2 Samuel 20:6

20:6 Then David said to Abishai, “Now Sheba son of Bicri will cause greater disaster for us than Absalom did! Take your lord’s servants and pursue him. Otherwise he will secure ¹  fortified cities for himself and get away from us.”

2 Samuel 23:10

23:10 he stood his ground ²  and fought the Philistines until his hand grew so tired that it ³  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.

[20:6]  ¹ tn Heb “find.” The perfect verbal form is unexpected with the preceding word “otherwise.” We should probably read instead the imperfect. Although it is possible to understand the perfect here as indicating that the feared result is thought of as already having taken place (cf. BDB 814 s.v. פֶּן 2), it is more likely that the perfect is simply the result of scribal error. In this context the imperfect would be more consistent with the following verb וְהִצִּיל (vÿhitsil, “and he will get away”).

[23:10]  ² tn Heb “arose.”

[23:10]  ³ tn Heb “his hand.”