2 Samuel 22:46

22:46 Foreigners lose their courage; ¹ 

they shake with fear ²  as they leave ³  their strongholds. ⁴ 

2 Samuel 22:8

22:8 The earth heaved and shook; ⁵ 

the foundations of the sky ⁶  trembled. ⁷ 

They heaved because he was angry.

2 Samuel 18:33

18:33 (19:1) ⁸  The king then became very upset. He went up to the upper room over the gate and wept. As he went he said, “My son, Absalom! My son, my son, ⁹  Absalom! If only I could have died in your place! Absalom, my son, my son!” ¹⁰ 

[22:46]  ¹ tn Heb “wither, wear out.”

[22:46]  ² tc The translation assumes a reading וְיַחְרְגוּ (vÿyakhrÿgu, “and they quaked”) rather than the MT וְיַחְגְּרוּ (vÿyakhgÿru, “and they girded themselves”). See the note at Ps 18:45.

[22:46]  ³ tn Heb “from.”

[22:46]  ⁴ tn Heb “prisons.” Their besieged cities are compared to prisons.

[22:8]  ⁵ tn The earth heaved and shook. The imagery pictures an earthquake, in which the earth’s surface rises and falls. The earthquake motif is common in Old Testament theophanies of God as warrior and in ancient Near eastern literary descriptions of warring gods and kings. See R. B. Chisholm, “An Exegetical and Theological Study of Psalm 18/2 Samuel 22” (Th.D. diss., Dallas Theological Seminary, 1983), 160-62.

[22:8]  ⁶ tn Ps 18:7 reads “the roots of the mountains.”

[22:8]  ⁷ tn In this poetic narrative context the prefixed verbal form is best understood as a preterite indicating past tense, not an imperfect. Note the three prefixed verbal forms with vav consecutive in the verse.

[18:33]  ⁸ sn This marks the beginning of ch. 19 in the Hebrew text. Beginning with 18:33, the verse numbers through 19:43 in the English Bible differ from the verse numbers in the Hebrew text (BHS), with 18:33 ET = 19:1 HT, 19:1 ET = 19:2 HT, 19:2 ET = 19:3 HT, etc., through 19:43 ET = 19:44 HT. From 20:1 the versification in the English Bible and the Hebrew Bible is again the same.

[18:33]  ⁹ tc One medieval Hebrew ms, some mss of the LXX, and the Vulgate lack this repeated occurrence of “my son” due to haplography.

[18:33]  ¹⁰ tc The Lucianic Greek recension and Syriac Peshitta lack this repeated occurrence of “my son” due to haplography.