2 Samuel 6:18

6:18 When David finished offering the burnt sacrifices and peace offerings, he pronounced a blessing over the people in the name of the Lord of hosts.

2 Samuel 22:47

22:47 The Lord is alive! ¹ 

My protector ²  is praiseworthy! ³ 

The God who delivers me ⁴  is exalted as king! ⁵ 

2 Samuel 7:29

7:29 Now be willing to bless your servant’s dynasty ⁶  so that it may stand permanently before you, for you, O sovereign Lord, have spoken. By your blessing may your servant’s dynasty be blessed on into the future!” ⁷ 

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. ⁸ 

2 Samuel 21:3

21:3 David said to the Gibeonites, “What can I do for you, and how can I make amends so that you will bless ⁹  the Lord’s inheritance?”

2 Samuel 19:39

19:39 So all the people crossed the Jordan, as did the king. After the king had kissed him and blessed him, Barzillai returned to his home. ¹⁰ 

2 Samuel 2:5

2:5 So David sent messengers to the people of Jabesh Gilead and told them, “May you be blessed by the Lord because you have shown this kindness ¹¹  to your lord Saul by burying him.

2 Samuel 14:22

14:22 Then Joab bowed down with his face toward the ground and thanked ¹²  the king. Joab said, “Today your servant knows that I have found favor in your sight, my lord the king, because the king has granted the request of your ¹³  servant!”

2 Samuel 6:12

6:12 David was told, ¹⁴  “The Lord has blessed the family of Obed-Edom and everything he owns because of the ark of God.” So David went and joyfully brought the ark of God from the house of Obed-Edom to the City of David.

2 Samuel 6:20

6:20 When David went home to pronounce a blessing on his own house, ¹⁵  Michal, Saul’s daughter, came out to meet him. ¹⁶  She said, “How the king of Israel has distinguished ¹⁷  himself this day! He has exposed himself today before his servants’ slave girls the way a vulgar fool ¹⁸  might do!”

2 Samuel 16:12

16:12 Perhaps the Lord will notice my affliction ¹⁹  and this day grant me good in place of his curse.” ²⁰ 

2 Samuel 22:21

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

he rewarded ²³  my blameless behavior. ²⁴ 

2 Samuel 13:25

13:25 But the king said to Absalom, “No, my son. We shouldn’t all go. We shouldn’t burden you in that way.” Though Absalom ²⁵  pressed ²⁶  him, the king ²⁷  was not willing to go. Instead, David ²⁸  blessed him.

2 Samuel 12:25

12:25 and sent word through Nathan the prophet that he should be named Jedidiah ²⁹  for the Lord’s sake.

2 Samuel 8:10

8:10 he ³⁰  sent his son Joram ³¹  to King David to extend his best wishes ³²  and to pronounce a blessing on him for his victory over Hadadezer, for Toi had been at war with Hadadezer. ³³  He brought with him various items made of silver, gold, and bronze. ³⁴ 

2 Samuel 5:12

5:12 David realized that the Lord had established him as king over Israel and that he had elevated his kingdom for the sake of his people Israel.

2 Samuel 7:18

David Offers a Prayer to God

7:18 King David went in, sat before the Lord, and said, “Who am I, O Lord God, and what is my family, ³⁵  that you should have brought me to this point?

2 Samuel 23:5

23:5 My dynasty is approved by God, ³⁶ 

for he has made a perpetual covenant with me,

arranged in all its particulars and secured.

He always delivers me,

and brings all I desire to fruition. ³⁷ 

2 Samuel 7:23

7:23 Who is like your people, Israel, a unique nation ³⁸  on the earth? Their God ³⁹  went ⁴⁰  to claim ⁴¹  a nation for himself and to make a name for himself! You did great and awesome acts for your land, ⁴²  before your people whom you delivered for yourself from the Egyptian empire and its gods. ⁴³ 

[22:47]  ¹ tn Elsewhere the construction חַי־יְהוָה (khay-yÿhvah) as used exclusively as an oath formula, but this is not the case here, for no oath follows. Here the statement is an affirmation of the Lord’s active presence and intervention. In contrast to pagan deities, he demonstrates that he is the living God by rescuing and empowering the psalmist.

[22:47]  ² tn Heb “my rocky cliff,” which is a metaphor for protection.

[22:47]  ³ tn Or “blessed [i.e., praised] be.”

[22:47]  ⁴ tn Heb “the God of the rock of my deliverance.” The term צוּר (tsur, “rock”) is probably accidentally repeated from the previous line. The parallel version in Ps 18:46 has simply “the God of my deliverance.”

[22:47]  ⁵ tn The words “as king” are supplied in the translation for clarification. In the Psalms the verb רוּם (rum, “be exalted”) when used of God, refers to his exalted position as king (Pss 99:2; 113:4; 138:6) and/or his self-revelation as king through his mighty deeds of deliverance (Pss 21:13; 46:10; 57:5, 11).

[7:29]  ⁶ tn Heb “house” (again later in this verse). See the note on “dynastic house” in v. 27.

[7:29]  ⁷ tn Or “permanently”; cf. NLT “it is an eternal blessing.”

[6:11]  ⁸ tn Heb “house,” both here and in v. 12.

[21:3]  ⁹ tn After the preceding imperfect verbal form, the subordinated imperative indicates purpose/result. S. R. Driver comments, “…the imper. is used instead of the more normal voluntative, for the purpose of expressing with somewhat greater force the intention of the previous verb” (S. R. Driver, Notes on the Hebrew Text and the Topography of the Books of Samuel, 350).

[19:39]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “to his place.”

[2:5]  ¹¹ tn Or “loyalty.”

[14:22]  ¹² tn Heb “blessed.”

[14:22]  ¹³ tc The present translation reads with the Qere “your” rather than the MT “his.”

[6:12]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “and it was told to David, saying.”

[6:20]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “and David returned to bless his house.”

[6:20]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “David.” The name has been replaced by the pronoun (“him”) in the translation for stylistic reasons.

[6:20]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “honored.”

[6:20]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “one of the foolish ones.”

[16:12]  ¹⁹ 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]  ²⁰ tn Heb “and the Lord will restore to me good in place of his curse this day.”

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

[22:21]  ²² 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]  ²³ 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]  ²⁴ tn Heb “according to the purity of my hands he repaid to me.” Hands suggest activity and behavior.

[13:25]  ²⁵ tn Heb “he”; the referent (Absalom) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[13:25]  ²⁶ tc Here and in v. 27 the translation follows 4QSam^a ויצפר (vayyitspar, “and he pressed”) rather than the MT וַיִּפְרָץ (vayyiprats, “and he broke through”). This emended reading seems also to underlie the translations of the LXX (καὶ ἐβιάσατο, kai ebiasato), the Syriac Peshitta (we’alseh), and Vulgate (cogeret eum).

[13:25]  ²⁷ tn Heb “he”; the referent (the king) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[13:25]  ²⁸ tn Heb “he”; the referent (David) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[12:25]  ²⁹ sn The name Jedidiah means “loved by the Lord.”

[8:10]  ³⁰ tn Heb “Toi.” The proper name has been replaced by the pronoun in the translation for stylistic reasons.

[8:10]  ³¹ tn The name appears as “Hadoram” in the parallel text in 1 Chr 18:10.

[8:10]  ³² tn Heb “to ask concerning him for peace.”

[8:10]  ³³ tn Heb “and to bless him because he fought with Hadadezer and defeated him, for Hadadezer was a man of battles with Toi.”

[8:10]  ³⁴ tn Heb “and in his hand were items of silver and items of gold and items of bronze.”

[7:18]  ³⁵ tn Heb “house.”

[23:5]  ³⁶ tn Heb “For not thus [is] my house with God?”

[23:5]  ³⁷ tn Heb “for all my deliverance and every desire, surely does he not make [it] grow?”

[7:23]  ³⁸ tn Heb “a nation, one.”

[7:23]  ³⁹ tn Heb “whose God” or “because God.” In the Hebrew text this clause is subordinated to what precedes. The clauses are separated in the translation for stylistic reasons.

[7:23]  ⁴⁰ tn The verb is plural in Hebrew, agreeing grammatically with the divine name, which is a plural of degree.

[7:23]  ⁴¹ tn Heb “redeem.”

[7:23]  ⁴² tn Heb “and to do for you [plural form] the great [thing] and awesome [things] for your land.”

[7:23]  ⁴³ tn Heb “from Egypt, nations and their gods.” The LXX has “nations and tents,” which reflects a mistaken metathesis of letters in אֶלֹהָיו (e’lohav, “its gods”) and אֹהָלָיו (’ohalav, “its tents”).