2 Samuel 11:19-20

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?

2 Samuel 15:7

15:7 After four ¹  years Absalom said to the king, “Let me go and repay my vow that I made to the Lord while I was in Hebron.

2 Samuel 19:24

19:24 Now Mephibosheth, Saul’s grandson, ²  came down to meet the king. From the day the king had left until the day he safely ³  returned, Mephibosheth ⁴  had not cared for his feet ⁵  nor trimmed ⁶  his mustache nor washed his clothes.

[15:7]  ¹ tc The MT has here “forty,” but this is presumably a scribal error for “four.” The context will not tolerate a period of forty years prior to the rebellion of Absalom. The Lucianic Greek recension (τέσσαρα ἔτη, tessara ete), the Syriac Peshitta (’arba’ sanin), and Vulgate (post quattuor autem annos) in fact have the expected reading “four years.” Most English translations follow the versions in reading “four” here, although some (e.g. KJV, ASV, NASB, NKJV), following the MT, read “forty.”

[19:24]  ² tn Heb “son.”

[19:24]  ³ tn Heb “in peace.” So also in v. 31.

[19:24]  ⁴ tn Heb “he”; the referent (Mephibosheth) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[19:24]  ⁵ tn Heb “done his feet.”

[19:24]  ⁶ tn Heb “done.”