2 Samuel — Textual and reception notes
Saints Translation · Companion notes to the reading edition · Back to 2 Samuel
Textual and reception notes
These notes compare the two independently translated source texts. MT identifies the Hebrew and LXX the Greek. The five categories describe the relation between the readings: Same, Similar, Different, Divergent, and Disparate. Attributed interpretations do not replace the ancient wording.
Notes on Chapter 1
1:1 · Same
Text: The opening links Saul’s death with David’s return and the two-day stay. The singular people-name Amalek is retained collectively.
1:2 · Similar
Text: Greek explicitly identifies Saul’s people and the recipient of the bow. The arrival, mourning signs, and gesture otherwise agree.
1:3 · Same
Text: Both give the question and the man’s claim to have escaped. The Greek verb emphasizes coming through safely without changing the reported event.
1:4 · Similar
Text: Hebrew asks what happened; Greek asks about the report. Greek separately repeats died for Saul and Jonathan. Both present the news as the messenger’s speech.
1:5 · Same
Text: The question, persons, and reported deaths agree. The age designation does not itself establish legal servitude.
1:6 · Different
Text: Greek hipparchoi names cavalry commanders; Hebrew’s difficult masters of the horsemen expression is rendered contextually as horsemen. The claimed chance encounter and leaning on the spear agree.
1:7 · Same
Text: The look, recognition, summons, and reply correspond. These remain details in the young man’s account.
1:8 · Same
Text: Hebrew follows the checked qere I said against the written he said [Q1]. With that reading, the exchange agrees with Greek.
1:9 · Different
Text: Hebrew’s rare shabats is provisionally agony; its precise sense remains disputed. Greek explicitly gives terrible darkness. The life / soul clauses retain their different expressions without a modern diagnosis.
1:10 · Same
Text: The claimed killing and removal of the royal ornaments agree. This speech is not rewritten as the narrator’s account of Saul falling on his own sword in 1 Samuel 31, nor is a verdict on the messenger’s truthfulness inserted.
1:11 · Same
Text: Greek spells out the men’s action and garments; Hebrew uses a corresponding abbreviated clause. The mourning action is the same.
1:12 · Different
Text: Hebrew names YHWH’s people; Greek names Judah’s people. Both retain the house of Israel and the same mourning practices. Fallen and struck differ in description.
1:13 · Same
Text: Both identify the man through an Amalekite father’s resident-alien status. The compressed Hebrew sequence allows the ethnic description to be heard with the father or the speaker; the family identification corresponds.
1:14 · Same
Text: The accusation concerns killing the anointed king. Lord / YHWH and the ordinary hand idiom do not create a substantive difference; no later Christian identity is substituted for Saul.
1:15 · Same
Text: Greek explicitly identifies the young men as David’s. The command, attack, and death agree. Strike renders the encounter verb in this expressly violent setting.
1:16 · Same
Text: Hebrew follows the checked singular qere your blood against the written plural [Q1]. Both ground David’s verdict in the man’s own admission. The speech remains after the execution in the narrated sequence.
1:17 · Same
Text: The introduction identifies the same lament and its subjects. Greek continues its syntax into verse 18.
1:18 · Divergent
Text: Hebrew includes the Bow, absent in this Greek text. It is treated provisionally as the lament’s title, with bow instruction an alternative construal. Both cite the same named book; no lost text is reconstructed.
1:19 · Disparate
Text: Hebrew’s splendor image, with gazelle as a lexical alternative, differs from Greek’s command stēlōson, set up a memorial. Greek expressly names the dead; its traumatiai are rendered slain in this death lament [D11]. The opening action and image remain materially different; the compressed Greek construction remains difficult.
1:20 · Different
Text: Hebrew gives streets; Greek gives exits or ways out. Greek foreigners denotes the Philistines in context. Its good-news verb is rendered concretely in the enemies’ anticipated celebration, not as a Christian Gospel announcement.
1:21 · Different
Text: The field clauses are elliptical and difficult. Hebrew names offerings; Greek firstfruits. The shield’s rejection / contempt corresponds broadly, while the Greek separately states its lack of oil. No curse against a modern place is supplied beyond the poem’s words.
1:22 · Similar
Text: Greek repeats empty for both weapons, while Hebrew gives it only for the sword. Both refer to the blood of the slain in this lament; Greek traumatiai does not require survivors here [D11]. The martial images remain explicit.
1:23 · Divergent
Text: Greek adds an earlier not separated and an additional description, splendid. Both compare the men with eagles and lions and affirm their union in death. The praise belongs to David’s lament, without erasing the preceding conflicts.
1:24 · Different
Text: Hebrew delights and Greek your adornment differ. Greek repeats its ornament word; both preserve scarlet and gold as the remembered royal gifts.
1:25 · Same
Text: The refrain, battle, heights, and Jonathan’s death agree. Greek traumatias is rendered slain in this context, as in verses 19 and 22 [D11].
1:26 · Similar
Text: Both preserve David’s intense personal grief and the comparison with women’s love. Hebrew’s dear or delightful description and Greek’s beautiful description have different shades of praise. The verse states love without naming a sexual act or a later identity category.
1:27 · Same
Text: The final refrain and martial equipment image correspond. Weapons is contextual for Hebrew implements of war; neither source names another person in this closing line.
Notes on Chapter 2
2:1 · Same
Text: The inquiry, permission, further question, and destination agree. Lord corresponds to YHWH under the declared naming policy.
2:2 · Similar
Text: Greek repeats Hebron explicitly and carries its sentence into verse 3. Both identify Abigail by her deceased husband; the wording does not imply that Nabal is alive.
2:3 · Different
Text: Hebrew expressly makes David the agent who brought up his men. Greek joins the men to those who went up in verse 2. The settlement and accompanying households agree.
2:4 · Same
Text: The anointing is over Judah’s house, not yet all Israel. The burial report agrees; Judea and Judah reflect the corresponding geographical forms in Greek.
2:5 · Divergent
Text: Greek addresses leaders and adds both Saul’s title, the Lord’s anointed, and Jonathan to those buried. Hebrew here mentions only Saul, although 1 Samuel 31 recounts the burial of his sons with him.
2:6 · Similar
Text: The blessing and David’s promised response correspond. Greek has plural good things where Hebrew has singular this good; mercy and truth retain the Greek expressions alongside Hebrew steadfast kindness and faithfulness.
2:7 · Same
Text: Both connect the call for courage with Saul’s death and David’s anointing. Sons of valor / strong sons is rendered as the corresponding personal idiom men of valor.
2:8 · Different
Text: Greek specifies departure from the camp and movement upward; Hebrew says brought across. Securely corresponding Greek name forms Iebosthe and Manaem are represented by familiar Ish-bosheth and Mahanaim.
2:9 · Different
Text: Hebrew Ashurites and Greek Thasiri are left distinct because the identification is uncertain. Neither is silently replaced by Assyria or by a conjectured tribe. The other regions correspond.
2:10 · Same
Text: Age, reign length, and Judah’s allegiance agree. Greek attaches Judah’s exception to the reign clause. The two years are not expanded to match David’s seven years and six months in verse 11.
2:11 · Same
Text: The place, people, and duration agree. Neither source supplies a full chronology reconciling every interval in the divided rule.
2:12 · Same
Text: The leaders, royal followers, departure, and destination correspond. Servants here describes the king’s men without deciding their legal status.
2:13 · Different
Text: Greek names Hebron as the departure point and describes a spring, where Hebrew names a pool. The opposing groups’ positions agree; no archaeological identification is required by the translation.
2:14 · Same
Text: Both use a play verb for the proposed encounter. The following deaths show its lethal character; a harmless sporting contest is not supplied in place of the narrated action.
2:15 · Similar
Text: Greek expressly calls Benjamin’s contingent young men belonging to Ish-bosheth. Both number twelve on each side.
2:16 · Different
Text: Greek explicitly names the hand and gives a translated place-name, Portion of the Plotters. Hebrew Helkath-hazzurim is retained because its flints / sword-edges wording is uncertain. Thrust supplies the verb required by the elliptical sword clause in English.
2:17 · Same
Text: The battle’s severity and the defeated and victorious sides agree. The opposing forces remain Israelites in the narrative.
2:18 · Same
Text: The three brothers and gazelle comparison correspond. Greek’s light-footed expression and Hebrew’s swift-footed expression describe the same ability.
2:19 · Same
Text: Both stress the unbroken pursuit with the same directional pair. The repeated name is retained.
2:20 · Same
Text: The backward look, identification, and reply agree in substance.
2:21 · Different
Text: Greek panoplia explicitly means a full set of armor; Hebrew halitsah is rendered more broadly as equipment in this military setting. The offered alternative and Asahel’s refusal agree.
2:22 · Divergent
Text: Greek expands the warning with a difficult additional question and an explicit return command. Its question literally asks where these things are; lead is a provisional contextual completion. Hebrew has neither added clause. The earlier NETS comparison could not be rechecked [N].
2:23 · Different
Text: Hebrew names the belly; Greek the loins. Greek beneath him preserves its less explicit pronoun, while Hebrew’s corresponding local expression is rendered on the spot. Both specify the spear’s butt and passage through the body.
2:24 · Different
Text: The pursuit and sunset correspond, but the uncertain local names Ammah / Amman and Giah / Gai are preserved separately. The road descriptions also retain their different constructions.
2:25 · Same
Text: Both describe the Benjaminites regrouping as one body on a hilltop. Greek’s gathering or meeting expression is rendered contextually as company, without adding another encounter.
2:26 · Similar
Text: Greek eis nikos is rendered forever in this appeal to stop the sword, an idiom expressly identified for this verse by Thayer [D1]. Its victory sense in other contexts does not require that sense here. Greek says our brothers where Hebrew says their brothers. Both appeal to end the pursuit.
2:27 · Different
Text: Hebrew expressly has from after his brother; Greek has after his brother without from. The compressed counterfactual and which earlier speech it recalls remain difficult. From morning is retained rather than silently changed to until morning. The oath titles also differ.
2:28 · Similar
Text: Hebrew says the people stopped; Greek says they withdrew. Both end the pursuit and fighting. Shofar preserves the Hebrew instrument name alongside Greek trumpet.
2:29 · Different
Text: Hebrew names the Arabah, Bithron, and Mahanaim; Greek gives westward, an unnamed entire stretch, and the camp. The Greek stretch expression leaves its object unstated and may describe distance or duration; no map-based correction is inserted.
2:30 · Different
Text: Hebrew’s roll-call verb is rendered missing; Greek’s is counted, without an explicit missing adjective. In context this is the casualty reckoning, not a statement that Asahel survived. Both give nineteen men besides Asahel.
2:31 · Different
Text: Hebrew explicitly states that three hundred sixty men died. Greek closes with belonging to him, most naturally Abner, rather than a death clause. The publisher Greek includes Abner’s men, which is retained. The earlier reported NETS omission could not be rechecked [N].
2:32 · Same
Text: The burial place, overnight journey, and dawn at Hebron correspond. The narrative closes with burial and return rather than a further victory celebration.
Notes on Chapter 3
3:1 · Similar
Text: Greek explicitly names David’s house as the growing power; Hebrew names David himself. The prolonged struggle and opposed fortunes agree.
3:2 · Same
Text: The birthplace, birth order, son, and mother correspond. The list continues through verse 5.
3:3 · Different
Text: The second son’s name differs substantially, Chileab / Daluia. Greek identifies Abigail herself as the Carmelite and omits wife of Nabal. The third son’s family corresponds, with familiar forms used for secure equivalents.
3:4 · Different
Text: The substantial forms Adonijah / Ornia, Haggith / Phengith, and Shephatiah / Sabatia are kept separately. The birth positions and Abital correspond; these differences are not treated as proof of additional children.
3:5 · Same
Text: The sixth son, mother, and concluding birthplace agree. Only Eglah receives the explicit title David’s wife here; the translation does not redistribute it through the list.
3:6 · Different
Text: Hebrew describes Abner strengthening himself within the house; Greek describes his control of it. The political setting agrees.
3:7 · Different
Text: Hebrew leaves the speaker unnamed here, identifying him as Ish-bosheth in verse 8. Greek explicitly names Mephibosheth son of Saul and gives Ial for Rizpah’s father. This is not Jonathan’s son of the same Greek name in 4:4. The sexual accusation remains a speaker’s claim.
3:8 · Divergent
Text: Greek omits belonging to Judah, uses Mephibosheth rather than Ish-bosheth, and substitutes Abner’s not deserting for his not delivering the king to David. Hebrew’s Judah clause is difficult but retained. The woman is not assigned blame by changing the charge’s target.
3:9 · Different
Text: Greek adds this very day. Hebrew’s oath formula is completed as an English conditional self-curse; Greek presents the following resolve more directly. Neither source specifies the threatened penalty.
3:10 · Same
Text: The intended transfer of royal power, the two peoples, and the geographical limits correspond. Establish / raise up is an ordinary throne idiom.
3:11 · Similar
Text: Greek again names Mephibosheth, while Hebrew continues with the unnamed subject referring back to Ish-bosheth. The silencing fear agrees; the name divergence is recorded at verses 7–8.
3:12 · Divergent
Text: Hebrew’s compressed on his behalf and Whose is the land? differ from Greek’s location at Thailam and its time clause. Greek also says all the house of Israel. Neither an identification of Thailam nor a harmonized itinerary is supplied.
3:13 · Similar
Text: Greek names David and joins the favorable response to the covenant promise. Hebrew’s first is explicit in the condition. Both require Michal’s arrival; neither records her consent here.
3:14 · Different
Text: The royal name differs again. Hebrew specifies betrothal; Greek obtaining and restoration. Both give one hundred, which is not changed to the two hundred recounted in the Hebrew form of 1 Samuel 18:27.
3:15 · Different
Text: The king’s name and Paltiel’s father’s name differ. Both call Paltiel her husband and state that she was taken from him, without resolving the competing marital claims in the translation.
3:16 · Different
Text: The destination is Bahurim in Hebrew and Barakim in Greek. Both retain the husband’s grief and compelled return; no response from Michal is invented.
3:17 · Same
Text: The audience and earlier desire for David’s rule agree. Yesterday and the third day is rendered as the ordinary idiom for earlier days in both columns.
3:18 · Different
Text: Hebrew includes My people, absent in Greek. Hebrew’s saving infinitive functions within the quoted promise and is rendered with the English finite clause I will save; Greek has that finite verb explicitly. The words are presented as Abner’s report of the divine promise.
3:19 · Same
Text: The consultations, destination, and agreement of Israel and Benjamin correspond. Hearing preserves the ears idiom without implying a secret audience.
3:20 · Similar
Text: The visitors, number, and hospitality agree. Greek potos foregrounds the drinking aspect of the feast; Hebrew mishteh also belongs to the drinking-feast vocabulary.
3:21 · Different
Text: Hebrew makes the gathered people the covenant-making party, they; Greek has Abner say I. The assembly promise and peaceful departure agree.
3:22 · Same
Text: The returning force, spoil, and explanation for Abner’s absence correspond. David is supplied as the clear sender in both abbreviated clauses.
3:23 · Similar
Text: Greek has the passive were brought in and names David where Hebrew says the king. The report repeats the peaceful departure in both sources.
3:24 · Different
Text: Greek repeats in peace; Hebrew instead intensifies the departure with gone off. Joab’s challenge to David remains direct speech.
3:25 · Different
Text: Greek adds wickedness and casts the opening as a question. Both voice Joab’s accusation of espionage; the translation does not turn it into an established narrator’s verdict.
3:26 · Different
Text: Hebrew Sirah and Greek Seiram are retained separately, as are cistern / well. Both expressly exclude David’s knowledge of this recall.
3:27 · Different
Text: Greek makes the ambush explicit; Hebrew’s difficult besheli is rendered privately. The location and bodily terms also differ. Joab identifies the clear brother-referent in Hebrew; Greek names him expressly. The revenge motive is not translated as divine authorization.
3:28 · Same
Text: Both contain David’s declaration concerning Abner’s blood. Before renders the compressed relation to God in the innocence formula; it is not a new divine verdict added by the narrator.
3:29 · Different
Text: Greek specifies a seminal discharge and gives staff where Hebrew pelekh is provisionally spindle [D2]; crutch is an alternative. The skin terms are not equated with a modern diagnosis. These afflictions belong to David’s curse, not a general claim that illness or disability proves guilt.
3:30 · Different
Text: Hebrew states the killing; Greek describes the brothers’ watch or ambush. Both give the same revenge motive. The Greek verb is not silently replaced by Hebrew killed.
3:31 · Similar
Text: Greek makes the bodily mourning gesture more explicit. Both place David behind the bier and require Joab and the people to mourn.
3:32 · Same
Text: The burial and shared grief agree. Greek expressly places Abner at the end of the people’s mourning clause; Hebrew names him with the grave.
3:33 · Different
Text: Hebrew nabal is the common noun fool; Greek transcribes it as Nabal, a personal name, and repeats that name in verse 34. The different form of comparison is preserved without supplying a detailed connection to 1 Samuel 25.
3:34 · Divergent
Text: Greek has a difficult additional clause with Nabal and an unstated subject and object; its third-person verb is retained provisionally. Hebrew specifies bronze fetters and renewed weeping; Greek gives gathering. Neither version’s abrupt poetry is repaired by importing the other.
3:35 · Similar
Text: Greek’s meal verb specifies a funeral meal; Hebrew more broadly describes feeding him. The conditional oath and refusal to eat before sunset agree in substance, though their negative constructions differ.
3:36 · Similar
Text: Both report public approval. Hebrew compares this act with the king’s other actions; Greek gives a more compact approval of everything he did before them.
3:37 · Same
Text: Both expressly state the people’s recognition that the king did not initiate Abner’s death.
3:38 · Same
Text: Hebrew’s paired descriptions and Greek’s great leader express corresponding praise. Greek joins the following statement to this question.
3:39 · Disparate
Text: Hebrew’s weak though anointed king becomes Greek’s kinsman and appointed by a king, substantially changing David’s account of his position. The Greek does not identify the appointing king. Both contrast him with Zeruiah’s sons and invoke divine repayment.
Notes on Chapter 4
4:1 · Different
Text: Greek expressly names Mephibosheth son of Saul where Hebrew leaves Saul’s son unnamed, later calling him Ish-bosheth. Greek describes loss of courage where Hebrew describes alarm. The complete publisher Greek chapter was checked after an initial substitute transcription; their normalized wording agrees.
4:2 · Similar
Text: Greek repeats the king’s name and describes bands more generally. Their leaders, father, origin, and Beeroth’s reckoning with Benjamin otherwise correspond. Rechab represents both Greek Rechab and the later letter-order variant Rekcha.
4:3 · Same
Text: The flight, destination, and continuing status correspond. To this day belongs to the narrator’s standpoint, not the date of this translation.
4:4 · Similar
Text: Both recall the earlier childhood fall and its lasting effect on his feet. Greek makes Jonathan’s relationship to Saul explicit. Jonathan’s son is a different person from Saul’s reigning son, although this Greek text calls both Mephibosheth; the identities are not merged.
4:5 · Different
Text: The king’s name differs, and Greek explicitly states sleep while Hebrew describes his midday lying down. The arrivals and time agree.
4:6 · Disparate
Text: Hebrew narrates the men’s entry, wheat-taking purpose, blow, and escape; Greek instead introduces a female doorkeeper, her sleep, and their unnoticed passage. The agent and stage of the assassination differ substantially. The Hebrew purpose is not expanded into an explicitly false pretext.
4:7 · Different
Text: Both describe the killing and removal of the head. Greek names the sleeping man and gives a westward road where Hebrew names the Arabah road. Hebrew’s return to the entry scene after verse 6 is retained without deleting its repetition.
4:8 · Divergent
Text: Beyond the name difference, Greek expands the vengeance claim with his enemies and repeats your enemy. Both attribute the killing to divine vengeance within the assassins’ speech; David’s answer is not preempted by treating their claim as the narrator’s endorsement.
4:9 · Same
Text: The reply, oath, and remembered deliverance correspond. Life renders the personal-life sense of Hebrew nephesh and Greek psychē here.
4:10 · Different
Text: Hebrew locates the good-news assessment in the messenger’s own eyes; Greek has before me and an explicit supposed obligation to reward him. Hebrew’s final abbreviated reward clause is rendered as David’s irony. Both recall the execution in chapter 1, not an ordinary reward payment.
4:11 · Similar
Text: Hebrew reasons how much more and asks a rhetorical question; Greek states the accusation and judgment directly. Both distinguish the murdered man’s innocence in this act from the killers’ wrongdoing; righteous is not expanded into a claim of sinlessness.
4:12 · Different
Text: Both describe execution, mutilation, display, and burial. Hebrew names a pool and repeats Hebron with the tomb; Greek names a spring and adds Abner’s father. The king’s name continues the chapter’s difference. The actions are retained without added graphic detail or a claim that the passage prescribes them generally.
Notes on Chapter 5
5:1 · Same
Text: Both appeal to shared kinship through the bone-and-flesh idiom. The Greek plurals are rendered naturally in English, without turning the collective relationship into a different claim.
5:2 · Same
Text: The earlier leadership and reported shepherd commission agree. Hebrew’s displayed written/read spelling distinction in the leading-out expression does not alter this English sense [Q5]. The commission is not expanded with a later title for Christ.
5:3 · Similar
Text: Greek explicitly repeats all Israel in the anointing clause. Both describe the elders’ covenant and anointing before God, extending the rule previously held over Judah.
Saints: The Christ the King reading pairs this anointing with Jesus’ crucifixion and the promise to the repentant criminal. The liturgical juxtaposition is verified; it does not alter the historical identity of David [L1, Luke 23:35–43].
5:4 · Same
Text: The age and total reign correspond. Greek continues the chronological sentence into verse 5.
5:5 · Same
Text: The two reign periods, places, and peoples agree. The six months are retained alongside verse 4’s forty-year total without silently changing either figure.
5:6 · Different
Text: Hebrew’s difficult condition is rendered unless you remove; an alternative takes the blind and lame as those repelling David. Greek explicitly makes them resist. Their role within the taunt remains uncertain; no later story about statues or individual defenders is inserted.
5:7 · Same
Text: The capture and identification agree. Neither version names a water route in this verse.
5:8 · Disparate
Text: The difficult Hebrew channel clause [D3] differs from Greek’s dagger command. Hebrew follows the checked passive qere hated [Q5]; Greek has active haters. Greek also specifies the Lord’s house where Hebrew says the house. These changes materially affect agency, action, and scope; the Hebrew syntax remains elliptical.
5:9 · Different
Text: Hebrew names the Millo and an inward direction. Greek gives the citadel and separately adds his house as an object of building. The exact building sequence is not reconstructed from the compressed clauses.
5:10 · Different
Text: Hebrew God of hosts and Greek Almighty retain their distinct titles. The description of David’s growth and divine presence otherwise corresponds.
5:11 · Similar
Text: Hebrew explicitly includes wall in the stoneworkers’ description. Both identify the sender, materials, craftspeople, and house built for David.
5:12 · Similar
Text: Hebrew gives the active exalted; Greek the passive had been exalted. The possessive in his people is left lowercase because its relation to God or David is not decided by capitalization. Both connect royal establishment with Israel’s welfare.
5:13 · Same
Text: The two marital categories appear in reversed order, but the persons, location, and additional children correspond. Neither category is silently merged into the other.
5:14 · Same
Text: The four corresponding names are represented by familiar forms, including Greek Sammous / Hebrew Shammua. The genealogy continues in the following rows.
5:15 · Same
Text: These four names occupy corresponding positions; familiar forms represent Greek Ebear, Elisous, Naphek, and Iephies. Ordinary transcription differences are not counted as additional persons.
5:16 · Same
Text: The final three names in the shared list correspond. This publisher Greek text continues with an additional list at 16a, represented in its own row.
5:16a · Divergent
Text: The publisher’s Greek 16a adds thirteen names without a Hebrew counterpart here. Their forms are retained rather than forcing a one-to-one identification with the preceding list or Chronicles.
5:17 · Same
Text: The response to David’s anointing and his movement agree. Greek foreigners denotes the Philistines in this context; neither source explicitly locates the stronghold here.
5:18 · Different
Text: Greek renders the valley with Titans rather than the Hebrew people-name Rephaim, and describes gathering where Hebrew has spreading out. Its image is retained without importing a developed Greek myth into the narrative.
5:19 · Same
Text: The inquiry and emphatic promise agree. Singular hand / plural hands and the corresponding giving-over verbs do not change the promised outcome.
5:20 · Different
Text: Hebrew gives arrival at Baal-perazim; Greek movement from the Upper Breaches and a translated place-name. Greek twice names the foreigners expressly. Both connect the name with a water-breach image; the direction is not harmonized.
5:21 · Different
Text: Hebrew calls the objects idols; Greek calls them gods. Both state their removal, not their burning. The burning reported in 1 Chronicles 14:12 is not inserted here.
5:22 · Different
Text: The second incursion repeats the valley and movement differences of verse 18. The recurring wording is preserved independently in each column.
5:23 · Different
Text: Hebrew directs movement behind the enemy and names baka trees, whose species is uncertain. Greek adds to meet them and gives the place of weeping. Neither mulberry nor balsam is imposed as a certain species identification.
5:24 · Different
Text: Hebrew has marching in treetops and an urgent action command; Greek has a difficult closing-together sound in a grove and a descent command. Camp and battle also differ. The Greek sound is left provisional rather than supplied with Hebrew marching or an unmentioned angelic army.
5:25 · Different
Text: Hebrew begins the pursuit at Geba; Greek at Gibeon and adds the land of Gezer. Both connect David’s action with the preceding instruction.
Notes on Chapter 6
6:1 · Different
Text: Hebrew gives thirty thousand chosen men; Greek about seventy thousand young men. Both the number and Greek’s approximation are retained, without substituting one total for the other.
6:2 · Different
Text: Hebrew gives Baale-judah and repeats name; Greek gives Judah’s rulers and an ascent. The compressed Name formula is retained without identifying an inscribed label. Greek explicitly ends with above it in the cherubim description.
6:3 · Different
Text: Hebrew has plural agents, ark of God, and the named Ahio; Greek has a singular agent, ark of the Lord, and his brothers. Greek continues into verse 4, while Hebrew repeats new with the cart.
6:4 · Divergent
Text: Hebrew repeats the bringing from Abinadab’s house, a clause absent in Greek, and again names Ahio. Its it is retained within the difficult cart-and-ark construction rather than replacing the repeated clause. Greek again has the brothers.
6:5 · Divergent
Text: Hebrew’s all cypress woods is understood as instruments made from that wood; it is not emended to with all strength. Greek adds songs, names tuned instruments, and has pipes rather than rattles. Lyres and harps render its borrowed names kinyra and nabla broadly; their precise construction remains uncertain [D14].
6:6 · Different
Text: The threshing-floor names differ. Hebrew’s oxen stumbled is provisional for a difficult verb; Greek gives a singular calf moving the ark. Greek explicitly names the hand and repeats the holding purpose, which is retained despite its awkward placement.
6:7 · Divergent
Text: Hebrew includes the difficult causal phrase for the error; Greek lacks it and adds before God after the ark of the Lord. Both name divine agency and Uzzah’s death. The rare Hebrew shall is not expanded into a detailed motive or a diagnosis.
6:8 · Different
Text: Hebrew describes anger; Greek discouragement. The Hebrew place-name and Greek translated name recall the breach. To this day preserves the narrative’s temporal perspective.
6:9 · Same
Text: The fear and question agree. The question is David’s response to the death just narrated, without an inserted answer.
6:10 · Different
Text: Greek explicitly adds covenant to the ark’s title. Both describe the decision to divert it. Greek Abeddara is represented by the securely corresponding familiar name Obed-edom.
6:11 · Different
Text: Hebrew names Obed-edom personally and his household; Greek names the whole household and all his possessions. The three-month duration agrees.
6:12 · Different
Text: Both report the blessing and renewed joyful journey. In the final movement clause Hebrew says ark of God, while Greek says ark of the Lord.
6:13 · Disparate
Text: Hebrew links sacrifice to six steps and gives an ox and a fattened animal. Greek instead describes seven choroi, rendered dancing companies, and a calf and lamb. Number, procession structure, and sacrificial animals differ materially; neither sequence is reconstructed from Chronicles.
6:14 · Different
Text: Hebrew gives vigorous dancing and a linen ephod; Greek gives instrumental playing and a distinctive robe. Exallos does not itself identify a royal robe or linen. Greek does explicitly describe dancing later in verse 16.
6:15 · Same
Text: The procession, participants, and sound agree in substance. Shofar retains the Hebrew instrument name beside Greek trumpet.
6:16 · Different
Text: Hebrew names YHWH with the ark and pairs leaping with dancing; Greek pairs dancing with playing. Both state Michal’s inward contempt without yet supplying the fuller exchange of verses 20–22.
6:17 · Same
Text: The placement in David’s tent and the two offering categories correspond. Whole makes explicit the Greek burnt-offering term; it does not imply that the Hebrew offering was only partly burned.
6:18 · Similar
Text: Greek has plural burnt offerings and an offering-together verb where Hebrew uses a singular collective burnt offering. The completed worship and blessing in the divine name agree.
6:19 · Divergent
Text: Greek adds Dan to Beersheba and names two kinds of cakes alongside bread. Hebrew eshpar is retained as an uncertain food portion: meat and cake interpretations remain conjectural [D4]. Hebrew’s raisin cake and Greek’s pan cake are not harmonized; distribution includes men and women in both.
6:20 · Different
Text: Greek adds Michal’s blessing or greeting and compares David with dancers rather than Hebrew worthless men. Both speeches are ironic in context. The extent of exposure is not specified by adding an anatomical description; servant women retains the stated household relationship.
6:21 · Divergent
Text: Greek adds an opening dance declaration, a blessing of the Lord, and a further dance verb. Hebrew names YHWH’s people where Greek has His people. Both retain David’s appeal to divine election over Saul’s house.
6:22 · Different
Text: Hebrew has further abasement, my own eyes, and a direct promise of honor among the women. Greek gives further uncovering, your eyes, and a compressed reference to Michal’s statement about honor. Its final infinitive is rendered provisionally rather than supplied with Hebrew’s independent promise.
6:23 · Same
Text: The concluding childlessness statement agrees. Neither source explicitly names a medical cause or supplies a direct divine speech explaining it; until her death does not imply later childbirth.
Notes on Chapter 7
7:1 · Different
Text: Hebrew describes rest; Greek uses an inheritance or possession verb. Both situate the following conversation after the king’s settlement, without inserting an unmentioned final chronology of the wars.
7:2 · Different
Text: Hebrew names the curtain or tent-covering; Greek names the tent itself. The contrast with David’s cedar house agrees.
7:3 · Same
Text: Nathan’s initial advice and assurance agree. The separate divine word arriving that night is not placed into this earlier speech.
7:4 · Same
Text: Both introduce the nighttime message that revises Nathan’s initial response.
7:5 · Different
Text: Hebrew is a question; Greek an explicit negative statement. The wider message assigns the building to David’s offspring, but the two sentence forms are retained separately.
7:6 · Different
Text: Hebrew gives tent and mishkan, dwelling or tabernacle; Greek lodging and tent. Both contrast the mobile dwelling with the proposed house without making one source’s pair identical to the other.
7:7 · Same
Text: Both have tribe language, not the judges reading of 1 Chronicles 17:6. The leaders represented by the tribe can be understood collectively; the translation does not silently emend the noun. The rhetorical question and shepherd commission correspond.
7:8 · Different
Text: Hebrew names the pasture and adds following the flock; Greek names the sheepfold. YHWH of hosts / Lord Almighty retains the distinct titles. Both present divine initiative in David’s elevation.
7:9 · Different
Text: Greek’s renown clause is explicitly past. Hebrew’s form can continue the past account or turn toward promise; this draft adopts the forward-looking sense and records the alternative. Both compare David’s name with the earth’s great ones.
7:10 · Different
Text: Hebrew describes being disturbed and afflicted; Greek describes anxiety and humiliation. Greek uses a singular unjust man collectively where Hebrew has plural wicked men. Both promise a secure planting for Israel.
7:11 · Disparate
Text: The house-making agency reverses: Hebrew has YHWH make a house for David; Greek has David build one for Him. Greek’s tension with verses 5 and 27 is retained.
Rabbinic: Rashi on 7:11 understands Hebrew house as the royal line established through David’s son [R7].
7:12 · Same
Text: The death idiom, bodily descent, succession, and divine establishment correspond. The offspring remains unnamed in this verse; Solomon and later Christian fulfillment belong to contextual interpretation.
7:13 · Similar
Text: Greek adds Me with the house and omits of his kingdom with the throne. The offspring’s building and enduring throne agree in substance.
Saints: Augustine reads the enduring kingdom and the house built for God as ultimately fulfilled in Christ and His people, with Solomon serving as an earlier figure. His interpretation extends beyond the immediate royal successor [S1, City of God XVII.8].
7:14 · Different
Text: Hebrew describes the son’s acting wrongly; Greek makes the coming of his wrongdoing conditional. Greek haphai is rendered afflictions beside Hebrew blows. The disciplinary clause is retained alongside the father-and-son promise, without inserting a later Christological explanation into the translation.
7:15 · Different
Text: Hebrew expressly names Saul and says before you; Greek has unnamed plural persons and before Me. Hebrew’s kindness will not depart becomes an active divine non-withdrawal in Greek.
7:16 · Disparate
Text: Hebrew addresses David’s house, kingdom, and throne before you; Greek speaks of his, referring to the offspring, before Me. The changed possessors and divine standpoint materially alter the promise’s framing. Both retain its enduring character.
Saints: The Advent reading joins Nathan’s promise with Gabriel’s announcement that Mary’s son will receive David’s throne and reign without end. This is explicit liturgical reception of the Davidic promise [L2, Luke 1:26–38].
7:17 · Same
Text: Both attest Nathan’s delivery of the complete message and vision.
7:18 · Different
Text: Hebrew brought me this far differs from Greek loved me to this extent. Adonai YHWH and Greek my Lord, Lord are retained as distinct forms of address throughout the prayer, without replacing both with an identical title.
7:19 · Different
Text: The difficult Hebrew torat ha-adam permits differing construals; manner and a rhetorical question are adopted here. Greek is rendered as a statement about law.
Rabbinic: Rashi on 7:19 reads astonishment that a mortal receives such tidings and also offers an Adam interpretation [R7].
7:20 · Similar
Text: The rhetorical question and appeal to divine knowledge agree; Greek adds now. The distinct repeated divine addresses follow verse 18’s policy.
7:21 · Similar
Text: Greek repeats the action verb and continues the purpose into verse 22. Both ground the greatness in God’s word and heart; no human merit clause is inserted.
7:22 · Different
Text: Hebrew declares divine greatness as a conclusion; Greek attaches a magnification purpose to the preceding sentence. The affirmation of God’s uniqueness and appeal to what was heard agree.
7:23 · Disparate
Text: Hebrew is difficult: a plural verb accompanies God, you shifts to plural, and expulsion is implicit; driving out and their gods smooth the ellipsis and singular its gods. Greek explicitly gives expulsion and ends with dwellings, not gods.
Rabbinic: Rashi on 7:23 interprets the plural agents as Moses and Aaron and understands expulsion from the context [R7].
7:24 · Same
Text: The enduring people-and-God relationship corresponds. Hebrew repeats for Yourself; the English preserves its relational sense without adding a new covenant condition.
7:25 · Divergent
Text: Greek adds Lord Almighty, God of Israel and continues the sentence into verse 26 without Hebrew’s explicit do command. The initial titles also differ. Both request confirmation of the spoken promise.
7:26 · Divergent
Text: Greek contains only the magnification request. Hebrew additionally supplies the acclamation of YHWH’s rule over Israel and the establishment of David’s house. These clauses are not imported into the shorter Greek verse.
7:27 · Different
Text: The titles retain hosts / Almighty, while the revelation and prayer correspond. Both explicitly quote God as building David a house here; the Greek is not changed to match its reversed wording at verse 11.
7:28 · Similar
Text: Hebrew has one good thing addressed to the servant; Greek plural good things concerning him. Both affirm God’s identity and the truth of His words.
7:29 · Different
Text: Hebrew asks be pleased; Greek commands begin. The final appeal to God’s speech and enduring blessing agrees. The Greek emphasis on You is preserved without turning it into a separate philosophical assertion.
Notes on Chapter 8
8:1 · Different
Text: Hebrew Metheg-ammah is retained as an uncertain designation rather than automatically replaced with Gath. Greek has a feminine expression meaning the separated one, provisionally understood as territory. The action verbs also distinguish subduing from routing.
8:2 · Disparate
Text: Hebrew gives two lengths killed and one kept alive; Greek two killed and two kept alive, materially changing the proportion spared. These are measured groups, not a precise individual census. Greek calls the tribute gifts; neither account’s coercive subjection is omitted.
8:3 · Different
Text: The father’s name differs, Rehob / Raab, and Hebrew restore differs from Greek establish. Hebrew includes Euphrates according to the checked supplied reading where the written text has River alone [Q8]. The unnamed he is not expanded to decide whose movement is meant.
8:4 · Different
Text: Hebrew gives 1,700 horsemen, without an explicit chariot count in the opening; Greek 1,000 chariots and 7,000 horsemen. Hebrew’s chariotry is understood as horses with hamstringing; Greek expressly disables chariots. Both retain 100, but the exact equipment description differs.
8:5 · Same
Text: Aram / Syria are corresponding regional names in the two languages. The aid, opponent, and count agree; no modern state boundary is implied.
8:6 · Similar
Text: Hebrew has plural garrisons; Greek a singular collective garrison. Greek again calls the tribute gifts. The recurring salvation verb is rendered victory in this military setting in both columns.
8:7 · Divergent
Text: Hebrew shields and Greek armlets differ. Greek adds Hadadezer’s royal title and an entire notice about Shishak taking these objects in Rehoboam’s reign. That later notice is retained here without moving it into Kings or extending it into the Hebrew column.
8:8 · Divergent
Text: Hebrew names Betah and Berothai; Greek gives Masbak and selected cities. Greek also adds Solomon’s later use of the bronze for named sanctuary objects, absent in Hebrew here. Sea is the vessel’s designation, not a natural body of water.
8:9 · Same
Text: The report, ruler, place, and defeated force correspond. Greek continues the sentence into the sending of the king’s son.
8:10 · Different
Text: The son is Joram in Hebrew and Ieddouran in Greek. Hebrew explicitly identifies Hadadezer’s war with Toi; Greek gives an unnamed opposing subject. The three vessel materials agree. The inquiry concerns peaceful relations or welfare, not a modern formal diplomatic title.
8:11 · Different
Text: Hebrew names nations; Greek cities. Both describe dedication of the received wealth, continuing into the source list in verse 12.
8:12 · Different
Text: Hebrew Aram is replaced by Greek Idumea, the Edomite region. The father’s name repeats Rehob / Raab. These are substantive differences, not the ordinary Aram / Syria correspondence of verses 5–6.
8:13 · Different
Text: Hebrew names Aram and the Valley of Salt; Greek Idumea and Gaimale. Greek places the blow during the return, rather than return from the blow. Neither the people-name nor the timing is harmonized with other biblical accounts.
8:14 · Similar
Text: Greek compresses the repeated garrison clause and says the king where Hebrew names David. Edom / Idumea corresponds here. Both repeat the report of divine victory and retain the conquered people’s subjection.
8:15 · Same
Text: The two justice terms express corresponding royal responsibilities; Greek omits all only in the first Israel clause. Both explicitly extend the administration to all his people.
8:16 · Different
Text: Jehoshaphat’s father differs, Ahilud / Ahia. Hebrew recorder and Greek over the records correspond as a court function, without specifying a modern office.
8:17 · Different
Text: The scribe’s name is Seraiah in Hebrew and Asa in Greek. Both give Ahimelech son of Abiathar; that relationship is preserved rather than reversed to fit the priestly names in 1 Samuel 22.
8:18 · Disparate
Text: Hebrew calls David’s sons priests; Greek palace officials, materially changing the named function. Greek also expressly calls Benaiah counselor. Hebrew’s abbreviated list supplies no explicit over before the two groups, so a military command title is not silently added.
Notes on Chapter 9
9:1 · Same
Text: Both ground David’s inquiry in his relationship with Jonathan. Hebrew steadfast kindness and Greek mercy convey the corresponding act of loyal care in this context.
9:2 · Same
Text: The household connection, summons, and identification agree. Greek expands the deferential answer into a full clause; the reply does not itself describe a new sale or transfer of ownership.
9:3 · Similar
Text: Both preserve the explicit reference to God in the kindness expression. Greek’s injured-foot description is more directly physical; the earlier accident is narrated at 4:4. The differing question forms seek the same information.
9:4 · Same
Text: The person, household, and place correspond. Greek Ladabar is represented by the familiar Lo-debar because the identification is secure in this context; no meaning based on the name’s spelling is imposed.
9:5 · Same
Text: The royal summons and repeated household location agree. The repetition is retained rather than shortened away.
9:6 · Same
Text: Greek adds David’s royal title and explicit recipients to corresponding actions. Both identify this Mephibosheth as Jonathan’s son, distinguishing him from Saul’s son called Mephibosheth in the Greek of chapters 3–4.
9:7 · Different
Text: Hebrew calls Saul father in the broader ancestral sense; Greek explicitly says father’s father. Both promise the land’s restoration and continual provision at David’s table. The emphatic assurance is retained.
9:8 · Same
Text: Both preserve Mephibosheth’s self-abasing dead-dog comparison. Greek names him and expands the self-reference. The image belongs to his speech, not to the narrator’s assessment of a person with a disability.
9:9 · Similar
Text: Hebrew uses a past possession clause; Greek a present one. Both declare the same grant. Son continues the broader family language noted at verse 7, and attendant does not require Ziba to be a child.
9:10 · Different
Text: Hebrew leaves the bringing-in object unstated, rendered contextually as produce, while Greek expressly gives loaves. Both retain the land provision alongside eating at David’s table, without removing the apparent overlap. Ziba’s fifteen sons and twenty servants agree.
9:11 · Different
Text: Hebrew’s final my table clause has no explicit new speaker; it is presented as an unassigned statement after Ziba’s reply, with future force understood from the promise. Greek gives an unambiguous narrative statement about David’s table. No named speaker or corrected possessive is inserted into Hebrew.
9:12 · Same
Text: The son and the household’s service correspond. Mica represents the matching name in both sources, without identifying him with another biblical person of that name.
9:13 · Same
Text: The residence, continuing table provision, and condition of both feet agree. The text reports his inclusion at the table without narrating a physical cure.
Notes on Chapter 10
10:1 · Same
Text: The death and succession correspond. The deceased king is named in verse 2.
10:2 · Same
Text: Both identify the mission as consolation motivated by a previous kindness. The nature of Nahash’s earlier act is not supplied by the narrator here.
10:3 · Different
Text: Hebrew ends with overthrowing the city; Greek with inspecting it. The speakers’ suspicion is retained as their accusation, not converted into David’s actual stated purpose.
10:4 · Different
Text: Hebrew specifies half the beard, while Greek does not. Buttocks / hips and garments / cloaks also differ. Both narrate the public humiliation without an invented additional assault.
10:5 · Similar
Text: Greek makes the report’s subject explicit and foregrounds dishonor; Hebrew describes shame. The instruction to wait and return agrees.
10:6 · Divergent
Text: Greek makes David’s people the shamed group, omits Zobah from this hiring list, and gives Istob rather than men of Tob. The three troop totals agree. Hebrew’s stench idiom expresses the hostility produced by Ammon’s action; it is not a literal smell report.
10:7 · Same
Text: The dispatch and description of the force correspond. The apposition mighty men is retained without assigning a modern unit designation.
10:8 · Different
Text: The two fronts agree, while men of Tob / Istob repeats the source-specific designation. Greek includes Zobah here despite its absence from verse 6’s hiring list.
10:9 · Different
Text: Hebrew chosen men and Greek young men distinguish selection from age description. Hebrew makes Joab the arranging agent; Greek says the selected men drew up. The threat on both sides agrees.
10:10 · Similar
Text: Hebrew describes the commander arranging the force; Greek the force taking its position. The assignment to Abishai and the enemy front agree.
10:11 · Different
Text: Greek shifts to plural you all and we where Hebrew has singular you and I. Both arrange mutual aid between the two divisions; the grammatical expansion is retained rather than treating every pronoun as Joab alone.
10:12 · Similar
Text: The call to courage corresponds. Hebrew’s final clause is rendered as a wish, while Greek’s explicit future is a statement. Both leave the outcome with God; neither guarantees the specific result Joab desires.
10:13 · Same
Text: The advance and opposing force’s flight agree. Aram / Syria is the ordinary regional correspondence here.
10:14 · Similar
Text: Greek ends with a plural arrival, they, where Hebrew has Joab’s singular arrival. The retreat into the city and subsequent return agree; fighting supplies the context of Hebrew’s return from against them.
10:15 · Same
Text: The recognition of defeat and regrouping correspond. The collective people-name naturally shifts from singular to plural reference.
10:16 · Different
Text: Greek adds Chalamak after River and gives Ailam for Hebrew Helam. Its location sequence is uncertain: River Chalamak preserves the immediate construction without equating that name with the Euphrates or silently moving it. The shared commander and deployment agree.
10:17 · Different
Text: The destination remains Helam / Ailam; Greek again shifts to a plural arrival. The mustering, crossing, and battle otherwise correspond.
10:18 · Different
Text: Both give 700 and 40,000. Hebrew’s killed chariotry is rendered contextually as charioteers; Greek explicitly names chariots with a broader destroying verb. No crew-size calculation or the differing figures of 1 Chronicles 19:18 is substituted.
10:19 · Different
Text: Hebrew gives peace-making; Greek desertion to Israel. Both retain the resulting service and fear of further intervention. The final fear clause continues across a publisher paragraph break in Greek and is included in full.
Notes on Chapter 11
11:1 · Same
Text: Hebrew’s unusual written form malakhim is rendered kings in the military context, as also understood in the checked Jewish presentation [Q11; R11]; no formal qere is claimed here. Greek expressly gives kings. Both contrast the expedition with David remaining in Jerusalem.
11:2 · Same
Text: Both describe David’s vantage on the roof and the woman’s appearance. The woman’s precise location and intentions are not supplied; the text does not say she was trying to attract him.
11:3 · Different
Text: The father is Eliam in Hebrew and Eliab in Greek. Greek’s seeking verb differs in emphasis from Hebrew’s inquiry. The brief identification has no separately named speaker; both explicitly identify Uriah as her husband before David acts.
11:4 · Same
Text: Both retain David’s sending and taking, her arrival, and his lying with her. The purification clause is circumstantial, not an added judgment on her character or an explicit sequence after intercourse.
Rabbinic: Rashi on 11:4 identifies the impurity as menstrual [R11].
Saints: Augustine insists that David’s adultery and his arranging the husband’s death must be acknowledged because Scripture records them. David’s ancestry in relation to Christ does not excuse the wrongdoing [S2, Exposition on Psalm 51, §2].
11:5 · Same
Text: The conception and her message agree. The pregnancy idioms are rendered naturally without adding a gestational interval.
11:6 · Same
Text: The command and compliance agree. The purpose of recalling Uriah is not added to the spoken command.
11:7 · Same
Text: Greek expands the arrival slightly. Both repeat the welfare or peace term three times, including the deliberately unusual expression about the war.
11:8 · Same
Text: The direction and royal provision correspond. The portion terms do not themselves name a menu. Wash your feet is retained rather than replaced with an inferred sexual instruction.
11:9 · Similar
Text: Hebrew explicitly says house and all the servants; Greek has the king’s door and the servants. The refusal to go home agrees.
11:10 · Same
Text: The report and repeated question agree. The Greek question continues across a paragraph break in the publisher’s presentation and is retained within this verse.
11:11 · Different
Text: Hebrew gives booths and a double life oath; Greek tents, the separate question How?, and one life oath. Both retain Uriah’s reference to lying with his wife and his refusal. The negative force of the oath’s if clause is made explicit in English.
11:12 · Same
Text: The extension of the stay and its duration agree. Tomorrow is not moved to create an unrecorded extra day.
11:13 · Same
Text: Both expressly make David the agent of Uriah’s drunkenness and retain Uriah’s continued refusal to go home. David’s name clarifies the otherwise shifting pronouns without changing the agent.
11:14 · Same
Text: Both make Uriah the carrier of the letter concerning his own death. No claim that he read or knew its contents is inserted.
11:15 · Similar
Text: Hebrew begins with a plural command; Greek a singular one followed by plural withdrawal. Both make Uriah’s death the intended result.
Rabbinic: Rashi on 11:15, citing Shabbat 56a, invokes soldiers’ conditional divorces as a later legal interpretation [R11]; this does not replace the narrative’s wording or its condemnation of David.
11:16 · Same
Text: The deliberate placement in a dangerous sector agrees. Valiant / powerful describes the opposing fighters’ strength without adding a named unit.
11:17 · Same
Text: Both retain the deaths of other servants as well as Uriah. The report is not narrowed to a single casualty.
11:18 · Same
Text: Greek uses the king where Hebrew names David and continues into verse 19. The report’s stated scope agrees.
11:19 · Same
Text: Both introduce Joab’s instructions for the messenger’s anticipated conversation with David.
11:20 · Same
Text: Greek explicitly identifies arrow-shooting; Hebrew’s shooting verb is understood in the same military context. Both present the anger as Joab’s anticipated response at this point.
11:21 · Different
Text: The father’s name is Jerubbesheth / Jerubbaal, and the place Thebez / Thamasi. Hebrew also specifies the upper millstone. The allusion to Abimelech’s death is preserved with each source’s names, rather than silently conformed to Judges 9.
11:22 · Divergent
Text: Greek adds the Jerusalem destination, fuller report language, and David’s actual anger and extended rebuke. Hebrew records no such speech here. The Greek expansion echoes but does not exactly duplicate the earlier prediction: here the men would be struck, rather than the defenders shooting.
11:23 · Same
Text: The opposing advance and counterpressure to the gate agree in substance. Pressed them renders the compressed we were upon them idiom without adding another location.
11:24 · Same
Text: Both report shooting, the servants’ deaths, and Uriah’s death. Hebrew’s unusual written shooting forms are rendered by their clear martial sense, also explicit in Greek [Q11].
11:25 · Same
Text: Both give David’s reassurance and the order to continue the siege. Do not regard as evil preserves the verbal connection with the opposite divine evaluation in verse 27. The final encourage him returns to the messenger’s instruction about Joab.
11:26 · Similar
Text: Greek’s mourning verb makes the bodily lament gesture more explicit. Both call her Uriah’s wife and describe her grief, without attributing an unexpressed motive.
11:27 · Same
Text: The marriage, birth, and final divine condemnation agree. Greek’s appeared states the evaluation before the Lord, not uncertainty that the act was wrong. The final judgment continues across a publisher paragraph break and is retained with verse 27.
Notes on Chapter 12
12:1 · Different
Text: Greek identifies Nathan as the prophet here; Hebrew names him without the title. Both introduce the same contrast between the men.
12:2 · Same
Text: The extent of the rich man’s possessions agrees.
12:3 · Different
Text: Greek has three verbs for acquiring and nurturing the lamb where Hebrew has two; bread corresponds to Hebrew’s morsel. Both retain the household intimacy and comparison to a daughter.
12:4 · Similar
Text: The guest descriptions differ slightly; the taking of the poor man’s lamb agrees.
Rabbinic: Rashi on 12:4 reads traveler, guest, and man as the evil inclination’s increasing hold on a person [R12].
12:5 · Same
Text: Both give David’s angry oath and the idiom son of death, rendered deserves death. This is David’s response to the parable, not an added general penalty for theft.
12:6 · Disparate
Text: The required restitution is fourfold in Hebrew and sevenfold in Greek, changing the penalty’s amount.
Rabbinic: Rashi on 12:6 relates fourfold to suffering involving the infant, Amnon, Tamar, and Absalom [R12]; this is not a claim that all four died.
12:7 · Different
Text: Greek adds who did this and twice expands the emphatic divine subject. Its I am construction here identifies the agent of anointing and rescue; no separate theological declaration is inserted.
Saints: Augustine reads Nathan’s parable as making David recognize that his condemnation of the rich man turns back upon himself [S2, §8].
12:8 · Different
Text: Hebrew repeats the promise of further gifts; Greek gives one corresponding expression. Both have wives in the plural. Household and bosom imagery are retained without resolving historical questions by rewriting the source.
12:9 · Different
Text: Hebrew follows the checked qere My eyes; its written form gives His eyes, as does Greek [Q12; R12]. Both directly charge David with Uriah’s death despite its execution through the Ammonite sword.
12:10 · Same
Text: The continuing sword and its stated cause agree. House retains the familial and dynastic scope.
12:11 · Similar
Text: Hebrew has a singular calamity term, Greek a plural. Both retain the disturbing divine announcement, the wives, and its public character. No later perpetrator’s name is inserted here.
12:12 · Same
Text: The contrast between secrecy and public exposure agrees; Greek repeats this before sun.
12:13 · Same
Text: The confession and assurance of forgiveness agree. Greek gives an emphatic negative. Neither column deletes the consequences that follow.
Saints: Augustine presents David’s repentance as an example for the fallen to rise, while warning against using David’s sin as permission to imitate it. He urges hope in divine mercy and a humble hearing of Christ [S2, §§3–5].
12:14 · Different
Text: Both unusually make the enemies the grammatical object, with despising / provoking as the verbs. The clause is not silently replaced by caused the enemies to blaspheme.
Rabbinic: Rashi on 12:14 explains the Hebrew wording as a reverential euphemism concerning God [R12]. The child’s death remains explicit in both.
12:15 · Similar
Text: Greek’s striking verb is stronger, while Hebrew’s illness term stresses severity. Both expressly retain divine agency and identify the mother as Uriah’s wife. No personal offense by the child is stated.
12:16 · Different
Text: Greek adds sackcloth; Hebrew expressly describes lying down. Both retain fasting and the night on the ground.
12:17 · Same
Text: The elders’ action and David’s refusal agree.
12:18 · Similar
Text: The servants’ fear and reasoning agree. Hebrew has a singular harm term, Greek a plural. Neither expressly supplies to himself; the translation leaves the feared action unspecified.
12:19 · Similar
Text: The first perception verb is saw in Hebrew and understood in Greek. The inference and exchange agree.
12:20 · Different
Text: The divine designation is YHWH / God. Greek explicitly names the recipient of worship and the food requested. Hebrew’s request has no stated object. Its clothing spelling variation does not change the English sense [Q12].
12:21 · Divergent
Text: Greek adds keeping vigil and drinking. The expanded description of both periods is preserved rather than reduced to the Hebrew wording.
12:22 · Same
Text: Greek names David and explicitly marks whether; both express an uncertain hope for mercy. Hebrew’s checked qere and written verb forms are recorded [Q12; R12], without turning the hope into a prediction.
12:23 · Same
Text: Both acknowledge the child’s death and David’s own eventual going to him. The verse itself does not specify the location or describe the manner of a future reunion.
12:24 · Different
Text: Greek adds conception. Hebrew follows the qere she named, while its written form has he named [Q12; R12]. Greek’s naming verb does not mark gender; she is supplied from the immediately preceding childbearing subject, with David also a possible referent.
12:25 · Different
Text: The Greek name form Idedi is retained beside Hebrew Jedidiah. The unexpressed subjects are provisionally understood as God sending and Nathan naming; word and the child clarify the compressed English syntax. The naming subject remains lower case because its referent is not expressly named.
12:26 · Same
Text: The renewed siege account and capture agree. Royal city is not expanded into a reconstructed fortification plan.
12:27 · Same
Text: The message agrees in substance. The city of waters designation is retained without an unsupported archaeological identification.
12:28 · Similar
Text: Greek’s capture verb marks taking beforehand. Both retain the concern about whose name will be associated with the conquest.
12:29 · Same
Text: David’s participation and the outcome agree.
12:30 · Different
Text: Hebrew malkam is rendered their king; Greek explicitly adds Melchol. The talent and singular precious stone remain.
Rabbinic: Rashi on 12:30 instead understands Malkam as the Ammonite deity [R12]. No conjecture about the crown’s use or weight replaces either text.
12:31 · Different
Text: Greek omits the iron axes. Hebrew follows qere malben against written malken [Q12]. Brickworks is provisional: BDB gives brick mold, while kiln is traditional [D6]. The compressed clauses leave labor versus violent punishment disputed; neither killing nor a merely administrative assignment is added.
Rabbinic: Rashi on 12:31 understands instruments of torture [R12].
Notes on Chapter 13
13:1 · Similar
Text: Greek intensifies the description of Tamar’s beauty. Both identify the men as David’s sons and call Amnon’s feeling love at this point; the subsequent violence is not softened by that description.
13:2 · Similar
Text: The difficulty expressions differ in nuance. Both retain her virginity and Amnon’s distress, without an invented medical diagnosis.
13:3 · Same
Text: Both use a wisdom term for Jonadab’s ability; shrewd reflects its use in this plot.
Rabbinic: Rashi on 13:3 expressly reads his wisdom as directed toward evil [R13].
13:4 · Different
Text: Hebrew describes thinness, Greek weakness. The repeated mornings and Amnon’s answer agree.
13:5 · Similar
Text: Hebrew names bread and has singular hand; Greek leaves the food unspecified in the first request and has plural hands. Both illness instructions are read in the context of Jonadab’s scheme.
13:6 · Different
Text: Greek here uses a straightforward became ill verb rather than expressly feigning. The foods are Hebrew levivot / Greek kollyrides, rendered cakes / little loaves. Both specify two; no modern recipe is supplied.
13:7 · Same
Text: The royal instruction agrees. At the house is retained without naming an unexpressed room or building.
13:8 · Similar
Text: The preparation verbs and food terms differ slightly. Both retain every stage of preparation in his sight. Greek’s preparation continues after a publisher paragraph break.
13:9 · Similar
Text: Greek specifies the pan type and makes the removal causative; Hebrew says the men went out. Both preserve his refusal and the isolation he orders.
13:10 · Different
Text: Greek uses different room terms for the request and arrival, the latter expressly a sleeping chamber. Hebrew repeats one room term. The food distinction continues.
13:11 · Same
Text: Both explicitly describe his seizure of her. Food clarifies the unstated object of her bringing near, without adding another action.
13:12 · Different
Text: Hebrew nevalah stresses disgraceful outrage; Greek aphrosynē names folly. Violate renders the humiliation verbs in this expressly coercive sexual context. Her refusal remains unmistakable.
13:13 · Different
Text: The descriptions continue the outrage / folly distinction; Greek’s assurance is emphatic. Tamar’s appeal is preserved as her speech, without making it a general ruling that sibling marriage is permitted or treating it as consent to Amnon’s demand.
13:14 · Same
Text: Greek names Amnon where Hebrew has an unexpressed subject. Both describe rape through refusal, superior force, violation, and intercourse; all of these clauses remain explicit.
13:15 · Same
Text: The repeated hatred and love terms and abrupt dismissal agree. No motive or action by Tamar is added to explain his hatred.
13:16 · Different
Text: Hebrew’s difficult opening and final infinitive are provisionally connected as a protest against dismissal, also the reading of Rashi on 13:16 [R13]. Greek names both speakers, adds brother, and expressly contrasts last and first. Her comparison does not erase the preceding rape.
13:17 · Different
Text: Greek identifies the servant as household supervisor. Both retain the dismissive this one and the move from a plural sending command to singular locking.
13:18 · Different
Text: Ornate remains provisional for Hebrew passim, as in the revised Genesis volume; length is another interpretation. Greek karpōtos specifically concerns sleeves extending to the wrists [D8]. The garment is not silently rendered multicolored from Greek Genesis 37.
13:19 · Different
Text: Besides the garment terms, Hebrew has one hand and Greek hands. Both retain the ashes, tearing, and continued cry.
13:20 · Divergent
Text: Greek adds speaking to Absalom’s instruction and describes Tamar as living in widowhood; Hebrew says desolate. Neither statement establishes an actual marriage to Amnon. The demand for silence is Absalom’s speech, not advice endorsed by the editor.
13:21 · Disparate
Text: Greek adds David’s failure to distress or rebuke Amnon and explains it by paternal love and firstborn status. This materially changes the explicit account of David’s response. Hebrew has only the anger statement here.
13:22 · Same
Text: The silence, hatred, and cause agree. The paired evil and good terms express the range of speech.
13:23 · Same
Text: The interval, setting, and invitation agree. The secure corresponding place name is normalized from Greek Belasōr.
13:24 · Same
Text: Both give the shearing occasion and invitation. Your servant is Absalom’s deferential self-reference.
13:25 · Same
Text: The refusal, stated reason, insistence, and blessing agree. Absalom’s name clarifies the speaker transition.
13:26 · Same
Text: Hebrew’s compressed opening is read conditionally; Greek expressly includes if. Both request Amnon’s participation.
13:27 · Divergent
Text: Greek adds the royal-scale drinking feast, connecting the invitation with the wine in the next verse.
13:28 · Same
Text: Both give the timing, lethal command, and assurance of Absalom’s authority. Greek’s courage language is an idiomatic exhortation, not a separate instruction about gender.
13:29 · Same
Text: The execution of the command and the others’ flight agree. The narrative’s reference back to the command is retained.
13:30 · Same
Text: Both preserve the false report as a report, without endorsing it as the actual casualty count.
13:31 · Similar
Text: Hebrew describes the servants’ torn garments; Greek narrates their tearing and specifies their position around him.
13:32 · Different
Text: Hebrew has they killed; Greek he killed and adds the king. The difficult by Absalom’s mouth clauses are provisionally rendered as a prior determination: Hebrew concerns the plan, Greek grammatically the marked person. Rashi on 13:32 understands an order to the servants [R13].
13:33 · Same
Text: Both correct the report and repeat that Amnon alone died. The Hebrew written conditional particle does not change the restrictive English conclusion [R13].
13:34 · Divergent
Text: Greek adds the descent and the watchman’s direct report with the road name Horonen. The added report is part of this verse despite a publisher paragraph break. Hebrew’s unusual behind him wording is retained rather than changed to a different compass direction.
13:35 · Same
Text: Both confirm Jonadab’s correction as the sons arrive.
13:36 · Same
Text: The arrival and shared, intense lament agree.
13:37 · Different
Text: Hebrew follows the checked qere Ammihud against written Ammihur [R13]. Greek adds the land of Machad and expressly names King David as mourner; David is supplied contextually in Hebrew to clarify its unexpressed subject.
13:38 · Same
Text: The repeated flight notice and duration agree; the repetition is not removed.
13:39 · Different
Text: Hebrew’s defective syntax is provisionally read with an implied soul and a longing sense, following Rashi on 13:39 [R13]; BDB also discusses a longing reading with textual adjustment [D7]. Greek explicitly has spirit and ceased. The contrast depends partly on the disputed Hebrew construal and requires further review.
Notes on Chapter 14
14:1 · Same
Text: Both leave the direction of the king’s feeling compressed in the expression heart on Absalom. Affection or hostility is not independently added to resolve 13:39.
14:2 · Similar
Text: Hebrew’s reflexive mourning verb is rendered according to the staged role; Greek directly commands mourning. Both give the same clothes, abstention from oil, and assumed situation.
14:3 · Same
Text: Both explicitly identify Joab as the author of the speech she will deliver.
14:4 · Different
Text: Hebrew begins with she spoke; Greek she came in. Greek also repeats the plea and explicitly names the recipient of obeisance. No arrival verb replaces Hebrew’s first verb.
14:5 · Same
Text: The question and the woman’s claimed circumstances agree. Her account is presented as the speech Joab arranged, not independently verified biography.
14:6 · Similar
Text: Greek expressly calls the victim his brother; Hebrew says the other. The lack of an intervening rescuer and the killing agree. Servant is the woman’s deferential self-reference.
14:7 · Different
Text: Greek specifies paternal kinship and adds plural your to heir; it reverses remnant and name. Both retain the ember metaphor and the family’s stated threat to the surviving heir.
14:8 · Different
Text: Greek adds a wish for well-being; Hebrew explicitly identifies the woman as addressee. Both promise a royal order.
14:9 · Similar
Text: Guilt / lawlessness reflects the respective terms.
Rabbinic: Rashi on 14:9 treats her self-directed wording as a respectful way of pressing the king about his responsibility [R14]. This interpretation remains separate from her literal speech.
14:10 · Different
Text: Greek has a question and ends with him, where Hebrew has you. The masculine object’s referent is not specified; it is not silently corrected to the woman.
14:11 · Divergent
Text: Greek lacks Hebrew’s preventive construction before the blood avenger, producing a difficult positive infinitive clause. The provisional English preserves that difficulty rather than inserting a missing negative. The earlier NETS comparison could not be rechecked [N]. Greek has his God, Hebrew your God. The protective oath agrees.
14:12 · Same
Text: The request for further speech and permission agree.
14:13 · Different
Text: Hebrew describes the king as guilty; Greek questions the word as an offense. Both turn the analogy toward his banished son. The indirect accusation is retained without inserting Absalom’s name into her words.
14:14 · Disparate
Text: Greek lacks both Hebrew negatives concerning taking life and banishment. Its resulting divine action is preserved. Hebrew’s lifting a life is disputed: Rashi on 14:14 understands that no person is exempted from death and assigns the planning to the king [R14]. The adopted Hebrew construal is provisional, not a universal doctrine detached from the woman’s argument.
14:15 · Different
Text: Hebrew says the people frightened her; Greek says they will see her. The reporting tense and the person of the inner request also differ. These are not harmonized into a single motive.
14:16 · Similar
Text: Hebrew includes together; Greek explicitly adds seeking. Both present deliverance from the threatened loss of life and inheritance as the woman’s expectation.
14:17 · Disparate
Text: Hebrew requests rest; Greek an offering, changing the image into sacrificial language. Greek also uses the woman instead of her self-reference and a future assurance in place of the Hebrew wish. The comparison to an angel belongs to her address.
14:18 · Same
Text: The request for candor and her response agree.
14:19 · Same
Text: Both identify Joab’s direction through the hand and mouth images. The negative force of the oath’s if clause is made explicit. Hebrew’s unusual ’ish form functions as an existence expression [R14].
14:20 · Same
Text: Both use a face-of-the-matter idiom, rendered turn the matter around. The woman’s sweeping praise remains her speech rather than an editorial assertion of royal omniscience.
14:21 · Different
Text: Greek adds for you and your request. Both express the king’s agreement in a completed-action form and order Absalom’s return.
14:22 · Different
Text: Hebrew follows the checked qere your servant against the irregular written suffix [R14]; Greek has his servant and repeats my lord. The royal favor and granted request agree.
14:23 · Same
Text: The journey and return agree.
14:24 · Same
Text: Both distinguish permission to return from access to the king. The repeated face language is retained.
14:25 · Different
Text: Hebrew expressly includes beauty in the initial praise; Greek omits that word but retains the physical description. Blemish here describes appearance, not moral perfection.
14:26 · Different
Text: Hebrew’s interval idiom begins with the end of days; Greek with the beginning of days. The English leaves the interval general rather than asserting an exact calendar. Hebrew names the king’s stone weight, Greek the royal shekel. Two hundred shekels is retained without conversion or correction.
14:27 · Disparate
Text: Greek adds Tamar’s marriage to Rehoboam and motherhood of Abijah, introducing a substantial genealogy absent from Hebrew here. The daughter is distinct from Absalom’s sister Tamar. The added names are not corrected from later parallel accounts.
14:28 · Same
Text: The duration of exclusion agrees.
14:29 · Same
Text: Both retain two summonses and refusals. Joab’s name clarifies the changing unexpressed subjects.
14:30 · Divergent
Text: Greek names Absalom, specifies the field, refers to the barley with its plural burning object, and adds the servants’ arrival and report in torn clothes. Hebrew’s unusual written imperative is rendered by its clear command sense; no alternative event is introduced.
14:31 · Same
Text: The confrontation and question agree.
14:32 · Different
Text: Hebrew requests an audience and says let him put me to death; Greek states that no audience has occurred and directly commands you to put me to death. The shift of person is preserved rather than silently redirected to the king.
14:33 · Similar
Text: Greek separates the bowing and falling and uses an intensified kissing verb. The king is contextually supplied as the summoner in both. The audience and kiss are narrated without an added confession or pardon formula.
Notes on Chapter 15
15:1 · Different
Text: Hebrew has one chariot, Greek plural chariots. Both retain horses and fifty runners.
15:2 · Same
Text: The repeated practice, setting, and exchange agree. The differing case terms are rendered in their judicial context.
15:3 · Similar
Text: Greek eukoloi emphasizes ease or straightforwardness, while Hebrew calls the claims right. Both are Absalom’s assertions to potential supporters, not independent verdicts on every case.
15:4 · Same
Text: The wish and rhetorical question express the same ambition and promise. The justice verb is used judicially, not as a statement about salvation.
15:5 · Similar
Text: Greek uses an intensified kissing verb. Both describe the gesture by which Absalom received those who approached him.
15:6 · Different
Text: Hebrew expressly uses a stealing image; Greek describes appropriation. Neither is reduced to a neutral statement of popularity.
15:7 · Different
Text: Both checked editions say forty years; no conjectural four replaces the number. Its starting point remains unstated. Hebrew has the king and one vow; Greek his father and plural vows.
15:8 · Similar
Text: The geographical designations Aram / Syria correspond here. Greek’s service verb has explicit worship force. Hebrew’s checked qere supplies the infinitive form in the emphatic return construction [Q15]; the promised return is not doubled into two journeys.
15:9 · Same
Text: The permission and departure agree.
15:10 · Similar
Text: Greek explicitly gives the title king as well as the reigning verb. Both retain the spies and agreed signal.
15:11 · Same
Text: Both expressly distinguish these invited men from informed conspirators.
15:12 · Different
Text: Greek expressly adds summoned and has Gelmonite / Gola beside Hebrew Gilonite / Giloh. Hebrew’s sent construction is understood as sending for him in context. The growing conspiracy and support agree.
15:13 · Same
Text: Both report the transfer of allegiance through the heart image.
15:14 · Similar
Text: The escape / deliverance terms and calamity verbs differ slightly. Both retain David’s urgency and concern for the city.
Saints: Interpreting Psalm 3, Augustine reads David’s flight from Absalom typologically in relation to Christ and the betraying disciple Judas. This is his spiritual interpretation of the psalm’s historical setting [S3, §1].
15:15 · Different
Text: Hebrew retains singular my lord in the servants’ collective answer; Greek has our lord.
15:16 · Different
Text: Hebrew has at his feet, rendered following him; Greek has their feet and expressly places the household on foot. Both leave ten concubines behind. No voluntary choice by the women is added.
15:17 · Different
Text: Hebrew has all the people following him; Greek all his servants on foot. The distant-house expression is retained as a designation without claiming a verified site.
15:18 · Divergent
Text: Greek adds the olive-tree stop, expanded groups, and a repeated six hundred. Its first Chetti form is preserved rather than silently identified with the later Cherethites. Hebrew has followed him from Gath; Greek on their feet. The repeated Greek count is not added into an asserted total of twelve hundred.
15:19 · Different
Text: Hebrew calls Ittai an exile, with its difficult place preposition contextually rendered from; Greek expressly says from your place with a migration verb. The king with whom he may stay is not renamed within the speech.
15:20 · Divergent
Text: Greek adds a departure notice and repeats the yesterday/today question, then expressly makes the Lord the giver of mercy and truth. Hebrew ends elliptically with kindness and faithfulness; the wish is supplied in English. Hebrew’s motion verb follows the checked qere [Q15]. Greek’s change-your-place clause remains provisional.
15:21 · Same
Text: Both give the double oath and pledge of companionship through death or life. Hebrew repeats the king in the location clause; Greek does not. The Hebrew written conditional particle, omitted in the reading tradition, does not weaken the vow [Q15].
15:22 · Different
Text: Hebrew has go, men, and little ones; Greek come with me, servants, and crowd. The dependent children in Hebrew are not removed to match Greek’s broader group.
15:23 · Different
Text: Greek twice names Kidron and repeats the king in the final movement. The fuller crossing sequence remains. Torrent preserves the valley-watercourse term without specifying the water level.
15:24 · Different
Text: Greek adds from Baithar and has the Lord’s covenant where Hebrew has God’s. Both retain the difficult timing of Abiathar’s ascent without inserting an unexpressed destination or ritual action.
15:25 · Different
Text: Hebrew’s dwelling place is provisionally referred to God; the ark’s place is another possible attachment. Greek’s feminine possessive connects beauty with the ark. Both entrust a possible return to divine favor.
15:26 · Same
Text: Both retain David’s willingness to accept the contrary divine decision. The divine speaker is clear from the preceding verse.
15:27 · Different
Text: Hebrew’s seeing expression is provisionally read as a question about a seer; Do you see? is also possible. Greek gives a plural look command and a return statement. Both move from Zadok individually to the priests and their two sons collectively.
15:28 · Different
Text: Hebrew follows qere plains against written crossings or fords [Q15]. Greek transliterates Araboth and uses a military camping verb rather than waiting. The chosen meeting-area wording is not treated as a verified archaeological location.
15:29 · Different
Text: Hebrew explicitly names God’s ark and ends with a plural they stayed. Greek ends with a singular stayed, provisionally referred to the ark; a personal subject is grammatically possible but not named.
15:30 · Same
Text: The ascent, covered heads, bare feet, and repeated weeping agree. Later Christian connections belong to the editorial headings or attributed reception, not to added words in either translation.
15:31 · Different
Text: Hebrew’s irregular report clause is contextually rendered as a report to David; Greek is expressly passive. Hebrew asks for folly; Greek for scattering and adds my God to the address. The Hebrew syntax remains a review item.
15:32 · Different
Text: Greek transliterates Hebrew’s summit term as Roos and adds David’s companion. Hebrew’s worship clause is rendered as customary, with an indefinite worshiper; David himself is another possible subject. Greek describes a completed act. Both retain the mourning signs.
15:33 · Same
Text: Both state the practical consequence of accompanying David without an added reason for Hushai’s burdensomeness.
15:34 · Divergent
Text: Greek adds the report about the brothers and father, a plea to live, and an expanded time expression. Both provide Hushai’s intended speech and counter-counsel assignment. No claim of sincere allegiance to Absalom is inserted.
15:35 · Same
Text: Hebrew’s rhetorical question and Greek’s statement identify the same intermediaries. The repeated priestly titles are retained.
15:36 · Same
Text: The messengers and the plural command to relay information agree.
15:37 · Same
Text: Both bring Hushai and Absalom toward the same city. The clauses do not require an invented interval between their arrivals.
Notes on Chapter 16
16:1 · Different
Text: Hebrew has summit, summer fruit, and a wine skin; Greek Roos, dates, and a wine vessel. Clusters and portions supply the counted Hebrew fruit units, not fixed weights; the Greek fruit counts remain literal. Vessel renders borrowed nebel without specifying its material or capacity [D15].
16:2 · Different
Text: Greek uses a general pack-animal term and again specifies dates. Hebrew’s checked reading of and the bread resolves its irregular written form [R16]. The provisions’ purposes agree.
16:3 · Same
Text: Both preserve Ziba’s allegation as his report. It is not presented as independently established intent on Mephibosheth’s part; father can refer broadly to the ancestral royal house.
16:4 · Similar
Text: Hebrew includes the bowing in Ziba’s speech; Greek narrates it as his action. The transfer of property and request for favor agree.
16:5 · Same
Text: The location, family, name, and continuing curse agree. Greek carries the action into verse 6.
16:6 · Same
Text: Both retain the stones and the company flanking David. Hebrew’s pronouns are clarified by his name; Greek explicitly says the king.
16:7 · Different
Text: Hebrew beliyya‘al is rendered worthless; Greek paranomos lawless. The doubled command and bloodshed accusation agree.
16:8 · Same
Text: Both present Shimei’s accusation and interpretation of events. Calamity renders the evil-state expression in context. His attribution of guilt is not converted into an editorial finding against David.
16:9 · Similar
Text: Hebrew frames the proposal as a request; Greek uses a future declaration. Both retain the insult and lethal proposal without softening it.
16:10 · Different
Text: Greek adds leave him alone and reports the divine command indirectly. Hebrew follows the checked qere thus and because against its irregular written particles [R16]. The words express David’s explanation for restraint.
16:11 · Similar
Text: Hebrew gives a how-much-more expression, Greek an additive one. Body / belly preserves the source imagery. Greek’s son-of formulation represents the Benjaminite designation without inventing a named father.
16:12 · Different
Text: Hebrew follows qere my eye, contextually rendered my tears following Rashi on 16:12; the written form concerns iniquity [R16]. Greek explicitly has humiliation and plural good things, and does not repeat the Lord’s name. The hoped-for response remains uncertain.
16:13 · Similar
Text: The relative-position expressions differ. Both retain the continued curses, stones, and dust; the Hebrew continuation across a paragraph break is included.
16:14 · Different
Text: Hebrew ends with singular he, Greek plural they. Neither checked text names a new destination in this verse; no place name is inserted for weary.
16:15 · Similar
Text: Hebrew has both the people and the men of Israel; Greek one collective description. Both expressly include Ahithophel.
16:16 · Different
Text: Hebrew repeats the acclamation; Greek has it once. Both identify Hushai by his association with David while he addresses Absalom.
16:17 · Similar
Text: The project’s kindness / mercy distinction reflects the respective terms. Both question Hushai’s loyalty through the repeated friend or companion designation.
16:18 · Different
Text: Hebrew follows qere to him against written not [R16]. Greek explicitly has to him and adds a following or thereafter expression, provisionally rendered from now on. Hushai names no king within this claim.
16:19 · Same
Text: The rhetorical appeal and promised service agree. The repeated before language is retained.
16:20 · Same
Text: Both use a plural imperative and plural yourselves despite naming Ahithophel as addressee. The English permits a consultation group without inventing its members.
16:21 · Different
Text: Hebrew describes Absalom becoming abhorrent to his father; Greek his shaming his father. Both connect the act with political resolve.
Rabbinic: Rashi on 16:21 explains that supporters feared reconciliation would leave them exposed [R16].
16:22 · Same
Text: Both retain the public sexual action expressed by went in to. The women’s consent is not stated. The episode recalls the public judgment announced in 12:11–12 without adding that cross-reference to the translated text.
16:23 · Different
Text: Hebrew has those days and follows the checked qere man, supplied where the written text has no word [R16]. Greek has former days and an unexpressed inquirer. Regarded clarifies the comparison’s force; the narrator does not declare every proposal to be a divine command.
Notes on Chapter 17
17:1 · Similar
Text: Hebrew frames the choice as a request and specifies tonight; Greek expressly adds for myself and says by night. The proposed force agrees.
17:2 · Similar
Text: The terror / disorientation terms differ. Both retain the king alone as the intended victim and flight as the predicted response of his people.
17:3 · Divergent
Text: The Hebrew middle clause is compressed and uncertain; depends on supplies its inferred connection with the preceding plan to kill David. Greek explicitly has a bride returning to her husband and one man’s life.
Rabbinic: Rashi on 17:3 supplies the sought man’s killing when explaining the Hebrew ellipsis [R17]. This remains a provisional construal.
17:4 · Same
Text: Both report the listeners’ favorable judgment. Right describes their assessment, not an editorial endorsement of the proposed killing.
17:5 · Same
Text: Hebrew addresses one caller; Greek uses a plural imperative. What he has to say renders the shared expression what is in his mouth.
17:6 · Same
Text: The invitation to support or replace Ahithophel’s proposal agrees.
17:7 · Same
Text: Both qualify the criticism by this time, leaving Ahithophel’s general reputation intact.
17:8 · Divergent
Text: Greek adds very and the fierce sow. Hebrew says he will not lodge with the people; Greek makes the people the verb’s direct object, provisionally rendered give the people lodging. That difficult transitive clause is retained without inserting with. The fierce-animal descriptions belong to Hushai’s argument.
17:9 · Different
Text: Hebrew has pits and an ambiguous falling among them, provisionally understood as initial losses among Absalom’s men; their name is supplied for clarity. Greek has hills and falling upon them, with David inferred as attacker. The report’s demoralizing effect continues in verse 10.
17:10 · Similar
Text: Hebrew grammatically makes the man melt; Greek’s feminine participle points to his heart. Both preserve the lion-heart image and the emphatic collapse of courage.
17:11 · Different
Text: Hebrew expressly says into battle; Greek in their midst. Both appeal to Absalom’s personal presence and a much larger gathering than Ahithophel proposed.
17:12 · Similar
Text: Hebrew uses being found and remaining; Greek finding and leaving, with we as agent. Settle / encamp preserves the respective expressions. Both threaten the entire company, extending beyond the single intended victim in verse 2.
17:13 · Similar
Text: The extravagant siege claim agrees. Hebrew’s masculine object is provisionally referred to the city; Greek’s feminine object explicitly agrees with city. Stream valley / torrent and pebble / stone retain the different terms.
17:14 · Different
Text: Greek has all the calamities, Hebrew singular calamity. Both expressly attribute the frustration of effective counsel to God’s purpose against Absalom. Good concerns the proposal’s effectiveness in context.
17:15 · Different
Text: Greek repeats Hushai’s Archite designation. Both summarize rather than repeat the two speeches, preserving the repeated such and such formulation.
17:16 · Different
Text: Hebrew has wilderness plains; Greek retains Araboth as a place designation. Greek’s active swallow verb has no expressed subject, represented by it rather than an invented pursuer. Hebrew uses a passive construction.
17:17 · Similar
Text: Hebrew presents the relay arrangement with continuing or prospective actions; Greek narrates the servant’s report and uses vivid present verbs for the men, rendered as past narrative. Greek translates the spring element of En-rogel.
17:18 · Different
Text: Hebrew specifies a well; Greek uses a pit or cistern term. The discovery, flight, and hiding place otherwise agree.
17:19 · Different
Text: Hebrew describes spreading crushed grain; Greek says cooled. Grain renders its borrowed araphoth without specifying how the grain was prepared [D16]. Both say the hiding remained undiscovered.
17:20 · Different
Text: Hebrew mikal is uncertain; watercourse is provisional. Greek explicitly has a little beyond the water.
Rabbinic: Rashi on 17:20 acknowledges that mikal is otherwise unknown to him and infers a water current from context [R17].
17:21 · Similar
Text: Both retain the urgent plural commands, addressed through David to his company. Hebrew’s against and Greek’s concerning reflect their respective prepositions in this hostile context.
17:22 · Similar
Text: Hebrew says none was missing; Greek none escaped notice. Both use a doubled negative formulation to account for the entire company’s crossing, without omitting the repeated Jordan.
17:23 · Same
Text: The sequence agrees. The text gives the rejected counsel as the narrative setting without supplying a further psychological explanation.
17:24 · Same
Text: The different motion verbs preserve the same destinations and company.
17:25 · Different
Text: Hebrew Ithra differs from Greek Iothor, rendered Jethro. Both checked texts say Israelite; neither is replaced with the Ishmaelite reading of 1 Chronicles 2:17. The kinship clause identifies Zeruiah as Joab’s mother.
17:26 · Different
Text: Greek explicitly adds all. Both place Absalom’s camp in Gilead.
17:27 · Different
Text: Greek Ouesbi is retained beside Hebrew Shobi because the form is uncertain. Hebrew brought provisions supplies the connection to the long list and its verb in verse 29; Greek’s list begins with its own brought in verse 28.
17:28 · Different
Text: Greek adds the two counts of ten and double-pile rugs, and specifies cauldrons and barley meal. Hebrew repeats roasted grain; the repetition is retained rather than silently removed or turned into a numerical total.
17:29 · Similar
Text: Hebrew shephoth is uncertain: cheeses follows Rashi on 17:29, citing the Targum; BDB also considers cream [R17; D9]. Greek’s borrowed sapphoth is provisionally rendered cheese from its food context and lexical identification [D17]. Curds / butter renders the respective conventional terms without asserting a modern dairy process. Both repeat the act of providing food and the people’s three needs.
Notes on Chapter 18
18:1 · Same
Text: The organization of the force agrees. The command titles are retained without imposing a modern military rank system.
18:2 · Same
Text: The three divisions and emphatic promise agree. Hebrew calls the speaker the king; Greek repeats David. The Hebrew continuation after a paragraph break is included.
18:3 · Similar
Text: Greek explicitly has you where the checked Hebrew has now. Hebrew’s you are worth is supplied from context, following Rashi’s construal rather than silently changing the consonants [R18]. Hebrew says from the city; Greek in the city, with repeated help language. Neither main text specifies prayer.
18:4 · Same
Text: The king’s acceptance and the ordered departure agree. Greek’s pleasure expression includes the same eyes idiom.
18:5 · Similar
Text: Hebrew’s gentleness and Greek’s sparing express the same protective purpose. The public hearing of the command is explicit in both.
18:6 · Different
Text: Greek adds all and has forest at the outset where Hebrew has field. Both name the battle’s setting as the forest of Ephraim.
18:7 · Similar
Text: Both give twenty thousand; Greek expressly supplies men. The defeat vocabulary differs without changing the outcome.
18:8 · Same
Text: Both retain the forest’s devouring image without inserting a cause of death.
Rabbinic: Rashi on 18:8, following the Targum, understands wild animals in the forest [R18]; that explanation remains in the note.
18:9 · Different
Text: Hebrew has terebinth and caught; Greek oak and repeated hung. Both specify his head, not explicitly his hair. No mechanism beyond the texts is inserted.
18:10 · Different
Text: The differing tree terms continue. The eyewitness report agrees.
18:11 · Similar
Text: Hebrew frames the payment as an obligation upon Joab; Greek as what he would have given. Pieces supplies the unexpressed counted silver unit; neither text names that unit here.
18:12 · Different
Text: Greek explicitly names shekels and has for me where Hebrew has the difficult whoever formulation, construed with Rashi [R18]. Greek’s irregular I am—I weigh clause is provisionally rendered as a concession from context; it has no explicit if. Its command continues into verse 13.
18:13 · Disparate
Text: Hebrew follows qere my life, against the written his life [R18], and presents the man’s hypothetical self-endangerment. Greek continues the protective command with no wrong against his life. The changed person and clause structure shift the immediate object of concern; Greek opposite can mean standing away or against him.
18:14 · Different
Text: Greek adds I will begin this myself, names Joab again, and specifies darts; Hebrew has rods or shafts. Both repeat heart for Absalom and the tree. Greek’s final clause leads into verse 15, and its paragraph continuation is retained.
18:15 · Same
Text: The number and final killing agree. The verse completes the Greek sentence begun at the end of verse 14.
18:16 · Similar
Text: Hebrew has restraining; Greek sparing. Both describe the signal that ends the pursuit. Greek expressly identifies a horn instrument.
18:17 · Different
Text: Hebrew uses plural agents; Greek singular he, contextually Joab, and adds a great chasm before the pit. The Greek flight clause after a paragraph break is included.
18:18 · Divergent
Text: Greek adds two opaque taking clauses, retained provisionally rather than harmonized with Hebrew; their referents and sense need specialist review. Hebrew reports direct first-person speech, Greek third-person content. Both retain no son despite 14:27.
Rabbinic: Rashi on 18:18 understands no son of comparable standing to succeed him [R18], not a correction to the narrative wording.
18:19 · Same
Text: Both present the victory as divine vindication in the prospective messenger’s speech. Good news preserves the favorable-report vocabulary that becomes painful in David’s response.
18:20 · Same
Text: Both repeat the news vocabulary and explain the refusal through the son’s death. Hebrew follows the checked reading that supplies ken in the causal expression [R18].
18:21 · Different
Text: Hebrew gives the ethnic or regional designation the Cushite and says ran; Greek retains Chousi, rendered Cushi, and says went out. Greek Cushi here is the messenger, not an editorial identification with Hushai the Archite.
18:22 · Different
Text: Hebrew’s difficult news-found expression is provisionally understood as reward, following Rashi on 18:22 [R18]. Greek explicitly mentions benefit and adds come here. Neither supplies a monetary amount.
18:23 · Different
Text: Hebrew repeats whatever happens; Greek asks a question. Greek Kechar retains the Hebrew plain-region term as a place designation.
18:24 · Same
Text: Greek explicitly adds before him. The watchman’s continuation after a Greek paragraph break is included.
18:25 · Same
Text: The inference and continuing approach agree. The mouth image is retained in the king’s speech.
18:26 · Different
Text: Hebrew addresses the gatekeeper; Greek locates the shout by the gate and repeats another within it. The king’s expectation agrees.
18:27 · Same
Text: Both connect the runner’s identity with the king’s hope for a favorable report.
18:28 · Different
Text: Hebrew raised their hand contrasts with Greek hated their hand, an opaque expression retained without substituting raised. Greek also has shut out rather than the contextual Hebrew delivered up. The Greek clause’s exact sense needs specialist review; the shared greeting and blessing are clear.
18:29 · Similar
Text: The sending clause’s awkward word order is construed with Joab as sender, consistent with the preceding narrative. Hebrew commotion contrasts with Greek crowd; Greek adds there. Ahimaaz’s claimed ignorance remains reported speech.
18:30 · Same
Text: The instruction and response agree.
18:31 · Same
Text: Both announce vindication against all opponents. The differing messenger designations continue from verse 21; Greek expressly names the king as addressee.
18:32 · Similar
Text: Hebrew addresses the king as you; Greek refers to him in the third person. Both disclose the son’s fate indirectly. The checked editions place David’s ensuing lament at 19:1, commonly numbered 18:33 in English Bibles.
Notes on Chapter 19
19:1 · Different
Text: Greek repeats instead of you with an emphatic I. Both preserve all five occurrences of my son here. This verse is commonly English 18:33; the following publisher verses 19:2–44 correspond to English 19:1–43.
Saints: Augustine appeals directly to David’s lament for Absalom when describing a father’s continuing peace toward a hostile son, and compares it with Christ’s forbearance toward Judas [S3, §1].
19:2 · Same
Text: The report of grief agrees.
19:3 · Same
Text: Both frame military deliverance as mourning through the king’s grief. The repeated that day is retained.
19:4 · Same
Text: The stealth and shame comparison agrees; it describes the victors’ reception rather than changing the battle’s outcome.
19:5 · Different
Text: Hebrew has three instances of my son here, Greek two.
Rabbinic: Rashi on 19:1, citing Sotah 10b, interprets the eight Hebrew repetitions across verses 1 and 5 as David’s intercession for Absalom beyond death [R19]. This is attributed reception, not an added narrative event.
19:6 · Same
Text: Hebrew expressly says your life; Greek you. Both list the entire threatened royal household and continue Joab’s accusation into verse 7.
19:7 · Similar
Text: Hebrew’s for-you expression is rendered mean nothing to you; Greek has the starker do not exist. Both preserve Joab’s accusation as speech, not a finding about David’s actual wishes. Hebrew follows the checked conditional reading [R19].
19:8 · Different
Text: Greek adds today to going out and the instruction to understand for oneself. Both preserve the oath and its threatened abandonment; speaking to the heart is encouragement in context.
19:9 · Different
Text: Hebrew makes all the people the recipients of the report; Greek its agents. The final flight clause recalls the opposing force’s dispersal rather than asserting that the assembled loyalists now fled.
19:10 · Different
Text: Greek adds David, all the enemies, and departure from his kingdom. Hebrew names the Philistines; Greek uses foreigners, the established rendering of allophyloi.
19:11 · Different
Text: Greek adds the report reaching the king here and repeats it in verse 12; both occurrences are retained. Both acknowledge that the speakers had anointed Absalom.
19:12 · Different
Text: Hebrew repeats at his house at the end; Greek does not. Following Rashi on 19:12, the final report is provisionally kept within David’s message [R19]; alternate punctuation treats it as a narrator’s parenthesis.
19:13 · Different
Text: Greek repeats to his house and uses plural bones and flesh forms. The appeal to kinship agrees.
19:14 · Same
Text: Greek adds now. Both preserve the oath replacing Joab with Amasa and leave the self-imprecation’s penalty unspecified.
19:15 · Same
Text: Both leave the subject as he, most naturally David acting through the message. The one-man image describes their unified response.
19:16 · Same
Text: Greek spells out the men of Judah where Hebrew uses the collective Judah. The repeated king and Jordan agree.
19:17 · Different
Text: Greek’s genitive sequence attaches son of the Benjaminite to Gera; Hebrew designates Shimei as a Benjaminite. The location and purpose agree.
19:18 · Different
Text: The counts agree. Hebrew’s crossing or breaking-through verb is contextually rendered made their way across; Greek has a making-straight verb, provisionally made ready. Neither is expanded into a described engineering operation.
19:19 · Different
Text: Greek adds the service clause and on his face, and has rouse where Hebrew has bring across. Ferry is provisional for the crossing noun: Rashi understands a boat, while BDB favors a ford with a different construal [R19; D10]. The final he most naturally refers to the king, but is not replaced with an asserted proper name.
19:20 · Similar
Text: Hebrew explicitly has against me; Greek does not. Guilt / lawlessness and singular / plural wrongdoing reflect the respective expressions. Both preserve the appeal not to retain the offense in the heart.
19:21 · Same
Text: Both preserve the change from courteous third-person your servant to first-person confession, and the house of Joseph designation without replacing it with Benjamin.
19:22 · Same
Text: Both present Abishai’s proposed execution. Anointed translates the royal title in context; Greek christos is not replaced here with the personal title Christ.
19:23 · Disparate
Text: Hebrew affirms knowledge of kingship through a rhetorical question; the checked Greek has do not know whether, provisionally retained as uncertainty. The Greek sentence’s force needs specialist review rather than silent harmonization. Hebrew adversary is a common noun here, not the proper name Satan. Both reject an execution that day.
19:24 · Same
Text: Greek makes the negative emphatic. Both record the promise and oath without adding conditions from a later book.
19:25 · Different
Text: Greek explicitly supplies Jonathan in the genealogy and adds nail cutting. Hebrew son is retained in its broader ancestral sense. Tended leaves the Hebrew grooming action general rather than imposing one specific procedure.
19:26 · Same
Text: Both checked texts place the meeting at Jerusalem; to is not changed to from to smooth the surrounding Jordan narrative.
19:27 · Different
Text: Hebrew has a first-person intention to saddle; Greek an explicit command to the servant and names Mephibosheth again. Both report his account of deception without converting it into an omniscient narration of Ziba’s actions.
19:28 · Different
Text: Hebrew specifies slander; Greek describes scheming or working against him. The angel comparison is the speaker’s appeal to royal discernment.
19:29 · Same
Text: Both preserve the death-liability idiom within Mephibosheth’s deferential speech. The translation does not add an account of a particular offense or judicial verdict against the entire family.
19:30 · Same
Text: Both end the hearing with a division of the property. Neither explicitly explains the king’s assessment of the conflicting accounts or specifies the shares.
19:31 · Same
Text: The relinquishment and concern for the king’s safe return agree.
19:32 · Same
Text: Both repeat the Jordan in an awkward escort clause. Hebrew follows the checked reading without the written preposition before the second Jordan [R19].
19:33 · Same
Text: Both specify eighty and the previous support. Wealthy contextually renders very great, as Rashi explains for Hebrew [R19], without inventing the size of his holdings.
19:34 · Different
Text: Greek expressly says your old age where Hebrew says you. Both offer continued support in Jerusalem.
19:35 · Same
Text: Remain supplies the question’s contextual reference to his remaining lifespan. Neither text supplies a predicted number of years.
19:36 · Same
Text: Both preserve Barzillai’s questions about his own condition, including both groups of singers. The passage is not turned into a general judgment about all older people.
19:37 · Same
Text: The limited escort and questioned reward agree. Greek repeats the same repayment root; Hebrew uses related reward language.
19:38 · Different
Text: Hebrew asks to return; Greek to remain or settle. Both nominate Chimham without expressly identifying his kinship.
Rabbinic: Rashi on 19:38 identifies him as Barzillai’s son [R19].
19:39 · Same
Text: Greek uses a permissive command, Hebrew a future statement. Both direct the promise’s final you to Barzillai.
19:40 · Similar
Text: Greek intensifies the kissing verb. Barzillai’s name clarifies the final pronoun in both; no additional farewell speech is supplied.
19:41 · Different
Text: Hebrew here writes Chimhan with final n, retained beside the preceding Chimham; Greek keeps its previous form. Hebrew makes the people bring the king across, Greek cross with him. Both expressly include half of Israel’s people.
19:42 · Same
Text: Both retain the accusation of stealing the king and the shift from direct address to the third person.
19:43 · Different
Text: Greek explicitly adds a gift and retains a carrying expression, provisionally contribution; Hebrew’s received-gift expression is also compressed. Close kin makes Hebrew’s familial sense explicit in context. Both deny material advantage.
19:44 · Different
Text: Greek adds the firstborn claim, strengthening the priority argument. Ten shares renders the shared ten-hands idiom. Hebrew’s greater claim supplies its comparison’s ellipsis; Greek is more explicit. The collective singular speeches are rendered with plural we and you throughout verses 43–44.
Notes on Chapter 20
20:1 · Different
Text: Hebrew has a worthless man who happened to be there; Greek a called or designated lawless son, an awkward description retained provisionally. Greek changes his tents to your tents. Both preserve the secession cry.
20:2 · Same
Text: Both contrast the departing Israelites with Judah’s continued attachment to the king.
20:3 · Same
Text: Both retain confinement, material support, and the end of sexual relations. The final widowhood expression describes their condition while David lived. Neither text attributes an offense or consent to the women.
20:4 · Similar
Text: Hebrew here contrasts with Greek there. Within supplies the deadline’s contextual force, confirmed by the delay in verse 5.
20:5 · Same
Text: Greek names David; Hebrew leaves the appointing subject implicit. Hebrew follows the checked reading of the delay verb [R20]. Neither main text states why Amasa was late.
20:6 · Different
Text: Greek adds now and with you and retains a shadowing-eyes image. Hebrew’s compressed save-our-eyes expression is provisionally rendered escape our sight; Rashi supplies himself as its omitted object [R20]. No literal injury to the eyes is inferred.
20:7 · Same
Text: Both name the same groups. The initial him refers naturally to Abishai, who received the command; Joab’s subsequent presence is made explicit in verse 8.
20:8 · Different
Text: Greek names a cloak and explicitly makes the sword come out and fall; Hebrew has he stepped forward and it fell, with the respective subjects inferred. Neither text states here how the sword was recovered, so no hand movement is added.
20:9 · Similar
Text: Hebrew’s peace or wellbeing question corresponds to Greek health. Greek intensifies the kissing verb. Both specify the right hand at the beard.
20:10 · Different
Text: Hebrew’s strike-location term is rendered belly consistently with 2:23 and 3:27; Greek specifies the loin. Hebrew makes Joab spill the entrails; Greek describes their spilling. Both retain the fatal single blow and the pursuit after a paragraph break.
20:11 · Same
Text: Amasa’s name clarifies the object pronoun. The appeal identifies following Joab with loyalty to David within the speaker’s proclamation.
20:12 · Different
Text: Hebrew uses rolling or wallowing; Greek covered or befouled. Both retain the repeated observation explaining why the body was moved and covered.
20:13 · Different
Text: Greek adds Israel and uses an active reaching expression where Hebrew is passive removed. Was clear of the path provisionally renders the resulting position without inventing movement by the dead man. The Greek clause remains syntactically difficult.
20:14 · Different
Text: Hebrew has the uncertain Berites; Greek all those in Charri. Neither is replaced with a reconstructed location. Hebrew follows the checked gathered reading [R20].
Rabbinic: Rashi on 20:14 identifies the initial he as Sheba but acknowledges not knowing what Berites means [R20].
20:15 · Different
Text: Greek separates Abel and Beth-maacah with and, and describes planning where Hebrew describes destructive action. The mound’s position is provisional; the Hebrew fortification term and subject attachment are disputed. No already-fallen wall is inserted.
20:16 · Different
Text: Hebrew has city and direct second-person speech to Joab; Greek wall and third-person him. The doubled call is retained.
20:17 · Same
Text: Greek names Joab again and has an irregular doubled first-person listening expression, rendered idiomatically. Servant is the woman’s deferential self-address, not an assertion of legal enslavement.
20:18 · Divergent
Text: Greek adds Dan and an extended, difficult sequence about what Israel’s faithful established, with repeated inquiry and ending clauses. These are retained provisionally. Hebrew is construed as an old saying; Rashi instead reads a reproach that peace should have been sought before the attack [R20].
20:19 · Different
Text: Hebrew has peaceable and faithful people, with among supplied; Greek an awkward peaceable-things expression and supports or strongholds, provisionally construed as the city’s self-description. Greek mother city makes the urban metaphor explicit. Swallow / drown preserves the differing destruction images.
20:20 · Similar
Text: Both repeat an emphatic repudiation. Greek’s averting formula corresponds to Hebrew far be it, while retaining the different destruction image from verse 19.
20:21 · Different
Text: Greek expressly adds to me, combines King David, and has through the wall where Hebrew is rendered over. Both limit Joab’s demand to Sheba and preserve the woman’s lethal proposal.
20:22 · Divergent
Text: Greek adds speech to the whole city and has singular killing and throwing verbs, provisionally referred to the woman; Hebrew explicitly uses plural agents. Both end the siege.
Rabbinic: Rashi on 20:22 cites a debate in Tosefta Terumot about surrendering the named rebel and rejects treating one life as freely exchangeable for another [R20].
20:23 · Same
Text: Hebrew follows qere Cherethites against written Carites [R20]. Both list Joab in command after Amasa’s death; no new appointment ceremony is supplied.
20:24 · Different
Text: Hebrew Adoram differs from Greek Adoniram. Hebrew mas concerns the labor levy in this administrative context; Greek phoros is tribute. Recorder renders the official’s memorializing role in both.
20:25 · Different
Text: Hebrew follows qere Sheva against written Sheya [R20]; Greek Sousa remains distinct. The other names and offices agree.
20:26 · Same
Text: Both use priest here.
Rabbinic: Rashi on 20:26 distinguishes an interpretation involving priestly gifts from his contextual reading as an official or judge [R20]. The main text retains the priest term rather than deciding the historical office by substitution.
Notes on Chapter 21
21:1 · Different
Text: Greek explicitly names injustice and has a compressed death-and-blood clause, provisionally construed as bloody killing. Hebrew has the house of bloodshed. Both link the famine with the Gibeonites’ deaths; the Hebrew divine reply after a paragraph break is retained.
21:2 · Same
Text: Greek adds David. Both preserve the oath and the attack motivated by zeal. The oath recalls Joshua 9; the narrative does not commend Saul’s breach of it.
21:3 · Same
Text: Both preserve atonement and blessing language in David’s question. The question itself does not yet name a remedy.
21:4 · Same
Text: Claim supplies the contextual force of having no silver or gold with Saul. Hebrew follows qere we rather than written I [R21]. The second clause remains general, with its relation to the following demand left for interpretation rather than altered by an added legal explanation.
21:5 · Disparate
Text: Hebrew describes their threatened destruction; Greek adds pursuit and explicitly proposes wiping him out. The changed agent and object of extermination alter the demand’s force. Saul’s already-reported death is not used to delete the Greek statement.
21:6 · Different
Text: Hebrew has Gibeah and singular chosen one; Greek Gibeon and plural chosen ones, apparently referring to the men. Greek’s unexpressed giver is retained as him. Hebrew hanging is a provisional rendering of the exposure-execution verb; Greek explicitly names sun exposure. The precise execution method is not described.
21:7 · Same
Text: Both identify the spared man by his full descent and the oath. This is Jonathan’s son, distinct from Rizpah’s son of the same name in verse 8.
21:8 · Different
Text: Both checked texts say Michal and bore despite 6:23 and Merab’s marriage in 1 Samuel 18:19. Armoni / Ermoni and Adriel / Esriel remain distinct.
Rabbinic: Rashi on 21:8, citing Sanhedrin 19b, explains that Merab gave birth and Michal raised the children [R21]; that harmonizing interpretation is not substituted into either main text.
21:9 · Different
Text: The execution vocabulary differs as in verse 6. Both expressly report the seven deaths and the harvest timing. Hebrew follows the checked seven-of-them and opening-harvest readings [R21]. No personal charge against each of the seven is added.
21:10 · Different
Text: Greek specifies barley again and uses fixing and dripping; Hebrew spreading and pouring. Both preserve her prolonged watch.
Rabbinic: Rashi on 21:10, citing Yevamot 79a, recognizes the tension with Deuteronomy 21:23 and interprets the exposure as an exceptional public judgment [R21], not a general burial rule.
21:11 · Disparate
Text: Greek adds the weakening and encounter with Dan son of Ioa within the burial narrative. Its plural referent is unexpressed and its placement difficult. The addition is retained here, not silently moved into the later giant combats or supplied with invented participants.
21:12 · Different
Text: Hebrew has hung; Greek set up or displayed. Both specify the square here; neither is replaced with the wall wording of 1 Samuel 31:10. The Philistines / foreigners distinction continues.
21:13 · Different
Text: Hebrew changes to plural gatherers; Greek keeps a singular agent. Both include the executed men’s bones, with the respective exposure vocabulary.
21:14 · Different
Text: Greek’s burial list also includes the exposed men, with bones understood from the preceding phrase; it translates the Zela element as slope or side. Hebrew refers to answered entreaty; Greek to listening to the land. Saul clarifies the father-reference in both.
21:15 · Similar
Text: The people-designations and fatigue terms differ. Both make David’s exhaustion the setting for the following danger.
21:16 · Different
Text: Hebrew follows the checked Ishbi form; benob may instead mean at Nob [R21]. Greek has Jesbi without Nob and explicitly names shekels and a club. Hebrew’s counted unit and noun after new are unstated; weight-units and weapon are provisional supplies, not a conversion or identification as a sword.
21:17 · Similar
Text: Both preserve Abishai’s rescue and the lamp image for David’s life. Greek strengthens the negative and omits the oath’s explicit to him. Its oath continuation after a paragraph break is retained.
21:18 · Different
Text: Gob / Gath differs, as do the personal and regional name forms, retained rather than harmonized. Both identify the defeated man through Rapha’s line.
21:19 · Different
Text: Both checked texts say Elhanan struck down Goliath; brother of is not inserted from 1 Chronicles 20:5. Jaare-oregim / Ariorgim remains distinct.
Rabbinic: Rashi on 21:19 identifies Elhanan with David [R21]; this is an interpretation, not the name written in the verse.
21:20 · Different
Text: Hebrew’s checked madon is understood as stature; Greek presents Madon as a name. Each makes the distributive six-and-six explicit in English while retaining the total twenty-four. No modern diagnosis is added.
21:21 · Different
Text: Hebrew follows qere Shimeah against written Shimei [R21]; Greek has the Shimei form. Both identify the father as David’s brother.
21:22 · Different
Text: Greek adds descendants of the giants and an awkward house phrase, provisionally attached to the group’s lineage. Both retain the collective credit to David and his servants without changing the named individual agents in the preceding combats.
Notes on Chapter 22
22:1 · Same
Text: Both introduce the song as David’s response to deliverance. This chapter is translated from its own checked texts, not replaced with the parallel Psalm 18.
22:2 · Similar
Text: Hebrew names YHWH in a statement; Greek addresses the Lord directly. Greek’s emphatic for me is retained as for my sake; both describe personal rescue.
22:3 · Different
Text: Hebrew’s rock, shield, stronghold, and Savior differ from Greek Guard, Defender, Helper, and refuge of salvation. Greek uses explicit futures. The horn image is retained in both, expressing strength without replacing it with an interpretation.
22:4 · Similar
Text: Hebrew’s imperfect forms can express recurring or expected rescue; Greek explicitly uses future verbs. The praise and deliverance agree.
22:5 · Different
Text: Hebrew’s breaking waves contrast with Greek crushings. Hebrew beliyya‘al is destruction in the flood image; Greek explicitly lawlessness. Neither is converted into the proper name Belial.
22:6 · Different
Text: Greek has death where Hebrew has Sheol and changes cords and snares to birth pangs and harshness. Assaults supplies the contextual force of Greek plural harsh things. The different images remain visible.
22:7 · Different
Text: Hebrew includes a completed hearing after its calls; Greek expressly projects calling and hearing into the future. Reached supplies the Hebrew final verbless clause’s connection. Temple is retained without identifying a particular earthly building.
22:8 · Different
Text: Greek names the Lord and adds with them, and uses a tearing verb where Hebrew repeats heaving. Both specify heaven’s foundations, not the mountains of the parallel psalm.
22:9 · Different
Text: Hebrew’s nostril image also conveys anger; Greek expressly says anger. Greek’s katédetai is future, will devour [D13]. Both preserve mouth and coals rather than replacing the imagery with explanation.
22:10 · Same
Text: The descent and darkness imagery agree.
22:11 · Different
Text: Hebrew has riding and singular cherub; Greek has sitting and the borrowed indeclinable Cheroubin form, rendered cherubim without treating its ending as proof of a different number. Both checked texts say appeared, not the soared wording of the parallel psalm.
22:12 · Different
Text: Greek adds hiding place, makes tent singular, and turns the final cloud description into a thickening action. Hebrew’s gathered-waters expression is uncertain. Greek it supplies the unexpressed object of thickened, provisionally the darkness.
22:13 · Same
Text: The brightness and burning coals agree; no hail is imported from the parallel psalm.
22:14 · Same
Text: Both preserve the Most High title and the voice image for thunder.
22:15 · Same
Text: Both leave the attacked them unexpressed beyond the surrounding enemy context. The shared elliptical second sending clause is retained.
22:16 · Different
Text: Greek has outlets or releases and inhabited world; Hebrew channels and world. Greek names anger where Hebrew retains nostrils. Both connect the exposure with the divine rebuke and breath.
22:17 · Same
Text: Reached renders the shared sending-from-above expression idiomatically without adding a hand or messenger. Both retain many waters.
22:18 · Similar
Text: Hebrew begins with a singular enemy; Greek plural enemies. The stated inability to withstand them alone agrees.
22:19 · Same
Text: Calamity / distress renders the respective hardship terms. Both identify God as support amid confrontation.
22:20 · Same
Text: The movement into open space and the stated divine delight agree.
22:21 · Same
Text: Hebrew’s poetic imperfects are read retrospectively within the song’s deliverance account; Greek has completed actions. The speaker’s claim is retained without erasing the sins narrated elsewhere in the book.
22:22 · Similar
Text: Both connect loyalty to God with keeping His ways. Departing supplies the force of the shared from construction after the different wrongdoing verbs.
22:23 · Same
Text: Hebrew’s final from it is singular despite the plural statutes, construed collectively in English; Greek has from them. Both preserve judgments and statutes as distinct terms.
22:24 · Different
Text: Hebrew recounts past integrity and restraint; Greek explicitly projects them into the future and uses a guarding-beforehand verb. Iniquity / lawlessness preserves the respective vocabulary.
22:25 · Different
Text: Greek adds my hands and uses a future repayment; Hebrew has completed repayment and cleanness without hands in this verse.
Rabbinic: Rashi’s alternate interpretation at 22:27 connects this righteousness with David sparing Saul [R22].
22:26 · Different
Text: Hebrew’s loyalty or kindness term differs from Greek holy. Hebrew names a warrior; Greek a man. Complete renders teleios alongside Hebrew blameless, preserving the reciprocal structure.
22:27 · Different
Text: Hebrew pure differs from Greek chosen. Both retain the unsettling reciprocal crookedness expression rather than supplying an unexpressed moral explanation of God’s action.
22:28 · Different
Text: Hebrew makes the eyes God’s, directed against the proud; Greek makes the elevated eyes the object of humbling. Afflicted / poor renders the respective descriptions.
22:29 · Similar
Text: Greek explicitly adds for me and future lighting. Both identify the Lord as the speaker’s lamp, complementing the royal lamp image of 21:17.
22:30 · Different
Text: Hebrew has a troop as the object of the run or charge; Greek monozōnos describes being lightly equipped or singly girded. The wall-crossing image agrees.
22:31 · Different
Text: Greek renders Hebrew El as the Mighty One, adds strong, and expressly evokes fire-testing. Shield / Defender and refuge / trust preserve the respective terms.
22:32 · Different
Text: Hebrew’s God and rock contrast with Greek mighty and Creator. The Greek explicitly introduces creation language where Hebrew uses the rock metaphor; both assert divine uniqueness.
22:33 · Different
Text: Both second clauses are difficult. Hebrew follows qere my way against written his way [R22], with frees construed as clearing the path. Greek expressly has a shaking-out verb, retained provisionally rather than replaced by made. The exact images require further review.
22:34 · Different
Text: Hebrew follows qere my feet against written his feet [R22], and adds my to heights. Greek has generic deer rather than Hebrew’s female deer. Feet after the animal names supplies the shared comparison.
22:35 · Different
Text: Hebrew’s arms bend the bow; Greek makes God break it with the speaker’s singular arm. The different action and grammatical agent are preserved rather than harmonized as identical training.
22:36 · Different
Text: Hebrew has Your salvation; Greek my salvation. Hebrew’s disputed ‘anotkha is provisionally gentleness; Greek hypakoē is responsive hearing or obedience, rendered heeding in this address to God. Neither is made into the speaker’s obedience.
22:37 · Different
Text: Hebrew has an explicit broadening verb and ankles; Greek continues the previous sentence with a spaciousness phrase and has legs. Both describe secure movement.
22:38 · Different
Text: Hebrew is read retrospectively with its completed destruction verb; Greek is explicitly future throughout. Both retain the uncompromising military language as the song’s speech.
22:39 · Different
Text: Hebrew adds finished them and recounts their fall; Greek continues future action. Neither column removes the violent victory imagery.
22:40 · Different
Text: Hebrew has girding and retrospective support; Greek strengthening and explicit futures. Both attribute the subjugation to God.
22:41 · Disparate
Text: Hebrew assigns the final cutting off to the speaker; Greek assigns the killing directly to God. Both retain the exposed-back image of enemies’ defeat.
22:42 · Different
Text: Hebrew has looking or turning for help; Greek crying out. The Greek future cries and past refusal are retained, including their temporal tension. Hebrew’s repeated they looked supplies the second clause’s ellipsis.
22:43 · Different
Text: Hebrew adds the final stamping action. Greek’s streets term literally concerns ways out, here used for the public ways. Both retain dust and mud as comparisons.
22:44 · Different
Text: Hebrew has my people and disputes; Greek peoples and battle, with explicit future rescue and preservation. The final service is present or continuing in Hebrew, completed in Greek.
22:45 · Different
Text: Hebrew’s denying or dissembling verb is provisionally feign submission in context; Greek explicitly lied. The contrasting temporal forms are retained. Neither column attributes this behavior beyond the peoples described in the royal song.
22:46 · Different
Text: Hebrew has withering and a difficult limping expression, not the trembling wording of the parallel psalm. Greek has being cast away and stumbling. Enclosures leaves the confinement or fortified-place sense open.
22:47 · Different
Text: Greek repeatedly has Guard where Hebrew has Rock, and future exaltation where Hebrew is read as praise. Both retain the twofold protective title.
22:48 · Different
Text: Greek adds Lord and describes disciplining rather than bringing down. The attribution of vengeance remains explicit in both.
22:49 · Different
Text: Greek explicitly projects the final two acts into the future and has wrongs where Hebrew has violence. Both shift from speaking of God to addressing Him.
22:50 · Similar
Text: The thanksgiving or acknowledgment terms overlap in this praise setting. Both place the praise among the nations and retain the divine name as its object.
Saints: Romans 15:9 quotes the praise-among-the-nations line also found in Psalm 18:49, within Paul’s teaching that Christ confirms the promises and that the nations glorify God for mercy. The shared wording does not by itself establish which parallel Paul consulted [NT3, Romans 15:8–12].
22:51 · Different
Text: Hebrew follows qere migdol, tower, against the written form associated with making great; Greek explicitly magnifies deliverances [R22]. Kindness / mercy preserves the respective covenant terms. Both identify the anointed as David and include his continuing line; Christ-centered reception belongs in the headings and notes.
Notes on Chapter 23
23:1 · Different
Text: Hebrew introduces an oracle twice; Greek twice calls the speaker faithful and explicitly names the Lord as the One raising him. Hebrew’s singer description differs from Greek’s description of the psalms themselves. Greek as the anointed construes epi christon as appointment; the reference remains David.
Rabbinic: Rashi understands last words as the concluding prophetic utterance, not necessarily David’s final spoken sentence [R23].
23:2 · Similar
Text: Hebrew be can mean in or through; Greek expressly has in me. Both attribute the word to the divine Spirit.
Rabbinic: Rashi explains the Spirit’s speaking as prophetic speech from within the prophet [R23].
Saints: As a thematic comparison, Augustine explains prophetic speech as God’s gift working through the speaker when commenting on Psalm 3. This is not a separate commentary on 2 Samuel 23:2 [S3, §6].
23:3 · Disparate
Text: Hebrew describes righteous rule; Greek commands a parable and asks a question about strengthening fear of God. Greek’s plural you follows the singular command. Rock / Guard retains the different divine titles.
Rabbinic: Rashi’s contextual reading takes the Hebrew as God’s instruction to David to rule justly and reverently [R23].
23:4 · Divergent
Text: Both poetic clauses are compressed. Hebrew’s is like and grass springs supply the comparison’s connections. Greek adds in God, has a wished-for rising, lacks the cloudless wording, and leaves its final comparison incomplete. Its wording is retained provisionally rather than reconstructed from Hebrew.
23:5 · Disparate
Text: The Hebrew negatives are read as rhetorical questions, with them supplied in the final clause. Greek expressly makes the lawless one the subject of not sprouting, changing the conclusion. Hebrew’s every respect differs from Greek every time.
Rabbinic: Rashi instead reads the Hebrew final negative as excluding another royal line; he also offers a Torah interpretation of the covenant [R23].
23:6 · Different
Text: Hebrew names the worthless here; Greek’s all of them follows the lawless one of verse 5. Both preserve the thorn image and the difficulty of handling it.
23:7 · Different
Text: Hebrew describes equipment for handling the thorns; Greek negates toil and leaves a grammatically difficult equipment fragment. Hebrew’s final sitting or dwelling expression is provisionally where they lie; Greek expressly their shame. The Greek fragment remains open for further syntactical review.
23:8 · Divergent
Text: Hebrew’s names and title are difficult; over eight hundred retains its elliptical final phrase without supplying a spear from Chronicles. Greek has different names and affiliations and explicitly adds drawing a sword. Both give eight hundred slain; Greek traumatiai is read as the resulting casualties [D11]. The relation between the paired names remains uncertain; Hebrew Eznite follows the read form [R23].
23:9 · Divergent
Text: Hebrew follows qere Dodo against written Dodai [R23]; Greek expresses paternal kinship, a different affiliation, and the place Serran. Hebrew has their defiance, Greek his. Went up is retained without specifying retreat, though the following episode distinguishes Eleazar’s action from the people’s.
23:10 · Different
Text: Hebrew has the people returning; Greek has them sitting. The slain supplies the common stripping verb’s contextual object. Neither column adds helpers to Eleazar’s fighting.
23:11 · Different
Text: The father’s name and affiliation differ. Hebrew’s troop expression is read as a common noun; the Greek edition presents Theria as a place-name. Both have lentils; barley is not imported from Chronicles.
23:12 · Same
Text: The defended plot, combat, and divine deliverance agree. Defended / rescued renders the corresponding saving verbs in their field-protection context.
23:13 · Different
Text: Hebrew follows qere three against written thirty and includes chiefs [R23]. Hebrew harvest is represented by the place Kason in Greek. Both retain Rephaim here, unlike the Greek Titans wording in chapter 5.
23:14 · Similar
Text: The corresponding military settings agree, while Hebrew’s fortified-place term differs from Greek’s more general enclosed area. Both repeat then.
23:15 · Divergent
Text: Greek adds another notice of the foreign force at Bethlehem. Hebrew’s read form bor denotes a pit or cistern, rendered well in this water-drawing scene; Greek explicitly has a cistern. The written/read spelling is displayed in R23.
23:16 · Same
Text: The dangerous retrieval, refusal, and libation agree. Hebrew’s water is grammatically plural; Greek’s English it follows its singular water noun. The narrative action is retained before later symbolic interpretation.
23:17 · Similar
Text: Greek’s propitiatory formula is rendered by its aversion sense, Far be it from me, in David’s refusal [D12]. Hebrew likewise rejects the act. Hebrew’s blood question lacks an explicit drinking verb; Greek supplies it. Risk supplies the shared idiom involving their lives. The water is compared to their blood, not described as physically transformed.
23:18 · Same
Text: Hebrew follows the read three in the title [R23]. Both give three hundred slain; Greek traumatiai is read as casualties in the battle notice [D11]. Both distinguish reputation from the rank discussed next.
23:19 · Similar
Text: Hebrew uses a question emphasizing honor; Greek states renown. Both retain the tension between being among three and not attaining to the Three. Capitalization marks the apparent elite group without inventing a full hierarchy.
23:20 · Different
Text: Hebrew follows qere valiant against written living and includes son of a valiant man [R23]. Its ariels is left as a disputed designation, often interpreted as lionlike champions. Greek explicitly has two sons of a person named Ariel. Neither column replaces the snow or lion episode with an allegory.
23:21 · Divergent
Text: Greek adds the spear’s comparison with gangway timber. Hebrew follows qere man against the written form [R23]. Benaiah names the continuing subject in English; neither text gives the man’s height here.
23:22 · Same
Text: The name, deeds, and reputation agree.
23:23 · Different
Text: Hebrew compares him with thirty; Greek with three. Hebrew’s service term and Greek’s hearings are rendered as the king’s personal service and instructions, provisionally; neither explicitly names a bodyguard office here.
23:24 · Divergent
Text: Greek introduces another formal list heading, names David as king, and adds paternal kinship after Dodi. The ambiguous his is retained; its antecedent is not supplied as David. Hebrew has Dodo without the kinship phrase.
23:25 · Different
Text: The Hebrew repeats one affiliation; the Greek edition prints two slightly different forms. They are kept visible rather than made identical without explanation.
23:26 · Different
Text: Greek Elles and Phelothite differ from Hebrew Helez and Paltite. The securely corresponding Ira, Ikkesh, and Tekoite names use familiar English forms; Greek spellings alone do not establish different people.
23:27 · Divergent
Text: Hebrew lists a second named man; Greek instead gives Abiezer a further descent phrase without Mebunnai. The Greek is not expanded to restore the missing name.
23:28 · Different
Text: Zalmon’s name corresponds, but the affiliation’s Greek form and Moore / Maharai remain distinct. The common Netophathite affiliation is normalized.
23:29 · Different
Text: The first man’s name differs. Greek Etthi is the familiar Ittai, as elsewhere; Riba and Gabaeth remain visible against Hebrew Ribai and Gibeah. Hebrew attaches Benjamin’s sons to Gibeah; Greek has a singular son of Benjamin, provisionally describing the man.
23:30 · Different
Text: The second man’s name differs, and Greek presents the Hebrew wadi-place expression as a single name. Benaiah and his securely corresponding Pirathonite affiliation use their familiar English forms.
23:31 · Different
Text: Abi-albon / Abiel and Barhumite / Barsamite differ. Greek also explicitly introduces a son relationship before the first affiliation.
23:32 · Different
Text: The first name and affiliation differ. Jashen and Jonathan correspond securely; both texts contain a sons phrase followed by Jonathan, leaving the list’s exact grouping uncertain.
23:33 · Different
Text: Both affiliations and the second man’s name and father’s name differ. No names are imported from the parallel list in Chronicles.
23:34 · Different
Text: Greek has the affiliation the Asbite where Hebrew has Ahasbai; both preserve the following son of the Maacathite construction. Eliam / Eliab differs, as also at 11:3. The securely corresponding Ahithophel and Gilonite names use familiar forms.
23:35 · Different
Text: Hebrew follows qere Hezrai against written Hezro [R23]; Greek has Asarai. The second man’s affiliation differs, Arbite / Erchite. Paarai’s corresponding name uses the familiar form; Carmelite agrees.
23:36 · Divergent
Text: Hebrew has the place Zobah and a separate man Bani the Gadite. Greek has from the force and son of Gaddi, without Bani. Its unusual sequence is retained without repairing the genealogy.
23:37 · Different
Text: Both men’s names differ. Hebrew follows qere singular bearer against written plural bearers [R23]; Greek also has a singular bearer. Armor / equipment renders the respective terms in their military setting.
23:38 · Same
Text: The names and repeated affiliation correspond securely.
23:39 · Same
Text: Both close with Uriah and the total thirty-seven. The transmitted totals are retained despite the lists’ different segmentation and membership details; no additional names are invented to make a modern count fit.
Notes on Chapter 24
24:1 · Same
Text: Both attribute the incitement in the setting of the Lord’s anger; Satan is not imported from Chronicles. The reason for this renewed anger is unstated.
Rabbinic: Rashi expressly acknowledges that he does not know its cause [R24].
24:2 · Similar
Text: Hebrew shifts from a singular command to a plural muster, extending the task to Joab’s companions; Greek remains singular. The geographical scope and the king’s stated purpose agree.
24:3 · Same
Text: Both preserve the repeated multiplication language, the wish that David see the increase, and the objection. The repetition is not converted into a calculated exponential total.
24:4 · Same
Text: The king’s insistence overrides both Joab and the other commanders in each text. The muster is the implementation of David’s order.
24:5 · Different
Text: The route’s syntax is difficult. Hebrew has toward Jazer; Greek presents Eliezer without a directional preposition. Right is retained rather than fixed as south, and neither geography is reconstructed into a confident modern itinerary.
24:6 · Different
Text: The uncertain northern names differ substantially. Greek adds an identifying which is clause and presents Danidan and Oudan as two names. Tahtim-hodshi is retained without emendation to another known place.
24:7 · Different
Text: Hebrew has the common noun stronghold; Greek presents Mapsar as a name. Hebrew Negeb is a regional designation; Greek uses southward. The people groups and endpoint agree.
24:8 · Same
Text: The extent of the journey and its exact duration agree.
24:9 · Similar
Text: Both give the same totals here; Greek also expressly calls Judah’s men fighters. Neither total is replaced with the different figures in Chronicles.
24:10 · Same
Text: Both preserve the heart’s accusation, direct confession, petition, and admission of folly. Iniquity / lawlessness renders the respective terms without altering the confession’s force.
24:11 · Same
Text: Both distinguish Gad’s prophetic role and his service as David’s seer. The next verse gives the message.
24:12 · Similar
Text: Greek’s I am construction reinforces the subject, rendered I Myself within the action rather than as a separate divine-name formula. Both require a choice of one of three, not the imposition of all three.
24:13 · Disparate
Text: Hebrew offers seven years of famine; Greek three, substantially changing the proposed punishment. Greek adds an explicit initial command to choose and has death where Hebrew has pestilence. Hebrew’s singular pursuer after plural foes is retained without naming another person.
24:14 · Divergent
Text: Hebrew begins let us and then let me; Greek uses I throughout, adds on every side and very, and explicitly records David’s choice of death. Here death names the offered plague, not a narrated act of self-killing.
24:15 · Divergent
Text: Greek adds the wheat-harvest setting and the onset of devastation, and specifies mealtime where Hebrew has an appointed time. The seventy thousand deaths and geographical extent agree. No exact clock time is supplied for either expression.
24:16 · Different
Text: Greek initially specifies God’s angel; Hebrew initially says the angel. Araunah / Orna retains the source forms. Relented renders the corresponding response to calamity without explaining away the change of action.
24:17 · Divergent
Text: Greek explicitly names David the shepherd; Hebrew has no shepherd noun, though both call the people sheep. The question is David’s plea, not a separate narrator’s verdict. Both retain the requested consequence for his father’s house as well as himself.
24:18 · Similar
Text: The instruction agrees apart from the owner’s source-specific name. Hebrew’s differing spellings within this account are represented by the conventional Araunah; Greek consistently Orna.
24:19 · Same
Text: Both identify David’s ascent as obedience to the mediated divine instruction; Greek expressly adds him.
24:20 · Similar
Text: The initial looking / bending verbs differ, while the approach and bodily homage agree. Servants describes the king’s attendants; the verse does not specify their legal status.
24:21 · Similar
Text: The transaction’s purpose agrees. Hebrew names a plague; Greek a devastation. Araunah’s servant language is courtly self-reference here, not evidence by itself of legal enslavement.
24:22 · Different
Text: Greek explicitly adds to the Lord and has wheels where Hebrew has threshing sledges. His eyes is provisionally the king’s in both columns; the Greek’s immediately preceding Lord makes its reference less transparent. Equipment is not narrowed to a particular yoke design.
24:23 · Different
Text: The Hebrew expressly includes king twice, provisionally taking the first as Araunah’s title; a vocative construction is another interpretation. Greek does not call Orna king and asks blessing rather than acceptance. The next verse records David’s refusal of a free gift.
24:24 · Same
Text: Both insist on payment and give fifty silver shekels for the floor and oxen. Hebrew’s offerings is plural, Greek’s singular. Neither price nor purchase scope is replaced by the different account in Chronicles.
24:25 · Divergent
Text: Greek adds Solomon’s later enlargement of the altar. Hebrew expressly describes answering entreaty; Greek listening to the land. Both conclude with the plague or devastation restrained. The added future-reign notice is retained at this location without moving it into Kings.
Sources and extent of review
All twenty-four Hebrew and Greek chapters were reviewed in complete literary units against the publisher’s running texts. The comparison volume contains the Hebrew translation, all 696 aligned source units, and the full comparison tables. The reading text follows the reviewed Greek-English column.
No substitute chapter remains. The review does not claim a full critical-apparatus collation, direct inspection of Göttingen volumes or manuscript images, or independent specialist approval. NETS was unavailable for fresh verification; its limited V1 checks remain expressly historical reports. Rabbinic works cited through Rashi were checked as Rashi’s attributed reports, not as independently inspected earlier sources.
[H] Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia, Elliger and Rudolph, fifth corrected edition prepared by Schenker, 1997. Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft publisher presentation of 2 Samuel 1–24: the complete pointed running text; selected written/read checks below. Source
[G] Septuaginta, Rahlfs, revised by Hanhart, second revised edition, 2006. Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft publisher presentation of 2 Reigns, chapters 1–24, including 5:16a. Complete running text; no full critical apparatus collation. Source
[N] A New English Translation of the Septuagint, 2 Reigns, University of Pennsylvania electronic edition. V1 reported limited indirect English checks at 2:22, 26–31; 3:33–34, 39; 5:24; 6:6; 14:11, and consultation of the introduction on the Greek textual transition. The official PDF could not be reopened for this review. These remain historical reports, not fresh verification, a running English base, or direct apparatus access. Source
[Q1] Mechon Mamre, pointed Hebrew of 2 Samuel 1; selected written/read or spelling checks at 1:8, 16. The parallel English was not the translation base. Source
[Q5] Mechon Mamre, pointed Hebrew of 2 Samuel 5; selected written/read or spelling checks at 5:2, 8, 24. The parallel English was not the translation base. Source
[Q8] Mechon Mamre, pointed Hebrew of 2 Samuel 8; selected written/read or spelling checks at 8:3. The parallel English was not the translation base. Source
[Q11] Mechon Mamre, pointed Hebrew of 2 Samuel 11; selected written/read or spelling checks at 11:1, 24. The parallel English was not the translation base. Source
[Q12] Mechon Mamre, pointed Hebrew of 2 Samuel 12; selected written/read or spelling checks at 12:9, 22, 24, 31. The parallel English was not the translation base. Source
[Q15] Mechon Mamre, pointed Hebrew of 2 Samuel 15; selected written/read or spelling checks at 15:8, 20–21, 28. The parallel English was not the translation base. Source
[R7] Rashi, Commentary on 2 Samuel 7, Chabad / Judaica Press bilingual presentation. Selected commentary or written/read checks at 7:11, 19, 23; brief attributed paraphrases only. Citations to earlier rabbinic works are reported through Rashi unless separately stated. Source
[R11] Rashi, Commentary on 2 Samuel 11, Chabad / Judaica Press bilingual presentation. Selected commentary or written/read checks at 11:1, 4, 15; brief attributed paraphrases only. Citations to earlier rabbinic works are reported through Rashi unless separately stated. Source
[R12] Rashi, Commentary on 2 Samuel 12, Chabad / Judaica Press bilingual presentation. Selected commentary or written/read checks at 12:4, 6, 14, 30–31; brief attributed paraphrases only. Citations to earlier rabbinic works are reported through Rashi unless separately stated. Source
[R13] Rashi, Commentary on 2 Samuel 13, Chabad / Judaica Press bilingual presentation. Selected commentary or written/read checks at 13:3, 16, 32–33, 37, 39; brief attributed paraphrases only. Citations to earlier rabbinic works are reported through Rashi unless separately stated. Source
[R14] Rashi, Commentary on 2 Samuel 14, Chabad / Judaica Press bilingual presentation. Selected commentary or written/read checks at 14:9, 14, 19, 22; brief attributed paraphrases only. Citations to earlier rabbinic works are reported through Rashi unless separately stated. Source
[R16] Rashi, Commentary on 2 Samuel 16, Chabad / Judaica Press bilingual presentation. Selected commentary or written/read checks at 16:2, 10, 12, 18, 21, 23; brief attributed paraphrases only. Citations to earlier rabbinic works are reported through Rashi unless separately stated. Source
[R17] Rashi, Commentary on 2 Samuel 17, Chabad / Judaica Press bilingual presentation. Selected commentary or written/read checks at 17:3, 20, 29; brief attributed paraphrases only. Citations to earlier rabbinic works are reported through Rashi unless separately stated. Source
[R18] Rashi, Commentary on 2 Samuel 18, Chabad / Judaica Press bilingual presentation. Selected commentary or written/read checks at 18:3, 8, 12–13, 18, 20, 22; brief attributed paraphrases only. Citations to earlier rabbinic works are reported through Rashi unless separately stated. Source
[R19] Rashi, Commentary on 2 Samuel 19, Chabad / Judaica Press bilingual presentation. Selected commentary or written/read checks at 19:1, 12, 19, 32–33, 38; brief attributed paraphrases only. Citations to earlier rabbinic works are reported through Rashi unless separately stated. Source
[R20] Rashi, Commentary on 2 Samuel 20, Chabad / Judaica Press bilingual presentation. Selected commentary or written/read checks at 20:6, 14, 18, 22–26; brief attributed paraphrases only. Citations to earlier rabbinic works are reported through Rashi unless separately stated. Source
[R21] Rashi, Commentary on 2 Samuel 21, Chabad / Judaica Press bilingual presentation. Selected commentary or written/read checks at 21:4, 8–10, 16, 19–21; brief attributed paraphrases only. Citations to earlier rabbinic works are reported through Rashi unless separately stated. Source
[R22] Rashi, Commentary on 2 Samuel 22, Chabad / Judaica Press bilingual presentation. Selected commentary or written/read checks at 22:25–27, 33–36, 46, 51; brief attributed paraphrases only. Citations to earlier rabbinic works are reported through Rashi unless separately stated. Source
[R23] Rashi, Commentary on 2 Samuel 23, Chabad / Judaica Press bilingual presentation. Selected commentary or written/read checks at 23:1–5, 8–9, 13, 15–16, 18, 20–21, 35, 37; brief attributed paraphrases only. Citations to earlier rabbinic works are reported through Rashi unless separately stated. Source
[R24] Rashi, Commentary on 2 Samuel 24, Chabad / Judaica Press bilingual presentation. Selected commentary or written/read checks at 24:1; brief attributed paraphrases only. Citations to earlier rabbinic works are reported through Rashi unless separately stated. Source
[D1] Thayer, Greek-English Lexicon, entry nikos (3534), Bible Hub transcription. Victory and the forever idiom, checked for 2:26. Source
[D2] Brown–Driver–Briggs, entry pelekh (6418), Bible Hub transcription: spindle, qualified as probable at 3:29. Source
[D3] Brown–Driver–Briggs, entry tsinnor (6794), Bible Hub transcription: disputed water-channel expression at 5:8. Source
[D4] Brown–Driver–Briggs, entry eshpar (829), Bible Hub transcription: uncertain food term at 6:19. Source
[D6] Brown–Driver–Briggs, entry malben (4404), Bible Hub transcription: brickmold and disputed brickworks context at 12:31. Source
[D7] Brown–Driver–Briggs, entry kalah (3615), Bible Hub transcription: 13:39 discussed with textual adjustment and an implied spirit. The host’s verse link is inaccurate; the biblical location is 13:39. Source
[D8] Liddell–Scott–Jones, Greek-English Lexicon, ninth edition, 1940, entry karpōtos; CLD / BBAW presentation. Sleeves reaching the wrists at 13:18. Source
[D9] Brown–Driver–Briggs, entry shephoth (8194), Bible Hub transcription: uncertain dairy term at 17:29, perhaps cream; cheese is traditional. Source
[D10] Brown–Driver–Briggs, entry abarah (5679), Bible Hub transcription: ford; compared with the ferry interpretation at 19:19. Only the dictionary entry, not the host’s unrelated summary, is used. Source
[D11] Liddell–Scott–Jones, Greek-English Lexicon, entry traumatias, senses I–II; Perseus Scaife presentation. The slain sense in the death lament and battle casualty counts. Source
[D12] Thayer, Greek-English Lexicon, entry hileōs (2436), Bible Hub transcription. Propitiatory form used as an aversion formula at 20:20 and 23:17. Source
[D13] Liddell–Scott–Jones, Greek-English Lexicon, entry katesthiō; CLD / BBAW presentation. Future katedomai, supporting will devour at 22:9. Source
[D14] Greekdoc supplementary online lexicon, kinyra; Suda On Line, Adler nu 4, editorial note citing West, Ancient Greek Music, p. 77, and quoting LSJ. Broad lyre/harp identifications at 6:5; West and the LSJ instrument entry were accessed only through this Suda presentation. Greekdoc; Suda
[D15] Greekdoc supplementary online lexicon, nebel. Wine container at 16:1; vessel does not specify material or capacity. Source
[D16] Greekdoc supplementary online lexicon, araphoth. Grain at 17:19; its preparation remains unspecified. Source
[D17] Greekdoc supplementary online lexicon, sapphoth. Cheese/curds identification used provisionally in the food context of 17:29; compare the Hebrew uncertainty at D9. Source
[S1] Augustine, City of God XVII.8, New Advent transcription. The promise to David, Solomon as figure, and fulfillment in Christ. Source
[S2] Augustine, Exposition on Psalm 51 (Hebrew numbering; Psalm 50 in his sequence), §§2–5, 8; New Advent transcription. David’s sin, Nathan’s parable, confession, and mercy. Source
[S3] Augustine, Exposition on Psalm 3, §§1, 6; New Advent transcription. David and Absalom in Christ-centered typology; prophetic speech. Source
[NT1] Acts 13:20–23, Greek NA28 publisher presentation. The sequence Saul–David–Jesus, freshly checked here and used as the canonical frame. Source
[NT2] Luke 6:27–38, USCCB biblical presentation, freshly checked in the complete indexed chapter; direct page loading was unavailable. Christ’s teaching on mercy supplies expressly editorial thematic comparisons. Source
[NT3] Romans 15:8–12, Greek NA28 (2012) publisher presentation, checked for Christ, the ancestral promises, and the quotation shared with 2 Samuel 22:50 / Psalm 18:49. Source
[L1] USCCB, Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe, Nov 24, 2019, Lectionary 162, Year C: 2 Samuel 5:1–3; Luke 23:35–43. Exact selection and Gospel verified from the full official dated page in this review. Source
[L2] USCCB, Fourth Sunday of Advent, Dec 20, 2020, Lectionary 11, Year B: 2 Samuel 7:1–5, 8b–12, 14a, 16; Luke 1:26–38. Exact selection and Gospel verified from the full official dated page in this review. Source