2 Samuel 14:5

14:5 The king replied to her, “What do you want?” ¹  She answered, “I am a widow; my husband is dead.

2 Samuel 16:12

16:12 Perhaps the Lord will notice my affliction ²  and this day grant me good in place of his curse.” ³ 

2 Samuel 22:19

22:19 They confronted ⁴  me in my day of calamity,

but the Lord helped me. ⁵ 

[14:5]  ¹ tn Heb “What to you?”

[16:12]  ² tc The Hebrew text is difficult here. It is probably preferable to read with the LXX, the Syriac Peshitta, and Vulgate בְּעוֹנִי (bÿ’onyi, “on my affliction”) rather than the Kethib of the MT בָּעַוֹנִי (ba’avoni, “on my wrongdoing”). While this Kethib reading is understandable as an objective genitive (i.e., “the wrong perpetrated upon me”), it does not conform to normal Hebrew idiom for this idea. The Qere of the MT בְּעֵינֵי (bÿ’eni, “on my eyes”), usually taken as synecdoche to mean “my tears,” does not commend itself as a likely meaning. The Hebrew word is one of the so-called tiqqune sopherim, or “emendations of the scribes.”

[16:12]  ³ tn Heb “and the Lord will restore to me good in place of his curse this day.”

[22:19]  ⁴ tn The same verb is translated “trapped” in v. 6. In this poetic narrative context the prefixed verbal form is best understood as a preterite indicating past tense, not imperfect. Cf. NAB, NCV, TEV, NLT “attacked.”

[22:19]  ⁵ tn Heb “became my support.”