped out of the Hebrew text here; or perhaps the word “new” is the result of misreading a different, less common, word; or perhaps a word (e.g., “sword,” so KJV, NAB, NASB, NIV, CEV, NLT) is simply to be inferred. The translation generally follows the latter possibility, while at the same time being deliberately nonspecific (“weapon”).

[23:13]  ¹⁴ tn The meaning of Hebrew אֶל־קָצִיר (’el qatsir) seems here to be “at the time of harvest,” although this is an unusual use of the phrase. As S. R. Driver points out, this preposition does not normally have the temporal sense of “in” or “during” (S. R. Driver, Notes on the Hebrew Text and the Topography of the Books of Samuel, 366).

[23:13]  ¹⁵ tc The translation follows the Qere and many medieval Hebrew mss in reading שְׁלֹשָׁה (shÿloshah, “three”) rather than the Kethib of the MT שְׁלֹשִׁים (shÿloshim, “thirty”). “Thirty” is due to dittography of the following word and makes no sense in the context.

[23:13]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “went down…and approached.”