2 Samuel 1:10

1:10 So I stood over him and put him to death, since I knew that he couldn’t live in such a condition. ¹  Then I took the crown which was on his head and the ²  bracelet which was on his arm. I have brought them here to my lord.” ³ 

2 Samuel 2:21

2:21 Abner said to him, “Turn aside to your right or to your left. Capture one of the soldiers ⁴  and take his equipment for yourself!” But Asahel was not willing to turn aside from following him.

2 Samuel 4:7

4:7 They had entered ⁵  the house while Ish-bosheth ⁶  was resting on his bed in his bedroom. They mortally wounded him ⁷  and then cut off his head. ⁸  Taking his head, ⁹  they traveled on the way of the Arabah all that night.

2 Samuel 4:12

4:12 So David issued orders to the soldiers and they put them to death. Then they cut off their hands and feet and hung them ¹⁰  near the pool in Hebron. But they took the head of Ish-bosheth ¹¹  and buried it in the tomb of Abner ¹²  in Hebron. ¹³ 

2 Samuel 7:8

7:8 “So now, say this to my servant David: ‘This is what the Lord of hosts says: I took you from the pasture and from your work as a shepherd ¹⁴  to make you leader of my people Israel.

2 Samuel 12:9

12:9 Why have you shown contempt for the word of the Lord by doing evil in my ¹⁵  sight? You have struck down Uriah the Hittite with the sword and you have taken his wife as your own! ¹⁶  You have killed him with the sword of the Ammonites.

2 Samuel 12:11

12:11 This is what the Lord says: ‘I am about to bring disaster on you ¹⁷  from inside your own household! ¹⁸  Right before your eyes I will take your wives and hand them over to your companion. ¹⁹  He will have sexual relations with ²⁰  your wives in broad daylight! ²¹ 

2 Samuel 12:30

12:30 He took the crown of their king ²²  from his head – it was gold, weighed about seventy-five pounds, ²³  and held a precious stone – and it was placed on David’s head. He also took from the city a great deal of plunder.

2 Samuel 13:10

13:10 Then Amnon said to Tamar, “Bring the cakes into the bedroom; then I will eat from your hand.” So Tamar took the cakes that she had prepared and brought them to her brother Amnon in the bedroom.

2 Samuel 14:2

14:2 So Joab sent to Tekoa and brought from there a wise woman. He told her, “Pretend to be in mourning ²⁴  and put on garments for mourning. Don’t anoint yourself with oil. Instead, act like a woman who has been mourning for the dead for some time. ²⁵ 

2 Samuel 18:17-18

18:17 They took Absalom, threw him into a large pit in the forest, and stacked a huge pile of stones over him. In the meantime all the Israelite soldiers fled to their homes. ²⁶ 

18:18 Prior to this ²⁷  Absalom had set up a monument ²⁸  and dedicated it to himself in the King’s Valley, reasoning “I have no son who will carry on my name.” He named the monument after himself, and to this day it is known as Absalom’s Memorial.

2 Samuel 20:3

20:3 Then David went to his palace ²⁹  in Jerusalem. The king took the ten concubines he had left to care for the palace and placed them under confinement. ³⁰  Though he provided for their needs, he did not have sexual relations with them. ³¹  They remained in confinement until the day they died, living out the rest of their lives as widows.

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 ³²  fortified cities for himself and get away from us.”

2 Samuel 21:8

21:8 So the king took Armoni and Mephibosheth, the two sons of Aiah’s daughter Rizpah whom she had born to Saul, and the five sons of Saul’s daughter Merab ³³  whom she had born to Adriel the son of Barzillai the Meholathite.

2 Samuel 21:10

21:10 Rizpah the daughter of Aiah took sackcloth and spread it out for herself on a rock. From the beginning of the harvest until the rain fell on them, ³⁴  she did not allow the birds of the air to feed ³⁵  on them by day, nor the wild animals ³⁶  by night.

[1:10]  ¹ tn Heb “after his falling”; NAB “could not survive his wound”; CEV “was too badly wounded to live much longer.”

[1:10]  ² tc The MT lacks the definite article, but this is likely due to textual corruption. It is preferable to read the alef (א) of אֶצְעָדָה (’ets’adah) as a ה (he) giving הַצְּעָדָה (hatsÿ’adah). There is no reason to think that the soldier confiscated from Saul’s dead body only one of two or more bracelets that he was wearing (cf. NLT “one of his bracelets”).

[1:10]  ³ sn The claims that the soldier is making here seem to contradict the story of Saul’s death as presented in 1 Sam 31:3-5. In that passage it appears that Saul took his own life, not that he was slain by a passerby who happened on the scene. Some scholars account for the discrepancy by supposing that conflicting accounts have been brought together in the MT. However, it is likely that the young man is here fabricating the account in a self-serving way so as to gain favor with David, or so he supposes. He probably had come across Saul’s corpse, stolen the crown and bracelet from the body, and now hopes to curry favor with David by handing over to him these emblems of Saul’s royalty. But in so doing the Amalekite greatly miscalculated David’s response to this alleged participation in Saul’s death. The consequence of his lies will instead be his own death.

[2:21]  ⁴ tn Heb “young men.” So also elsewhere.

[4:7]  ⁵ tn After the concluding disjunctive clause at the end of v. 6, the author now begins a more detailed account of the murder and its aftermath.

[4:7]  ⁶ tn Heb “he”; the referent (Ish-bosheth) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[4:7]  ⁷ tn Heb “they struck him down and killed him.” The expression is a verbal hendiadys.

[4:7]  ⁸ tn Heb “and they removed his head.” The Syriac Peshitta and Vulgate lack these words.

[4:7]  ⁹ tc The Lucianic Greek recension lacks the words “his head.”

[4:12]  ¹⁰ tn The antecedent of the pronoun “them” (which is not present in the Hebrew text, but implied) is not entirely clear. Presumably it is the corpses that were hung and not merely the detached hands and feet; cf. NIV “hung the (their NRSV, NLT) bodies”; the alternative is represented by TEV “cut off their hands and feet, which they hung up.”

[4:12]  ¹¹ tc 4QSam^a mistakenly reads “Mephibosheth” here.

[4:12]  ¹² tc The LXX adds “the son of Ner” by conformity with common phraseology elsewhere.

[4:12]  ¹³ tc Some mss of the LXX lack the phrase “in Hebron.”

[7:8]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “and from after the sheep.”

[12:9]  ¹⁵ tc So the Qere; the Kethib has “his.”

[12:9]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “to you for a wife.” This expression also occurs at the end of v. 10.

[12:11]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “raise up against you disaster.”

[12:11]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “house” (so NAB, NRSV); NCV, TEV, CEV “family.”

[12:11]  ¹⁹ tn Or “friend.”

[12:11]  ²⁰ tn Heb “will lie with” (so NIV, NRSV); TEV “will have intercourse with”; CEV, NLT “will go to bed with.”

[12:11]  ²¹ tn Heb “in the eyes of this sun.”

[12:30]  ²² tn Part of the Greek tradition wrongly understands Hebrew מַלְכָּם (malkam, “their king”) as a proper name (“Milcom”). Some English versions follow the Greek here, rendering the phrase “the crown of Milcom” (so NRSV; cf. also NAB, CEV). TEV takes this as a reference not to the Ammonite king but to “the idol of the Ammonite god Molech.”

[12:30]  ²³ tn Heb “and its weight [was] a talent of gold.” The weight of this ornamental crown was approximately 75 lbs (34 kg). See P. K. McCarter, II Samuel (AB), 313.

[14:2]  ²⁴ tn The Hebrew Hitpael verbal form here indicates pretended rather than genuine action.

[14:2]  ²⁵ tn Heb “these many days.”

[18:17]  ²⁶ tn Heb “and all Israel fled, each to his tent.” In this context this refers to the supporters of Absalom (see vv. 6-7, 16).

[18:18]  ²⁷ tn Heb “and.” This disjunctive clause (conjunction + subject + verb) describes an occurrence that preceded the events just narrated.

[18:18]  ²⁸ tn Heb “a pillar.”

[20:3]  ²⁹ tn Heb “house.”

[20:3]  ³⁰ tn Heb “and he placed them in a guarded house.”

[20:3]  ³¹ tn Heb “he did not come to them”; NAB “has no further relations with them”; NIV “did not lie with them”; TEV “did not have intercourse with them”; NLT “would no longer sleep with them.”

[20:6]  ³² 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”).

[21:8]  ³³ tc The MT reads “Michal” here, but two Hebrew manuscripts read “Merab,” along with some LXX manuscripts. Cf. 1 Sam 18:19.

[21:10]  ³⁴ tn Heb “until water was poured on them from the sky.”

[21:10]  ³⁵ tn Heb “rest.”

[21:10]  ³⁶ tn Heb “the beasts of the field.”