2 Samuel 10:13

10:13 So Joab and his men ¹  marched out to do battle with the Arameans, and they fled before him.

2 Samuel 16:18

16:18 Hushai replied to Absalom, “No, I will be loyal to the one whom the Lord, these people, and all the men of Israel have chosen. ² 

2 Samuel 23:11

23:11 Next in command ³  was Shammah son of Agee the Hararite. When the Philistines assembled at Lehi, ⁴  where there happened to be an area of a field that was full of lentils, the army retreated before the Philistines.

2 Samuel 15:12

15:12 While he was offering sacrifices, Absalom sent for Ahithophel the Gilonite, David’s adviser, ⁵  to come from his city, Giloh. ⁶  The conspiracy was gaining momentum, and the people were starting to side with Absalom.

2 Samuel 23:10

23:10 he stood his ground ⁷  and fought the Philistines until his hand grew so tired that it ⁸  seemed stuck to his sword. The Lord gave a great victory on that day. When the army returned to him, the only thing left to do was to plunder the corpses.

[10:13]  ¹ tn Heb “and the army which was with him.”

[16:18]  ² tn Heb “No for with the one whom the Lord has chosen, and this people, and all the men of Israel, I will be and with him I will stay.” The translation follows the Qere and several medieval Hebrew mss in reading לוֹ (lo, “[I will be] to him”) rather than the MT לֹא (lo’, “[I will] not be”), which makes very little sense here.

[23:11]  ³ tn Heb “after him.”

[23:11]  ⁴ tn The Hebrew text is difficult here. The MT reads לַחַיָּה (lachayyah), which implies a rare use of the word חַיָּה (chayyah). The word normally refers to an animal, but if the MT is accepted it would here have the sense of a troop or community of people. BDB 312 s.v. II. חַיָּה, for example, understands the similar reference in v. 13 to be to “a group of allied families, making a raid together.” But this works better in v. 13 than it does in v. 11, where the context seems to suggest a particular staging location for a military operation. (See 1 Chr 11:15.) It therefore seems best to understand the word in v. 11 as a place name with ה (he) directive. In that case the Masoretes mistook the word for the common term for an animal and then tried to make sense of it in this context.

[15:12]  ⁵ tn Traditionally, “counselor,” but this term is more often associated with psychological counseling today, so “adviser” was used in the translation instead.

[15:12]  ⁶ tn Heb “Absalom sent for Ahithophel the Gilonite, the adviser of David, from his city, from Giloh, while he was sacrificing.” It is not entirely clear who (Absalom or Ahithophel) was offering the sacrifices.

[23:10]  ⁷ tn Heb “arose.”

[23:10]  ⁸ tn Heb “his hand.”