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 3:35

3:35 Then all the people came and encouraged David to eat food while it was still day. But David took an oath saying, “God will punish me severely ⁶  if I taste bread or anything whatsoever before the sun sets!”

2 Samuel 4:1

Ish-bosheth is killed

4:1 When Ish-bosheth ⁷  the son of Saul heard that Abner had died in Hebron, he was very disheartened, ⁸  and all Israel was afraid.

2 Samuel 6:12

6:12 David was told, ⁹  “The Lord has blessed the family of Obed-Edom and everything he owns because of the ark of God.” So David went and joyfully brought the ark of God from the house of Obed-Edom to the City of David.

2 Samuel 6:20

6:20 When David went home to pronounce a blessing on his own house, ¹⁰  Michal, Saul’s daughter, came out to meet him. ¹¹  She said, “How the king of Israel has distinguished ¹²  himself this day! He has exposed himself today before his servants’ slave girls the way a vulgar fool ¹³  might do!”

2 Samuel 11:25

11:25 David said to the messenger, “Tell Joab, ‘Don’t let this thing upset you. ¹⁴  There is no way to anticipate whom the sword will cut down. ¹⁵  Press the battle against the city and conquer ¹⁶  it.’ Encourage him with these words.” ¹⁷ 

2 Samuel 12:11

12:11 This is what the Lord says: ‘I am about to bring disaster on you ¹⁸  from inside your own household! ¹⁹  Right before your eyes I will take your wives and hand them over to your companion. ²⁰  He will have sexual relations with ²¹  your wives in broad daylight! ²² 

2 Samuel 13:13

13:13 How could I ever be rid of my humiliation? And you would be considered one of the fools ²³  in Israel! Just ²⁴  speak to the king, for he will not withhold me from you.”

2 Samuel 14:14

14:14 Certainly we must die, and are like water spilled on the ground that cannot be gathered up again. But God does not take away life; instead he devises ways for the banished to be restored. ²⁵ 

2 Samuel 14:19

14:19 The king said, “Did Joab put you up to all of this?” ²⁶  The woman answered, “As surely as you live, my lord the king, there is no deviation to the right or to the left from all that my lord the king has said. For your servant Joab gave me instructions. He has put all these words in your servant’s mouth.

2 Samuel 20:22

20:22 Then the woman went to all the people with her wise advice and they cut off Sheba’s head and threw it out to Joab. Joab ²⁷  blew the trumpet, and his men ²⁸  dispersed from the city, each going to his own home. ²⁹  Joab returned to the king in Jerusalem.

2 Samuel 21:2

21:2 So the king summoned the Gibeonites and spoke with them. (Now the Gibeonites were not descendants of Israel; they were a remnant of the Amorites. The Israelites had made a promise to ³⁰  them, but Saul tried to kill them because of his zeal for the people of Israel and Judah.)

2 Samuel 24:10

24:10 David felt guilty ³¹  after he had numbered the army. David said to the Lord, “I have sinned greatly by doing this! Now, O Lord, please remove the guilt of your servant, for I have acted very foolishly.”

2 Samuel 24:17

24:17 When he saw the angel who was destroying the people, David said to the Lord, “Look, it is I who have sinned and done this evil thing! As for these sheep – what have they done? Attack me and my family.” ³² 

[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).

[3:35]  ⁶ tn Heb “Thus God will do to me and thus he will add.”

[4:1]  ⁷ 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]  ⁸ tn Heb “his hands went slack.”

[6:12]  ⁹ tn Heb “and it was told to David, saying.”

[6:20]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “and David returned to bless his house.”

[6:20]  ¹¹ tn Heb “David.” The name has been replaced by the pronoun (“him”) in the translation for stylistic reasons.

[6:20]  ¹² tn Heb “honored.”

[6:20]  ¹³ tn Heb “one of the foolish ones.”

[11:25]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “let not this matter be evil in your eyes.”

[11:25]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “according to this and according to this the sword devours.”

[11:25]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “overthrow.”

[11:25]  ¹⁷ tn The Hebrew text does not have “with these words.” They are supplied in the translation for clarity and for stylistic reasons.

[12:11]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “raise up against you disaster.”

[12:11]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “house” (so NAB, NRSV); NCV, TEV, CEV “family.”

[12:11]  ²⁰ tn Or “friend.”

[12:11]  ²¹ tn Heb “will lie with” (so NIV, NRSV); TEV “will have intercourse with”; CEV, NLT “will go to bed with.”

[12:11]  ²² tn Heb “in the eyes of this sun.”

[13:13]  ²³ tn Heb “and you will be like one of the fools.”

[13:13]  ²⁴ tn Heb “Now.”

[14:14]  ²⁵ tn Heb “he devises plans for the one banished from him not to be banished.”

[14:19]  ²⁶ tn Heb “Is the hand of Joab with you in all this?”

[20:22]  ²⁷ tn Heb “he”; the referent (Joab) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[20:22]  ²⁸ tn Heb “they”; the referent (Joab’s men) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[20:22]  ²⁹ tn Heb “his tents.”

[21:2]  ³⁰ tn Heb “swore an oath to.”

[24:10]  ³¹ tn Heb “and the heart of David struck him.”

[24:17]  ³² tn Heb “let your hand be against me and against the house of my father.”