2 Samuel 24:14

24:14 David said to Gad, “I am very upset! I prefer that we be attacked by the Lord, for his mercy is great; I do not want to be attacked by men!” ¹ 

2 Samuel 12:15

12:15 Then Nathan went to his home. The Lord struck the child that Uriah’s wife had borne to David, and the child became very ill. ² 

2 Samuel 13:1

The Rape of Tamar

13:1 Now David’s son Absalom had a beautiful sister named Tamar. In the course of time David’s son Amnon fell madly in love with her. ³ 

2 Samuel 17:12

17:12 We will come against him wherever he happens to be found. We will descend on him like the dew falls on the ground. Neither he nor any of the men who are with him will be spared alive – not one of them!

2 Samuel 4:4

4:4 Now Saul’s son Jonathan had a son who was crippled in both feet. He was five years old when the news about Saul and Jonathan arrived from Jezreel. His nurse picked him up and fled, but in her haste to get away, he fell and was injured. ⁴  Mephibosheth was his name.

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. ⁵ 

2 Samuel 22:39

22:39 I wipe them out and beat them to death;

they cannot get up;

they fall at my feet.

2 Samuel 4:6

4:6 They ⁶  entered the house under the pretense of getting wheat and mortally wounded him ⁷  in the stomach. Then Recab and his brother Baanah escaped.

2 Samuel 14:9

14:9 The Tekoan woman said to the king, “My lord the king, let any blame fall on me and on the house of my father. But let the king and his throne be innocent!”

2 Samuel 13:2

13:2 But Amnon became frustrated because he was so lovesick ⁸  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 3:34

3:34 Your hands ⁹  were not bound,

and your feet were not put into irons.

You fell the way one falls before criminals.”

All the people ¹⁰  wept over him again.

2 Samuel 13:4

13:4 He asked Amnon, ¹¹  “Why are you, the king’s son, ¹²  so depressed every morning? Can’t you tell me?” So Amnon said to him, “I’m in love with Tamar the sister of my brother Absalom.”

2 Samuel 1:25

1:25 How the warriors have fallen

in the midst of battle!

Jonathan lies slain on your high places!

2 Samuel 22:28

22:28 You deliver oppressed ¹³  people,

but you watch the proud and bring them down. ¹⁴ 

2 Samuel 6:6

6:6 When they arrived at the threshing floor of Nacon, ¹⁵  Uzzah reached out and grabbed hold of ¹⁶  the ark of God, ¹⁷  because the oxen stumbled.

2 Samuel 19:21

19:21 Abishai son of Zeruiah replied, “For this should not Shimei be put to death? After all, he cursed the Lord’s anointed!”

2 Samuel 1:10

1:10 So I stood over him and put him to death, since I knew that he couldn’t live in such a condition. ¹⁸  Then I took the crown which was on his head and the ¹⁹  bracelet which was on his arm. I have brought them here to my lord.” ²⁰ 

2 Samuel 1:16

1:16 David said to him, “Your blood be on your own head! Your own mouth has testified against you, saying ‘I have put the Lord’s anointed to death.’”

2 Samuel 2:22

2:22 So Abner spoke again to Asahel, “Turn aside from following me! I do not want to strike you to the ground. ²¹  How then could I show ²²  my face in the presence of Joab your brother?”

2 Samuel 4:11

4:11 Surely when wicked men have killed an innocent man as he slept ²³  in his own house, should I not now require his blood from your hands and remove ²⁴  you from the earth?”

2 Samuel 6:5

6:5 while David and all Israel ²⁵  were energetically celebrating before the Lord, singing ²⁶  and playing various stringed instruments, ²⁷  tambourines, rattles, ²⁸  and cymbals.

2 Samuel 11:19

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

2 Samuel 17:2

17:2 When I catch up with ²⁹  him he will be exhausted and worn out. ³⁰  I will rout him, and the entire army that is with him will flee. I will kill only the king

2 Samuel 4:1

Ish-bosheth is killed

4:1 When Ish-bosheth ³¹  the son of Saul heard that Abner had died in Hebron, he was very disheartened, ³²  and all Israel was afraid.

2 Samuel 11:21

11:21 Who struck down Abimelech the son of Jerub-Besheth? Didn’t a woman throw an upper millstone ³³  down on him from the wall so that he died in Thebez? Why did you go so close to the wall?’ just say to him, ‘Your servant Uriah the Hittite is also dead.’”

2 Samuel 12:18

12:18 On the seventh day the child died. But the servants of David were afraid to inform him that the child had died, for they said, “While the child was still alive he would not listen to us ³⁴  when we spoke to him. How can we tell him that the child is dead? He will do himself harm!” ³⁵ 

2 Samuel 14:11

14:11 She replied, “In that case, ³⁶  let the king invoke the name of ³⁷  the Lord your God so that the avenger of blood may not kill! Then they will not destroy my son!” He replied, “As surely as the Lord lives, not a single hair of your son’s head ³⁸  will fall to the ground.”

2 Samuel 17:13

17:13 If he regroups in a city, all Israel will take up ropes to that city and drag it down to the valley, so that not a single pebble will be left there!”

2 Samuel 3:8

3:8 These words of Ish-bosheth really angered Abner and he said, “Am I the head of a dog that belongs to Judah? This very day I am demonstrating ³⁹  loyalty to the house of Saul your father and to his relatives ⁴⁰  and his friends! I have not betrayed you into the hand of David. Yet you have accused me of sinning with this woman today! ⁴¹ 

[24:14]  ¹ tn Heb “There is great distress to me. Let us fall into the hand of the Lord, for great is his mercy, but into the hand of man let me not fall.”

[12:15]  ² tn Heb “and the Lord struck the child…and he was ill.” It is necessary to repeat “the child” in the translation to make clear who became ill, since “the Lord struck the child that Uriah’s wife had borne to David, and he became very ill” could be understood to mean that David himself became ill.

[13:1]  ³ tn Heb “Amnon the son of David loved her.” The following verse indicates the extreme nature of his infatuation, so the translation uses “madly in love” here.

[13:1]  sn Amnon was the half-brother of Tamar; Absalom was her full blood-brother.

[4:4]  ⁴ tn Heb “and was lame.”

[20:8]  ⁵ 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.

[4:6]  ⁶ tc For the MT’s וְהֵנָּה (vÿhennah, “and they,” feminine) read וְהִנֵּה (vÿhinneh, “and behold”). See the LXX, Syriac Peshitta, and Targum.

[4:6]  ⁷ tn Heb “and they struck him down.”

[13:2]  ⁸ tn Heb “and there was distress to Amnon so that he made himself sick.”

[3:34]  ⁹ tc The translation follows many medieval Hebrew manuscripts and several ancient versions in reading “your hands,” rather than “your hand.”

[3:34]  ¹⁰ tc 4QSam^a lacks the words “all the people.”

[13:4]  ¹¹ tn Heb “and he said to him.”

[13:4]  ¹² tn An more idiomatic translation might be “Why are you of all people…?”

[22:28]  ¹³ tn Or perhaps “humble” (so NIV, NRSV, NLT; note the contrast with those who are proud).

[22:28]  ¹⁴ tc Heb “but your eyes are upon the proud, you bring low.” Ps 18:27 reads “but proud eyes you bring low.”

[6:6]  ¹⁵ tn 1 Chr 13:9 has “Kidon.”

[6:6]  ¹⁶ tn Or “steadied.”

[6:6]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “and Uzzah reached out toward the ark of God and grabbed it.”

[1:10]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “after his falling”; NAB “could not survive his wound”; CEV “was too badly wounded to live much longer.”

[1:10]  ¹⁹ tc The MT lacks the definite article, but this is likely due to textual corruption. It is preferable to read the alef (א) of אֶצְעָדָה (’ets’adah) as a ה (he) giving הַצְּעָדָה (hatsÿ’adah). There is no reason to think that the soldier confiscated from Saul’s dead body only one of two or more bracelets that he was wearing (cf. NLT “one of his bracelets”).

[1:10]  ²⁰ sn The claims that the soldier is making here seem to contradict the story of Saul’s death as presented in 1 Sam 31:3-5. In that passage it appears that Saul took his own life, not that he was slain by a passerby who happened on the scene. Some scholars account for the discrepancy by supposing that conflicting accounts have been brought together in the MT. However, it is likely that the young man is here fabricating the account in a self-serving way so as to gain favor with David, or so he supposes. He probably had come across Saul’s corpse, stolen the crown and bracelet from the body, and now hopes to curry favor with David by handing over to him these emblems of Saul’s royalty. But in so doing the Amalekite greatly miscalculated David’s response to this alleged participation in Saul’s death. The consequence of his lies will instead be his own death.

[2:22]  ²¹ tn Heb “Why should I strike you to the ground?”

[2:22]  ²² tn Heb “lift.”

[4:11]  ²³ tn Heb “on his bed.”

[4:11]  ²⁴ tn See HALOT 146 s.v. II בער. Some derive the verb from a homonym meaning “to burn; to consume.”

[6:5]  ²⁵ tn Heb “all the house of Israel.”

[6:5]  ²⁶ tc Heb “were celebrating before the Lord with all woods of fir” (cf. KJV, ASV, NASB). If the text is retained, the last expression must be elliptical, referring to musical instruments made from fir wood. But it is preferable to emend the text in light of 1 Chr 13:8, which reads “were celebrating before the Lord with all strength and with songs.”

[6:5]  ²⁷ tn Heb “with zithers [?] and with harps.”

[6:5]  ²⁸ tn That is, “sistrums” (so NAB, NIV); ASV, NASB, NRSV, CEV, NLT “castanets.”

[17:2]  ²⁹ tn Heb “and I will come upon him.”

[17:2]  ³⁰ tn Heb “exhausted and slack of hands.”

[4:1]  ³¹ tn The MT does not specify the subject of the verb here, but the reference is to Ish-bosheth, so the name has been supplied in the translation for clarity. 4QSam^a and the LXX mistakenly read “Mephibosheth.”

[4:1]  ³² tn Heb “his hands went slack.”

[11:21]  ³³ sn The upper millstone (Heb “millstone of riding”) refers to the heavy circular stone that was commonly rolled over a circular base in order to crush and grind such things as olives.

[12:18]  ³⁴ tn Heb “to our voice.”

[12:18]  ³⁵ tn Heb “he will do harm.” The object is not stated in the Hebrew text. The statement may be intentionally vague, meaning that he might harm himself or them!

[14:11]  ³⁶ tn The words “in that case” are not in the Hebrew text, but may be inferred from the context. They are supplied in the translation for the sake of clarification.

[14:11]  ³⁷ tn Heb “let the king remember.”

[14:11]  ³⁸ tn Heb “of your son.”

[3:8]  ³⁹ tn Heb “I do.”

[3:8]  ⁴⁰ tn Heb “brothers.”

[3:8]  ⁴¹ tn Heb “and you have laid upon me the guilt of the woman today.”