2 Samuel 4:8

4:8 They brought the head of Ish-bosheth to David in Hebron, saying to the king, “Look! The head of Ish-bosheth son of Saul, your enemy who sought your life! The Lord has granted vengeance to my lord the king this day against ¹  Saul and his descendants!”

2 Samuel 6:20

6:20 When David went home to pronounce a blessing on his own house, ²  Michal, Saul’s daughter, came out to meet him. ³  She said, “How the king of Israel has distinguished ⁴  himself this day! He has exposed himself today before his servants’ slave girls the way a vulgar fool ⁵  might do!”

2 Samuel 7:29

7:29 Now be willing to bless your servant’s dynasty ⁶  so that it may stand permanently before you, for you, O sovereign Lord, have spoken. By your blessing may your servant’s dynasty be blessed on into the future!” ⁷ 

2 Samuel 11:4

11:4 David sent some messengers to get her. ⁸  She came to him and he had sexual relations with her. ⁹  (Now at that time she was in the process of purifying herself from her menstrual uncleanness.) ¹⁰  Then she returned to her home.

2 Samuel 11:25

11:25 David said to the messenger, “Tell Joab, ‘Don’t let this thing upset you. ¹¹  There is no way to anticipate whom the sword will cut down. ¹²  Press the battle against the city and conquer ¹³  it.’ Encourage him with these words.” ¹⁴ 

2 Samuel 11:27

11:27 When the time of mourning passed, David had her brought to his palace. ¹⁵  She became his wife and she bore him a son. But what David had done upset the Lord. ¹⁶ 

2 Samuel 13:28

13:28 Absalom instructed his servants, “Look! When Amnon is drunk ¹⁷  and I say to you, ‘Strike Amnon down,’ kill him then and there. Don’t fear! Is it not I who have given you these instructions? Be strong and courageous!” ¹⁸ 

2 Samuel 14:11

14:11 She replied, “In that case, ¹⁹  let the king invoke the name of ²⁰  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 ²¹  will fall to the ground.”

2 Samuel 14:19

14:19 The king said, “Did Joab put you up to all of this?” ²²  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 15:25

15:25 Then the king said to Zadok, “Take the ark of God back to the city. If I find favor in the Lord’s sight he will bring me back and enable me to see both it and his dwelling place again.

2 Samuel 16:11

16:11 Then David said to Abishai and to all his servants, “My own son, my very own flesh and blood, ²³  is trying to take my life. So also now this Benjaminite! Leave him alone so that he can curse, for the Lord has spoken to him.

2 Samuel 17:9

17:9 At this very moment he is hiding out in one of the caves or in some other similar place. If it should turn out that he attacks our troops first, ²⁴  whoever hears about it will say, ‘Absalom’s army has been slaughtered!’

2 Samuel 19:5

19:5 So Joab visited ²⁵  the king at his home. He said, “Today you have embarrassed all your servants who have saved your life this day, as well as the lives of your sons, your daughters, your wives, and your concubines.

2 Samuel 21:4

21:4 The Gibeonites said to him, “We ²⁶  have no claim to silver or gold from Saul or from his family, ²⁷  nor would we be justified in putting to death anyone in Israel.” David asked, ²⁸  “What then are you asking me to do for you?”

2 Samuel 23:17

23:17 and said, “O Lord, I will not do this! ²⁹  It is equivalent to the blood of the men who risked their lives by going.” ³⁰  So he refused to drink it. Such were the exploits of the three elite warriors. ³¹ 

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 

[4:8]  ¹ tn Heb “from.”

[6:20]  ² tn Heb “and David returned to bless his house.”

[6:20]  ³ tn Heb “David.” The name has been replaced by the pronoun (“him”) in the translation for stylistic reasons.

[6:20]  ⁴ tn Heb “honored.”

[6:20]  ⁵ tn Heb “one of the foolish ones.”

[7:29]  ⁶ tn Heb “house” (again later in this verse). See the note on “dynastic house” in v. 27.

[7:29]  ⁷ tn Or “permanently”; cf. NLT “it is an eternal blessing.”

[11:4]  ⁸ tn Heb “and David sent messengers and he took her.”

[11:4]  ⁹ tn Heb “he lay with her” (so NASB, NRSV); TEV “he made love to her”; NIV, CEV, NLT “he slept with her.”

[11:4]  ¹⁰ tn The parenthetical disjunctive clause further heightens the tension by letting the reader know that Bathsheba, having just completed her menstrual cycle, is ripe for conception. See P. K. McCarter, II Samuel (AB), 286. Since she just had her period, it will also be obvious to those close to the scene that Uriah, who has been away fighting, cannot be the father of the child.

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

[11:25]  ¹² tn Heb “according to this and according to this the sword devours.”

[11:25]  ¹³ tn Heb “overthrow.”

[11:25]  ¹⁴ tn The Hebrew text does not have “with these words.” They are supplied in the translation for clarity and for stylistic reasons.

[11:27]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “David sent and gathered her to his house.”

[11:27]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “and the thing which David had done was evil in the eyes of the Lord.” Note the verbal connection with v. 25. Though David did not regard the matter as evil, the Lord certainly did.

[13:28]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “when good is the heart of Amnon with wine.”

[13:28]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “and become sons of valor.”

[14:11]  ¹⁹ 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]  ²⁰ tn Heb “let the king remember.”

[14:11]  ²¹ tn Heb “of your son.”

[14:19]  ²² tn Heb “Is the hand of Joab with you in all this?”

[16:11]  ²³ tn Heb “who came out from my entrails.” David’s point is that is his own son, his child whom he himself had fathered, was now wanting to kill him.

[17:9]  ²⁴ tn Heb “that he falls on them [i.e., Absalom’s troops] at the first [encounter]; or “that some of them [i.e., Absalom’s troops] fall at the first [encounter].”

[19:5]  ²⁵ tn Heb “came to.”

[21:4]  ²⁶ tc The translation follows the Qere and several medieval Hebrew mss in reading לָנוּ (lanu, “to us”) rather than the MT לִי (li, “to me”). But for a contrary opinion see S. R. Driver, Notes on the Hebrew Text and the Topography of the Books of Samuel, 53, 350.

[21:4]  ²⁷ tn Heb “house.”

[21:4]  ²⁸ tn Heb “and he said”; the referent (David) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[23:17]  ²⁹ tn Heb “Far be it to me, O Lord, from doing this.”

[23:17]  ³⁰ tn Heb “[Is it not] the blood of the men who were going with their lives?”

[23:17]  ³¹ tn Heb “These things the three warriors did.”

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