2 Samuel 1:2

1:2 On the third day a man arrived from the camp of Saul with his clothes torn and dirt on his head. ¹  When he approached David, the man ²  threw himself to the ground. ³ 

2 Samuel 3:12

3:12 Then Abner sent messengers ⁴  to David saying, “To whom does the land belong? Make an agreement ⁵  with me, and I will do whatever I can ⁶  to cause all Israel to turn to you.”

2 Samuel 9:3

9:3 The king asked, “Is there not someone left from Saul’s family, ⁷  that I may extend God’s kindness to him?” Ziba said to the king, “One of Jonathan’s sons is left; both of his feet are crippled.”

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.” ⁸ 

2 Samuel 10:2

10:2 David said, “I will express my loyalty ⁹  to Hanun son of Nahash just as his father was loyal ¹⁰  to me.” So David sent his servants with a message expressing sympathy over his father’s death. ¹¹  When David’s servants entered the land of the Ammonites,

2 Samuel 11:1

David Commits Adultery with Bathsheba

11:1 In the spring of the year, at the time when kings ¹²  normally conduct wars, ¹³  David sent out Joab with his officers ¹⁴  and the entire Israelite army. ¹⁵  They defeated the Ammonites and besieged Rabbah. But David stayed behind in Jerusalem. ¹⁶ 

2 Samuel 12:11

12:11 This is what the Lord says: ‘I am about to bring disaster on you ¹⁷  from inside your own household! ¹⁸  Right before your eyes I will take your wives and hand them over to your companion. ¹⁹  He will have sexual relations with ²⁰  your wives in broad daylight! ²¹ 

2 Samuel 13:20

13:20 Her brother Absalom said to her, “Was Amnon your brother with you? Now be quiet, my sister. He is your brother. Don’t take it so seriously!” ²²  Tamar, devastated, lived in the house of her brother Absalom.

2 Samuel 13:22

13:22 But Absalom said nothing to Amnon, either bad or good, yet Absalom hated Amnon because he had humiliated his sister Tamar.

2 Samuel 14:17

14:17 So your servant said, ‘May the word of my lord the king be my security, for my lord the king is like the angel of God when it comes to deciding between right and wrong! May the Lord your God be with you!’”

2 Samuel 15:19

15:19 Then the king said to Ittai the Gittite, “Why should you come with us? Go back and stay with the new ²³  king, for you are a foreigner and an exile from your own country. ²⁴ 

2 Samuel 18:2

18:2 David then sent out the army – a third under the leadership of Joab, a third under the leadership of Joab’s brother Abishai son of Zeruiah, and a third under the leadership of Ittai the Gittite. The king said to the troops, “I too will indeed march out with you.”

2 Samuel 19:17

19:17 There were a thousand men from Benjamin with him, along with Ziba the servant ²⁵  of Saul’s household, and with him his fifteen sons and twenty servants. They hurriedly crossed ²⁶  the Jordan within sight of the king.

2 Samuel 19:41

19:41 Then all the men of Israel began coming to the king. They asked the king, “Why did our brothers, the men of Judah, sneak the king away and help the king and his household cross the Jordan – and not only him but all of David’s men as well?”

2 Samuel 20:8

20:8 When they were near the big rock that is in Gibeon, Amasa came to them. Now Joab was dressed in military attire and had a dagger in its sheath belted to his waist. When he advanced, it fell out. ²⁷ 

2 Samuel 21:19

21:19 Yet another battle occurred with the Philistines in Gob. On that occasion Elhanan the son of Jair ²⁸  the Bethlehemite killed the brother of Goliath the Gittite, ²⁹  the shaft of whose spear was like a weaver’s beam.

2 Samuel 23:5

23:5 My dynasty is approved by God, ³⁰ 

for he has made a perpetual covenant with me,

arranged in all its particulars and secured.

He always delivers me,

and brings all I desire to fruition. ³¹ 

2 Samuel 23:9

23:9 Next in command ³²  was Eleazar son of Dodo, ³³  the son of Ahohi. He was one of the three warriors who were with David when they defied the Philistines who were assembled there for battle. When the men of Israel retreated, ³⁴ 

2 Samuel 24:16

24:16 When the angel ³⁵  extended his hand to destroy Jerusalem, the Lord relented from his judgment. ³⁶  He told the angel who was killing the people, “That’s enough! Stop now!” ³⁷  (Now the Lord’s angel was near the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite.)

2 Samuel 24:21

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.”

[1:2]  ¹ sn Tearing one’s clothing and throwing dirt on one’s head were outward expressions of grief in the ancient Near East, where such demonstrable reactions were a common response to tragic news.

[1:2]  ² tn Heb “he”; the referent (the man mentioned at the beginning of v. 2) has been specified in the translation to avoid confusion as to who fell to the ground.

[1:2]  ³ tn Heb “he fell to the ground and did obeisance.”

[3:12]  ⁴ tn The Hebrew text adds here, “on his behalf.”

[3:12]  ⁵ tn Heb “cut a covenant.” So also in vv. 13, 21.

[3:12]  ⁶ tn Heb “and behold, my hand is with you.”

[9:3]  ⁷ tn Heb “house.”

[9:7]  ⁸ tn Heb “and you will eat food over my table continually.”

[10:2]  ⁹ tn Heb “do loyalty.”

[10:2]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “did loyalty.”

[10:2]  ¹¹ tn Heb “and David sent to console him by the hand of his servants concerning his father.”

[11:1]  ¹² tc Codex Leningrad (B19A), on which BHS is based, has here “messengers” (הַמַּלְאכִים, hammal’khim), probably as the result of contamination from the occurrence of that word in v. 4. The present translation follows most Hebrew mss and the ancient versions, which read “kings” (הַמֶּלָאכִים, hammela’kim).

[11:1]  ¹³ tn Heb “go out.”

[11:1]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “and his servants with him.”

[11:1]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “all Israel.”

[11:1]  ¹⁶ tn The disjunctive clause contrasts David’s inactivity with the army’s activity.

[11:1]  map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.

[12:11]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “raise up against you disaster.”

[12:11]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “house” (so NAB, NRSV); NCV, TEV, CEV “family.”

[12:11]  ¹⁹ tn Or “friend.”

[12:11]  ²⁰ tn Heb “will lie with” (so NIV, NRSV); TEV “will have intercourse with”; CEV, NLT “will go to bed with.”

[12:11]  ²¹ tn Heb “in the eyes of this sun.”

[13:20]  ²² tn Heb “Don’t set your heart to this thing!”

[15:19]  ²³ tn The word “new” is not in the Hebrew text, but is supplied in the translation to make it clear that David refers to Absalom, not himself.

[15:19]  ²⁴ tn Heb “place.”

[19:17]  ²⁵ tn Heb “youth.”

[19:17]  ²⁶ tn Heb “rushed into.”

[20:8]  ²⁷ sn The significance of the statement it fell out here is unclear. If the dagger fell out of its sheath before Joab got to Amasa, how then did he kill him? Josephus, Ant. 7.11.7 (7.284), suggested that as Joab approached Amasa he deliberately caused the dagger to fall to the ground at an opportune moment as though by accident. When he bent over and picked it up, he then stabbed Amasa with it. Others have tried to make a case for thinking that two swords are referred to – the one that fell out and another that Joab kept concealed until the last moment. But nothing in the text clearly supports this view. Perhaps Josephus’ understanding is best, but it is by no means obvious in the text either.

[21:19]  ²⁸ tn Heb “Jaare-Oregim,” but the second word, which means “weavers,” is probably accidentally included. It appears at the end of the verse. The term is omitted in the parallel account in 1 Chr 20:5, which has simply “Jair.”

[21:19]  ²⁹ sn The Hebrew text as it stands reads, “Elhanan son of Jaare-Oregim the Bethlehemite killed Goliath the Gittite.” Who killed Goliath the Gittite? According to 1 Sam 17:4-58 it was David who killed Goliath, but according to the MT of 2 Sam 21:19 it was Elhanan who killed him. Many scholars believe that the two passages are hopelessly at variance with one another. Others have proposed various solutions to the difficulty, such as identifying David with Elhanan or positing the existence of two Goliaths. But in all likelihood the problem is the result of difficulties in the textual transmission of the Samuel passage; in fact, from a text-critical point of view the books of Samuel are the most poorly preserved of all the books of the Hebrew Bible. The parallel passage in 1 Chr 20:5 reads, “Elhanan son of Jair killed Lahmi the brother of Goliath.” Both versions are textually corrupt. The Chronicles text has misread “Bethlehemite” (בֵּית הַלַּחְמִי, bet hallakhmi) as the accusative sign followed by a proper name אֶת לַחְמִי (’et lakhmi). (See the note at 1 Chr 20:5.) The Samuel text misread the word for “brother” (אַח, ’akh) as the accusative sign (אֵת, ’et), thereby giving the impression that Elhanan, not David, killed Goliath. Thus in all probability the original text read, “Elhanan son of Jair the Bethlehemite killed the brother of Goliath.”

[23:5]  ³⁰ tn Heb “For not thus [is] my house with God?”

[23:5]  ³¹ tn Heb “for all my deliverance and every desire, surely does he not make [it] grow?”

[23:9]  ³² tn Heb “after him.”

[23:9]  ³³ tc This follows the Qere and many medieval Hebrew mss in reading דֹּדוֹ (dodo) rather than the Kethib of the MT דֹּדַי (dodai; cf. ASV, NIV, NLT). But see 1 Chr 27:4.

[23:9]  ³⁴ tn Heb “went up.”

[24:16]  ³⁵ tn Heb “messenger.”

[24:16]  ³⁶ tn Heb “concerning the calamity.”

[24:16]  ³⁷ tn Heb “Now, drop your hand.”