1tn The MT does not specify the subject of the verb here, but the reference is to Ish-bosheth, so the name has been supplied in the translation for clarity. 4QSama and the LXX mistakenly read “Mephibosheth.”

2tn Heb “his hands went slack.”

3tc The present translation, “Saul’s son had two men,” is based on the reading “to the son of Saul,” rather than the MT’s “the son of Saul.” The context requires the preposition to indicate the family relationship.

4tn Heb “until this day.”

5tn Heb “and was lame.”

6tc For the MT’s וְהֵנָּה (v˙hennah, “and they,” feminine) read וְהִנֵּה (v˙hinneh, “and behold”). See the LXX, Syriac Peshitta, and Targum.

7tn Heb “and they struck him down.”

8tn After the concluding disjunctive clause at the end of v. 6, the author now begins a more detailed account of the murder and its aftermath.

9tn Heb “he”; the referent (Ish-bosheth) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

10tn Heb “they struck him down and killed him.” The expression is a verbal hendiadys.

11tn Heb “and they removed his head.” The Syriac Peshitta and Vulgate lack these words.

12tc The Lucianic Greek recension lacks the words “his head.”

13tn Heb “from.”

14tn Heb “and he was like a bearer of good news in his eyes.”

15tn Heb “on his bed.”

16tn See HALOT 146 s.v. II בער. Some derive the verb from a homonym meaning “to burn; to consume.”

17tn The antecedent of the pronoun “them” (which is not present in the Hebrew text, but implied) is not entirely clear. Presumably it is the corpses that were hung and not merely the detached hands and feet; cf. NIV “hung the (their NRSV, NLT) bodies”; the alternative is represented by TEV “cut off their hands and feet, which they hung up.”

18tc 4QSama mistakenly reads “Mephibosheth” here.

19tc The LXX adds “the son of Ner” by conformity with common phraseology elsewhere.

20tc Some mss of the LXX lack the phrase “in Hebron.”