2 Samuel 12:5-7

12:5 Then David became very angry at this man. He said to Nathan, “As surely as the Lord lives, the man who did this deserves to die! ¹  12:6 Because he committed this cold-hearted crime, he must pay for the lamb four times over!” ² 

12:7 Nathan said to David, “You are that man! This is what the Lord God of Israel says: ‘I chose ³  you to be king over Israel and I rescued you from the hand of Saul.

[12:5]  ¹ tn Heb “the man doing this [is] a son of death.” See 1 Sam 20:31 for another use of this expression, which must mean “he is as good as dead” or “he deserves to die,” as 1 Sam 20:32 makes clear.

[12:6]  ² tc With the exception of the Lucianic recension, the Old Greek translation has here “sevenfold” rather than “fourfold,” a reading that S. R. Driver thought probably to be the original reading (S. R. Driver, Notes on the Hebrew Text and the Topography of the Books of Samuel, 291). However, Exod 22:1 [21:37 HT] specifies fourfold repayment for a stolen sheep, which is consistent with 2 Sam 12:6. Some mss of the Targum and the Syriac Peshitta exaggerate the idea to “fortyfold.”

[12:6]  tn Heb “the lamb he must repay fourfold because he did this thing and because he did not have compassion.”

[12:7]  ³ tn Heb “anointed.”