2 Samuel 3:28-39

3:28 When David later heard about this, he said, “I and my kingdom are forever innocent before the Lord of the shed blood of Abner son of Ner! 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!”

3:30 So Joab and his brother Abishai killed Abner, because he had killed their brother Asahel in Gibeon during the battle.

3:31 David instructed Joab and all the people who were with him, “Tear your clothes! Put on sackcloth! Lament before Abner!” Now King David followed ⁶  behind the funeral bier. 3:32 So they buried Abner in Hebron. The king cried loudly ⁷  over Abner’s grave and all the people wept too. 3:33 The king chanted the following lament for Abner:

“Should Abner have died like a fool?

3:34 Your hands ⁸  were not bound,

and your feet were not put into irons.

You fell the way one falls before criminals.”

All the people ⁹  wept over him again. 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 ¹⁰  if I taste bread or anything whatsoever before the sun sets!”

3:36 All the people noticed this and it pleased them. ¹¹  In fact, everything the king did pleased all the people. 3:37 All the people and all Israel realized on that day that the killing of Abner son of Ner was not done at the king’s instigation. ¹² 

3:38 Then the king said to his servants, “Do you not realize that a great leader ¹³  has fallen this day in Israel? 3:39 Today I am weak, even though I am anointed as king. These men, the sons of Zeruiah, are too much for me to bear! ¹⁴  May the Lord punish appropriately the one who has done this evil thing!” ¹⁵ 

2 Samuel 11:6-21

11:6 So David sent a message to Joab that said, “Send me Uriah the Hittite.” So Joab sent Uriah to David. 11:7 When Uriah came to him, David asked about how Joab and the army were doing and how the campaign was going. ¹⁶  11:8 Then David said to Uriah, “Go down to your home and relax.” ¹⁷  When Uriah left the palace, the king sent a gift to him. ¹⁸  11:9 But Uriah stayed at the door of the palace with all ¹⁹  the servants of his lord. He did not go down to his house.

11:10 So they informed David, “Uriah has not gone down to his house.” So David said to Uriah, “Haven’t you just arrived from a journey? Why haven’t you gone down to your house?” 11:11 Uriah replied to David, “The ark and Israel and Judah reside in temporary shelters, and my lord Joab and my lord’s soldiers are camping in the open field. Should I go to my house to eat and drink and have marital relations ²⁰  with my wife? As surely as you are alive, ²¹  I will not do this thing!” 11:12 So David said to Uriah, “Stay here another day. Tomorrow I will send you back.” So Uriah stayed in Jerusalem both that day and the following one. ²²  11:13 Then David summoned him. He ate and drank with him, and got him drunk. But in the evening he went out to sleep on his bed with the servants of his lord; he did not go down to his own house.

11:14 In the morning David wrote a letter to Joab and sent it with Uriah. 11:15 In the letter he wrote: “Station Uriah in the thick of the battle and then withdraw from him so he will be cut down and killed.”

11:16 So as Joab kept watch on the city, he stationed Uriah at the place where he knew the best enemy soldiers ²³  were. 11:17 When the men of the city came out and fought with Joab, some of David’s soldiers ²⁴  fell in battle. Uriah the Hittite also died.

11:18 Then Joab sent a full battle report to David. ²⁵  11:19 He instructed the messenger as follows: “When you finish giving the battle report to the king, 11:20 if the king becomes angry and asks you, ‘Why did you go so close to the city to fight? Didn’t you realize they would shoot from the wall? 11:21 Who struck down Abimelech the son of Jerub-Besheth? Didn’t a woman throw an upper millstone ²⁶  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.’”

[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).

[3:31]  ⁶ tn Heb “was walking.”

[3:32]  ⁷ tn Heb “lifted up his voice and wept.” The expression is a verbal hendiadys.

[3:34]  ⁸ tc The translation follows many medieval Hebrew manuscripts and several ancient versions in reading “your hands,” rather than “your hand.”

[3:34]  ⁹ tc 4QSam^a lacks the words “all the people.”

[3:35]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “Thus God will do to me and thus he will add.”

[3:36]  ¹¹ tn Heb “it was good in their eyes.”

[3:37]  ¹² tn Heb “from the king.”

[3:38]  ¹³ tn Heb “a leader and a great one.” The expression is a hendiadys.

[3:39]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “are hard from me.”

[3:39]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “May the Lord repay the doer of the evil according to his evil” (NASB similar).

[11:7]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “concerning the peace of Joab and concerning the peace of the people and concerning the peace of the battle.”

[11:8]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “and wash your feet.”

[11:8]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “and there went out after him the gift of the king.”

[11:9]  ¹⁹ tc The Lucianic recension of the Old Greek translation lacks the word “all.”

[11:11]  ²⁰ tn Heb “and lay.”

[11:11]  ²¹ tn Heb “as you live and as your soul lives.”

[11:12]  ²² tn On the chronology involved here see P. K. McCarter, II Samuel (AB), 287.

[11:16]  ²³ tn Heb “the valiant men.” This refers in context to the strongest or most valiant defenders of the city Joab and the Israelite army were besieging, so the present translation uses “the best enemy soldiers” for clarity.

[11:17]  ²⁴ tn Heb “some of the people from the servants of David.”

[11:18]  ²⁵ tn Heb “Joab sent and related to David all the matters of the battle.”

[11:21]  ²⁶ 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.