2 Samuel 22:21

22:21 The Lord repaid ¹  me for my godly deeds; ² 

he rewarded ³  my blameless behavior. ⁴ 

2 Samuel 22:25

22:25 The Lord rewarded me for my godly deeds; ⁵ 

he took notice of my blameless behavior. ⁶ 

2 Samuel 22:48

22:48 The one true God completely vindicates me; ⁷ 

he makes nations submit to me. ⁸ 

2 Samuel 16:12

16:12 Perhaps the Lord will notice my affliction ⁹  and this day grant me good in place of his curse.” ¹⁰ 

2 Samuel 19:36

19:36 I will cross the Jordan with the king and go a short distance. ¹¹  Why should the king reward me in this way?

2 Samuel 3:39

3:39 Today I am weak, even though I am anointed as king. These men, the sons of Zeruiah, are too much for me to bear! ¹²  May the Lord punish appropriately the one who has done this evil thing!” ¹³ 

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 ¹⁴  Saul and his descendants!”

2 Samuel 3:27

3:27 When Abner returned to Hebron, Joab took him aside at the gate as if to speak privately with him. Joab then stabbed him ¹⁵  in the abdomen and killed him, avenging the shed blood of his brother Asahel. ¹⁶ 

2 Samuel 14:7

14:7 Now the entire family has risen up against your servant, saying, ‘Turn over the one who struck down his brother, so that we can execute him and avenge the death ¹⁷  of his brother whom he killed. In so doing we will also destroy the heir.’ They want to extinguish my remaining coal, ¹⁸  leaving no one on the face of the earth to carry on the name of my husband.”

2 Samuel 2:6

2:6 Now may the Lord show you true kindness! ¹⁹  I also will reward you, ²⁰  because you have done this deed.

2 Samuel 16:8

16:8 The Lord has punished you for ²¹  all the spilled blood of the house of Saul, in whose place you rule. Now the Lord has given the kingdom into the hand of your son Absalom. Disaster has overtaken you, for you are a man of bloodshed!”

2 Samuel 3:30

3:30 So Joab and his brother Abishai killed Abner, because he had killed their brother Asahel in Gibeon during the battle.

2 Samuel 16:7

16:7 As he yelled curses, Shimei said, “Leave! Leave! You man of bloodshed, you wicked man! ²² 

2 Samuel 4:11

4:11 Surely when wicked men have killed an innocent man as he slept ²³  in his own house, should I not now require his blood from your hands and remove ²⁴  you from the earth?”

2 Samuel 3:8

3:8 These words of Ish-bosheth really angered Abner and he said, “Am I the head of a dog that belongs to Judah? This very day I am demonstrating ²⁵  loyalty to the house of Saul your father and to his relatives ²⁶  and his friends! I have not betrayed you into the hand of David. Yet you have accused me of sinning with this woman today! ²⁷ 

2 Samuel 14:11

14:11 She replied, “In that case, ²⁸  let the king invoke the name of ²⁹  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 ³⁰  will fall to the ground.”

2 Samuel 21:4

21:4 The Gibeonites said to him, “We ³¹  have no claim to silver or gold from Saul or from his family, ³²  nor would we be justified in putting to death anyone in Israel.” David asked, ³³  “What then are you asking me to do for you?”

[22:21]  ¹ tn In this poetic narrative context the prefixed verbal form is best understood as a preterite indicating past tense, not imperfect.

[22:21]  ² tn Heb “according to my righteousness.” As vv. 22-25 make clear, David refers here to his unwavering obedience to God’s commands. He explains that the Lord was pleased with him and willing to deliver him because he had been loyal to God and obedient to his commandments. Ancient Near Eastern literature contains numerous parallels. A superior (a god or king) would typically reward a subject (a king or the servant of a king, respectively) for loyalty and obedience. See R. B. Chisholm, “An Exegetical and Theological Study of Psalm 18/2 Samuel 22” (Th.D. diss., Dallas Theological Seminary, 1983), 211-13.

[22:21]  ³ tn The unreduced Hiphil prefixed verbal form appears to be an imperfect, in which case the psalmist would be generalizing. However, both the preceding and following contexts (see especially v. 25) suggest he is narrating his experience. Despite its unreduced form, the verb is better taken as a preterite. For other examples of unreduced Hiphil preterites, see Pss 55:14a; 68:9a, 10b; 80:8a; 89:43a; 107:38b; 116:6b.

[22:21]  ⁴ tn Heb “according to the purity of my hands he repaid to me.” Hands suggest activity and behavior.

[22:25]  ⁵ tn Heb “according to my righteousness.” See v. 21.

[22:25]  ⁶ tn Heb “according to my purity before his eyes.”

[22:48]  ⁷ tn Heb “The God is the one who grants vengeance to me.” The plural form of the noun “vengeance” indicates degree here, suggesting complete vengeance or vindication. In the ancient Near East military victory was sometimes viewed as a sign that one’s God had judged in favor of the victor, avenging and/or vindicating him. See, for example, Judg 11:27, 32-33, 36.

[22:48]  ⁸ tn Heb “and [is the one who] brings down nations beneath me.”

[16:12]  ⁹ tc The Hebrew text is difficult here. It is probably preferable to read with the LXX, the Syriac Peshitta, and Vulgate בְּעוֹנִי (bÿ’onyi, “on my affliction”) rather than the Kethib of the MT בָּעַוֹנִי (ba’avoni, “on my wrongdoing”). While this Kethib reading is understandable as an objective genitive (i.e., “the wrong perpetrated upon me”), it does not conform to normal Hebrew idiom for this idea. The Qere of the MT בְּעֵינֵי (bÿ’eni, “on my eyes”), usually taken as synecdoche to mean “my tears,” does not commend itself as a likely meaning. The Hebrew word is one of the so-called tiqqune sopherim, or “emendations of the scribes.”

[16:12]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “and the Lord will restore to me good in place of his curse this day.”

[19:36]  ¹¹ tn Heb “Like a little your servant will cross the Jordan with the king.”

[3:39]  ¹² tn Heb “are hard from me.”

[3:39]  ¹³ tn Heb “May the Lord repay the doer of the evil according to his evil” (NASB similar).

[4:8]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “from.”

[3:27]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “and he struck him down there [in] the stomach.”

[3:27]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “and he [i.e., Abner] died on account of the blood of Asahel his [i.e., Joab’s] brother.”

[14:7]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “in exchange for the life.” The Hebrew preposition בְּ (bÿ, “in”) here is the so-called bet pretii, or bet (בְּ) of price, defining the value attached to someone or something.

[14:7]  ¹⁸ sn My remaining coal is here metaphorical language, describing the one remaining son as her only source of lingering hope for continuing the family line.

[2:6]  ¹⁹ tn Or “loyalty and devotion.”

[2:6]  ²⁰ tn Heb “will do with you this good.”

[16:8]  ²¹ tn Heb “has brought back upon you.”

[16:7]  ²² tn Heb “man of worthlessness.”

[4:11]  ²³ tn Heb “on his bed.”

[4:11]  ²⁴ tn See HALOT 146 s.v. II בער. Some derive the verb from a homonym meaning “to burn; to consume.”

[3:8]  ²⁵ tn Heb “I do.”

[3:8]  ²⁶ tn Heb “brothers.”

[3:8]  ²⁷ tn Heb “and you have laid upon me the guilt of the woman today.”

[14:11]  ²⁸ 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]  ²⁹ tn Heb “let the king remember.”

[14:11]  ³⁰ tn Heb “of your son.”

[21:4]  ³¹ 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]  ³² tn Heb “house.”

[21:4]  ³³ tn Heb “and he said”; the referent (David) has been specified in the translation for clarity.