2 Samuel 2:18

2:18 The three sons of Zeruiah were there – Joab, Abishai, and Asahel. (Now Asahel was as quick on his feet as one of the gazelles in the field.)

2 Samuel 5:5

5:5 In Hebron he reigned over Judah for seven years and six months, and in Jerusalem ¹  he reigned for thirty-three years over all Israel and Judah.

2 Samuel 6:11

6:11 The ark of the Lord remained in the house of Obed-Edom the Gittite for three months. The Lord blessed Obed-Edom and all his family. ² 

2 Samuel 14:27

14:27 Absalom had ³  three sons and one daughter, whose name was Tamar. She was a very attractive woman. ⁴ 

2 Samuel 18:14

18:14 Joab replied, “I will not wait around like this for you!” He took three spears in his hand and thrust them into the middle of Absalom while he was still alive in the middle of the oak tree. ⁵ 

2 Samuel 20:4

20:4 Then the king said to Amasa, “Call the men of Judah together for me in three days, ⁶  and you be present here with them too.”

2 Samuel 21:16

21:16 Now Ishbi-Benob, one of the descendants of Rapha, ⁷  had a spear ⁸  that weighed three hundred bronze shekels, ⁹  and he was armed with a new weapon. ¹⁰  He had said that he would kill David.

2 Samuel 23:17

23:17 and said, “O Lord, I will not do this! ¹¹  It is equivalent to the blood of the men who risked their lives by going.” ¹²  So he refused to drink it. Such were the exploits of the three elite warriors. ¹³ 

2 Samuel 24:12

24:12 “Go, tell David, ‘This is what the Lord says: I am offering you three forms of judgment. Pick one of them and I will carry it out against you.’”

[5:5]  ¹ map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.

[6:11]  ² tn Heb “house,” both here and in v. 12.

[14:27]  ³ tn Heb “and there were born.”

[14:27]  ⁴ tc The LXX adds here the following words: “And she became a wife to Rehoboam the son of Solomon and bore to him Abia.”

[18:14]  ⁵ tn There is a play on the word “heart” here that is difficult to reproduce in English. Literally the Hebrew text says “he took three spears in his hand and thrust them into the heart of Absalom while he was still alive in the heart of the oak tree.” This figure of speech involves the use of the same word in different senses and is known as antanaclasis. It is illustrated in the familiar saying from the time of the American Revolution: “If we don’t hang together, we will all hang separately.” The present translation understands “heart” to be used somewhat figuratively for “chest” (cf. TEV, CEV), which explains why Joab’s armor bearers could still “kill” Absalom after he had been stabbed with three spears through the “heart.” Since trees do not have “chests” either, the translation uses “middle.”

[20:4]  ⁶ tn The present translation follows the Masoretic accentuation, with the major mark of disjunction (i.e., the atnach) placed at the word “days.” However, some scholars have suggested moving the atnach to “Judah” a couple of words earlier. This would yield the following sense: “Three days, and you be present here with them.” The difference in meaning is slight, and the MT is acceptable as it stands.

[21:16]  ⁷ tn This name has the definite article and may be intended to refer to a group of people rather than a single individual with this name.

[21:16]  ⁸ tn This is the only occurrence of this Hebrew word in the OT. Its precise meaning is therefore somewhat uncertain. As early as the LXX the word was understood to refer to a “spear,” and this seems to be the most likely possibility. Some scholars have proposed emending the text of 2 Sam 21:16 to כוֹבַעוֹ (khova’o; “his helmet”), but in spite of the fact that the word “helmet” appears in 1 Sam 17:5, there is not much evidence for reading that word here.

[21:16]  ⁹ tn Either the word “shekels” should be supplied here, or the Hebrew word מִשְׁקַל (mishqal, “weight”) right before “bronze” is a corrupted form of the word for shekel. If the latter is the case the problem probably resulted from another occurrence of the word מִשְׁקַל just four words earlier in the verse.

[21:16]  sn Three hundred bronze shekels would have weighed about 7.5 pounds (3.4 kg).

[21:16]  ¹⁰ tn The Hebrew text reads simply “a new [thing],” prompting one to ask “A new what?” Several possibilities have been proposed to resolve the problem: perhaps a word has dropped out of the Hebrew text here; or perhaps the word “new” is the result of misreading a different, less common, word; or perhaps a word (e.g., “sword,” so KJV, NAB, NASB, NIV, CEV, NLT) is simply to be inferred. The translation generally follows the latter possibility, while at the same time being deliberately nonspecific (“weapon”).

[23:17]  ¹¹ tn Heb “Far be it to me, O Lord, from doing this.”

[23:17]  ¹² tn Heb “[Is it not] the blood of the men who were going with their lives?”

[23:17]  ¹³ tn Heb “These things the three warriors did.”