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 11:25

11:25 David said to the messenger, “Tell Joab, ‘Don’t let this thing upset you. ⁶  There is no way to anticipate whom the sword will cut down. ⁷  Press the battle against the city and conquer ⁸  it.’ Encourage him with these words.” ⁹ 

2 Samuel 12:9

12:9 Why have you shown contempt for the word of the Lord by doing evil in my ¹⁰  sight? You have struck down Uriah the Hittite with the sword and you have taken his wife as your own! ¹¹  You have killed him with the sword of the Ammonites.

2 Samuel 21:17

21:17 But Abishai the son of Zeruiah came to David’s aid, striking the Philistine down and killing him. Then David’s men took an oath saying, “You will not go out to battle with us again! You must not extinguish the lamp of Israel!”

[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).

[11:25]  ⁶ tn Heb “let not this matter be evil in your eyes.”

[11:25]  ⁷ tn Heb “according to this and according to this the sword devours.”

[11:25]  ⁸ tn Heb “overthrow.”

[11:25]  ⁹ tn The Hebrew text does not have “with these words.” They are supplied in the translation for clarity and for stylistic reasons.

[12:9]  ¹⁰ tc So the Qere; the Kethib has “his.”

[12:9]  ¹¹ tn Heb “to you for a wife.” This expression also occurs at the end of v. 10.