Translation & Sermon by Nate Wilson for Christ The Redeemer Church of Manhattan, KS, 22 Jan 2023
As the book of 2 Samuel winds down, the next-to-last chapter starts with a statement described as the “last words” of David. Probably a last public speech he made, reminding his people to keep walking in covenant relationship with God after he passed1.
The last words of great men are worthy of special attention.
Some
are profound, like Bob
Marley’s last words, “Money can’t buy life,”
or
Bobby Fischer’s, “Nothing soothes pain like human
touch.”
And then there’s Elvis’ last words, a trite response to his fiancée telling him not to fall asleep in the bathroom, “Okay, I won’t.”
Some are ironic, like Karl Marx’s, “Last words are for fools who haven’t said enough.”
Some are predictable, such as Jack Daniel’s, “One last drink, please,” or Jim Henson’s, “Maybe I’m dying.”
Often at death, people speak of those they love most: T.S. Elliot, Joe Dimaggio, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and Vince Lomardi died with words to their beloved wife on their lips2.
In 2 Samuel 23, King David’s last words were about God, the dearest relationship to him.
David begins by identifying himself, and he uses four phrases to describe himself:
“David, son of Jesse.” Practically every instance of the phrase “son of Jesse” in the Bible is other people scoffing at David3, perhaps saying that David was just a boy – not recognized as a man in his own right, and therefore called by his father’s name, but here, David owns his lowly beginning (as well as the importance of his father in shaping his identity),
then he testifies that he has risen beyond immaturity and obscurity to be a gebur – a mighty-man, a hero who has been “raised up” to the “heights” of favor with God and man.
This culminated in his being “anointed” by God to be king over the nation of Israel (Jacob’s descendants). His vocation was to be a king,
and then he adds one last thing about his role in the nation’s music.
David’s first political appointment was to play music that effectively calmed King Saul’s bad spirits
The next-to-last noun in this verse occurs five other places in the Bible, and in none of those other places is it translated “psalmist,” in any English version.
It is also clearly plural here in Hebrew, not singular, so I translated it “the pleasant4 things of the music of Israel.”
Nevertheless, it does share the same root as the Hebrew word for “Psalm,” and the Hebrew adjective “pleasant/sweet” here is used to describe harp music in Psalm 81:2 and to describe singing praise to God in Psalm 135:3, so David’s role with the Psalms is clearly in view as an important part of who he is and what his life accomplishments were.
David understood his calling and his life purpose and could summarize it in four phrases. Do you have a sense of your calling and life purpose? How would you summarize it?
It is my opinion that
“the last words of David,”
“the utterance/declaration/saying/oracle of the son of Jesse”
“and the utterance of the man raised up”
“and the pleasant music of Israel”
are all speaking of the same thing; they are all titles to introduce the next 6 verses.
David claims to have the “Spirit5 of Yahweh” like only Gideon (Judges 6:34), Jepthah (Judges 11:29), Sampson (Judges 13:25), and Saul (1 Samuel 10:6) had before him.
After David, it was prophesied that the Messiah/Christ would have the “Spirit upon” him, and Jesus claimed that prophecy fulfilled in Him:
Luke 4:16-21 “So He [Jesus] came to Nazareth, where He had been brought up. And as His custom was, He went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and stood up to read. And He was handed the book of the prophet Isaiah. And when He had opened the book, He found the place where it was written: ‘THE SPIRIT OF THE LORD IS UPON ME, BECAUSE HE HAS ANOINTED ME TO PREACH THE GOSPEL TO THE POOR; HE HAS SENT ME TO HEAL THE BROKENHEARTED, TO PROCLAIM LIBERTY TO THE CAPTIVES AND RECOVERY OF SIGHT TO THE BLIND, TO SET AT LIBERTY THOSE WHO ARE OPPRESSED; TO PROCLAIM THE ACCEPTABLE YEAR OF THE LORD.’ (Quoting the beginning of Isaiah chapter 616] Then He closed the book, and gave it back to the attendant and sat down. And the eyes of all who were in the synagogue were fixed on Him. And He began to say to them, ‘Today this Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.’” (NKJV)
But David alone of all the mighty men of God in the Old Testament claimed that the “Spirit of Yahweh spoke by me.” (That is not to say that there weren’t other prophets through whom the Holy Spirit spoke, but that none made the claim in these exact words.) That is one reason why we treat the Psalms of David as Holy Scripture. They are the Holy Spirit of God speaking through the mouth of David!
That is a truly stupendous statement if you think about it. The divine being, utterly transcendent and beyond our ability to see or understand or relate to, by whose mere thought and word every atom of this earth and every galaxy of the universe came into being out of nothing – this God communicated in human words – through the very mouth of David – messages that all mankind needed to know and believe. Do you see how incomparably valuable the Bible is? Is it that precious to you? Are you taking-in God’s words?
The Book of Revelation (22:19) warns us that it is a cursed thing to “add to” the prophecy of holy scripture now, and yet, there is a more-simple sense in which the Holy Spirit still speaks through believers today.
Jesus told His disciples in Matthew 10:18-20 “...y'all will be brought before governors and even kings for my sake to be a witness to them and to the nations…. and it shall be given to you in that hour what you may speak. For it's not you who are the speakers, but rather the Spirit of your Father who does the speaking through you.” (NAW)
And, Paul told the church in 1 Corinthians 12:7-11 “Now, to each is given the manifestation of the Spirit toward the [goal of] bearing together, for: to one a word of wisdom is given through the Spirit, but to another, a word of knowledge - according to the same Spirit, to yet another, faith - in the same Spirit, but to another, gifts of healings - in the same Spirit, and to another, energizings for miracles, but to another, prophecy, and to another, the distinguishing of spirits, to yet another, kinds of languages, and to another, interpretation of languages. But one and the same Spirit is energizing all these, variously apportioning to each individual just as He wills.”
Are you a conduit of the word of God? When you speak, is it your own ideas (or the ideas of some other human) which spring off your tongue, or is it God’s word that is on your tongue? David’s example sets the bar high for our speech!
The God of Israel has spoken. To me the landmark-rock of Israel said, “A ruler among mankind is righteous when he is ruling {in} the fear of God, and the sun will rise like the light of morning – a morning without fog, {like} grass from the ground glistening from rain.”
Proverbs 29:2 “When the righteous are in authority [רבה], the people rejoice: but when the wicked beareth rule, the people mourn.”
Ruling justly “in the fear of the LORD” (which is the same as “in the fear of God”) was commanded in the Law: Deuteronomy 16:18 “You shall appoint judges and officers in all your gates, which the LORD your God gives you, according to your tribes, and they shall judge the people with just judgment.” (NKJV)
2 Chronicles 19:6-7 and [Jehoshaphat] said to the judges, “Take heed to what you are doing, for you do not judge for man but for the LORD, who is with you in the judgment. Now therefore, let the fear of the LORD be upon you; take care and do it, for there is no iniquity with the LORD our God, no partiality, nor taking of bribes.”
Job 28:28 “And to man He said, ‘Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom; And to depart from evil is understanding.’” (and there are many many more permutations of this in the Proverbs) (NKJV)
Psalm 19:9 The fear of the LORD is clean, enduring forever; The judgments of the LORD are true; they are righteous altogether.” (NKJV)
2 Sam. 8:15 “So… David executed justice and righteousness for all his people” (NAW)
But David and Jehoshaphat (and the prophets after them) point us toward Jesus, the universal king who will implement perfect justice.
Isaiah 11:1-4 “There will come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse, and a branch from his roots will bear fruit. And the Spirit of Yahweh will settle down upon Him, the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of Yahweh. And He will delight in the fear of Yahweh. He will judge, but not according to the sight of His eyes, He will reprove, but not according to the hearing of His ears But He will judge the poor with righteousness...” (NAW)
Zechariah 9:9 “Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout, O daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, your King is coming to you; He is just and having salvation, Lowly and riding on a donkey, A colt, the foal of a donkey.” (NKJV)
Revelation 19:11-16 “Now I saw heaven opened, and
behold, a white horse. And He who sat on him was called Faithful
and True, and in righteousness He judges and makes war...
And He has on His robe and on His thigh a name written: KING OF
KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS.” (NKJV)
Jesus is clearly the
fulfillment of this prophecy of the perfectly just ruler.
Verse 4 is a challenge to translate because the Hebrew text only has one verb, and that is “the sun will rise.”
In all the oldest manuscripts, there two comparative phrases that explain the main verb: “like the light of morning” and “like grass from the earth,” adding figurative color to the image of the sun rising.
The ESV is a bit mixed up, but the general idea is not lost that, when a man leads in civil government with a healthy respect for the one true God, there is refreshment and hope and clarity for the people under that government.
We have noted how, from the beginning of his reign, David carefully followed the Mosaic laws, but we have also read a number of stories in 2 Samuel demonstrating that David did not follow God’s law as consistently as he should have, most notably in the matters of his adultery with Bathsheba, his murder of Uriah, his toleration of Amnon’s incest, and his failure to punish Joab and Absalom for committing murders.
However, David’s anointed descendant, Jesus Christ, is proclaimed throughout Scripture as the one who will carry out justice perfectly with complete integrity:
In Psalm 72:6 Solomon prophecied, “He shall come down like rain upon the grass before mowing, Like showers that water the earth.” (NKJV)
Isaiah 60:1-3 prophecies, “Get up, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of Yahweh has risen upon you! For look, the darkness will cover the earth, and the thick darkness against the peoples, but upon you, Yahweh will rise, and His glory upon you will be seen! And nations will walk toward your light and kings toward the brightness of your rising.” (NAW)
And so does Malachi 4:1-2 “For behold, the day is coming... The Sun of Righteousness shall arise With healing in His wings…” (NKJV)
And in Luke 1:78-79, Zachariah the priest proclaimed the fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy in the the coming of Christ, saying, “...the Dayspring from on high has visited us; To give light to those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death, To guide our feet into the way of peace.” (NKJV)
And, as is usually the case in David’s poetry, there is a sense in which this speaks prophetically – not only of Christ, but also – of Christians as well. You who fulfill God’s callings on your life with a healthy fear/respect for the one true God will also experience the delight of bringing the light of refreshment and hope and clarity-of-understanding to others!
In Deuteronomy 32:2 Moses claimed that when he relayed God’s word it was ,“...as the dew, As raindrops... And as showers on the grass.” (NKJV)
And in Judges 5:31, Deborah and Barak sang, “[L]et those who love [the LORD] be like the sun When it comes out in full strength.” (NKJV)
And so the Proverbs (4:18) “But the path of the just is like the shining sun, That shines ever brighter unto the perfect day.” (NKJV)
And the prophet Isaiah (58:6-10) “Isn't it this – a fast I choose: to open the manacles of evil, to spring the bindings of the yoke and to send forth the oppressed [as] freemen, and tear off every yoke? Isn't it to split your bread for the hungry, and bring home the poor vagabonds? ... Then your light will break forth like the dawn and your restoration will spring up speedily, and your righteousness will proceed before your face... and your light will rise in the darkness and your gloom will be like the noon, and Yahweh will guide you continually and will satisfy your soul in scorched places and fortify your bones, and you will be like a watered garden and the spring of water whose waters do not disappoint” (NAW)
And so Jesus said in His Beatitudes, “It is y'all who are the light of the world... Neither do they light a lamp and place it under a bushel-basket, but instead upon the lampstand, and it illumines all those who are in the house. Start shining your light like that before people, so that they might see your good works and might glorify your Father in the heavens.” (Matthew 5:14-16, NAW)
The verse is divided into four segments, each introduced with the Hebrew word ki, which can mean “because/for/that/indeed/since/when.”
The verse starts literally: “ki not so in my house with God,”
then the second phrase is literally: “ki an eternal covenant He put in place for me – organized in every way and preserved/secure,”
Then the third phrase: “ki all/any salvation for me and/or any delight7,”
And the final phrase literally: “ki He will not make sprout/grow8.”
The newer versions, such as the NASB, NIV, NET and ESV add an interrogative9 to the beginning to imply that David’s house was “righteous… ruling in the fear of God… and like the sun rising,” but the old versions, including the Septuagint, Vulgate, and King James10, (as well as the New King James, Revised Version, and the old American Standard) leave the Hebrew text as-is, with David confessing that His house was “not so” – NOT “righteous… [NOT] ruling in the fear of God… [NOT] like the sun rising.”
The way you interpret the first phrase determines how you are going to interpret the second:
Was it because David was so right that God made an everlasting covenant with him to give him salvation?
Or was it in spite of David not being right that God made an everlasting covenant, because David needed salvation?
I side with the older translations on this, although I think the newer versions can still be understood in terms of God’s salvation and eternal covenant being the grounds on which David became righteous and ruled in the fear of God and enjoyed God’s favor, rather than the other way around.
Because human beings did not walk in the righteousness of God, and did not walk with consistent respect for God, we became liable for the consequences decreed by God for breaking His laws, and that meant eternal death and separation from Him. The only way out of that was for us to be saved, and Jesus was the only one who could save us from the fatal consequences of us disobeying God. That salvation was expressed in the form of a contract made between the persons of the Trinity called “the eternal covenant.”
The “eternal/everlasting covenant” first appears in Genesis, after God had graciously saved one sinner and his family inside the ark and had annihilated every other sinner on planet earth through the flood. God said: “The rainbow shall be in the cloud, and I will look on it to remember the everlasting covenant…” (Genesis 9:16, NKJV)
It is mentioned again in the law of Moses, where the blood of animals was sprinkled between the people and God to atone for their sin: “From Sabbath to Sabbath he [the priest] shall arrange it to be an everlasting covenant before the face of Yahweh continuously from the children of Israel.” (Lev. 24:8, NAW)
The “eternal covenant” shows up again here in David’s time. He explains in Psalm 89 how God promised the world a Messiah who would ultimately punish all evil and provide gracious blessing eternally: “I have made a covenant with My chosen, I have sworn to My servant David… His seed... I will make to endure forever, And his throne as the days of heaven” (Psalm 89:3 & 29, NKJV).
The prophets carried on that same message:
Isaiah 55:3 “Incline your ear, and come to Me. Hear, and your soul shall live; And I will make an everlasting covenant with you, The sure mercies of David.” (NKJV)
Jeremiah 32:40 “And I will make an everlasting covenant with them, that I will not turn away from doing them good; but I will put My fear in their hearts so that they will not depart from Me.” (NKJV)
And so we read in the New Testament of that same “everlasting covenant,” sealed with the blood of Jesus to save us from eternal punishment for our sin and place us in intimate communion with God: Hebrews 13:20-21 “[M]ay the God of peace, who raised up from among the dead our Lord Jesus, the great Shepherd of the sheep, by means of the blood of the eternal covenant, fix y'all up in every good thing…” (NAW)
Now, when we come to the last phrase in 2 Sam. 23:5, I prefer the interpretation of the newer versions.
The older versions tended to translate it in terms of David complaining that God is not allowing his house to grow11,
but the newer ones add an interrogative which seems to be in-keeping with the sense of the previous phrase that God would provide for David’s salvation and for the fulfillment of David’s desire to be with God, since God is the one who “causes salvation and delight to spring forth/bloom.”
With such an eternal covenant in place guaranteeing David’s salvation and delight in God, how could it be conceivable that God would not make it bloom?
The picture, then, becomes that of a garden, where what is helpful and desirable is grown, but thorns are not wanted in the garden. They are weeded out and thrown away.
“But the wicked/transgressors/sons of Belial/worthless/evil/ungodly are like a thorn-plant – all of them cast-away, because that’s not what folks take in hand, and, should a person come into contact with them, he should be fenced/armed/equipped with steel on a wooden pole/spear, and they will surely be burned in the fire in their place/where they lie/at their destination.”
There is a big black-locust tree in my neighbor’s yard on the southwest corner of my property. Black-locust trees make great firewood, but they are dangerous to play around, because they grow big, sharp thorns around their trunks. And they propagate themselves through long roots that run just under the surface of the ground for dozens of feet away from the main tree and send up from those roots new black-locust saplings poking up into my yard. And those new little black-locust saplings grow thorns that can injure a kid who is running across the lawn in bare feet, like my kids like to do. So, multiple times each summer, I walk around that part of my property with a shovel, looking for black-locust sprouts, and I dig them up and put them in the burn pile and burn them.
This is the Biblical picture of what will happen to the ungodly.
Sheba son of Bichri was one of those “ungodly/sons of Belial.” We ran into him back in chapter 20; he tried to keep David from reclaiming the throne of Israel after Absalom had challenged it, and Sheba ended up loosing his head – literally.
Nabal was another one of those ungodly/sons of Belial. We ran into him back in 1 Sam. 25 (v.17). He denied food to David, refused to pay David for services rendered, insulted David, and tried to get him to leave the country. Nabal also ended up dead in short order.
Ps 119:155 “Salvation is far from the wicked, For they do not seek Your statutes.” (NKJV)
We don’t want thorns in our gardens, or taking over our lawns, or even filling the underbrush in our forests. In the same way, we don’t want ungodly men filling up public offices or stacking our courts of law or teaching our children.
So what do you do when you want to get rid of an unwanted briar-patch? You get your tools and go cut it down and burn it! The wooden shaft allows you to work at a bit of a distance so the briars don’t tear your skin, and the steel at the end of your pole is sharp (or serrated) to cut those thorn-bushes (or lop them off) so you can dump them in the fire pit. That’s the picture of v.7.
David, as a soldier and a king, had to come into contact with violent criminals in the regular course of his work, and he is comparing them to thorns. He used the force of the state to subdue those who were so wicked that they had to be prosecuted in the legal system, and he even had to put some of those criminals (and many of his nation’s enemies) to death in their final resting place.
But David isn’t the end-game of this message. Jesus, David’s anointed descendant, is the ultimate fulfiller of this picture of judgment in v.7. Jesus is the one who will judge everyone in the earth and punish all the wicked in hell-fire.
David makes that clear right from the beginning of his psalms:
Psalm 1:4-5 “...the wicked... will be like the chaff which the wind drives away. Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment... the way of the wicked will perish…” (NAW)
Psalm 2:7ff Yahweh says to His son, His Anointed One, “Break them with a rod of iron,” and says to rebels, “Pay homage… or y’all will perish...” (NAW).
The prophets after David also spoke about the punishment of the wicked in similar terms:
Isaiah 9:16-19 “Those who guide this people have been causing them to go astray, and those who are guided by them are swallowed up. Therefore the Lord... has no compassion... for every one is a hypocrite and evildoer, and everyone's mouth speaks wickedness. In all this His anger is not turned away... For wickedness burns like fire; it devours thorns and weeds and it kindles the thickets of the forest, and they roll upward in a column of smoke. By the wrath of Yahweh of Hosts, land is scorched and the people are made like fuel for the fire...” (NAW)
Isaiah 33:11-14 “...Your breath is a fire which will consume you. And the peoples will be burnings of lime; cut thorns will burn in the fire... Sinners in Zion were terrified; trembling gripped the corrupt ones, ‘Who can lodge for us with a devouring fire? Who can lodge for us with everlasting burnings?’” (NAW)
Jesus also explained in His Parable of the Wheat and the Weeds: “...the world is the field, and, as for the good seed, this is the children of the kingdom, and the children of the Evil One are the weeds... Therefore, just as the weeds get gathered up and burned up in a fire, thus it will be at the end of this age. The Son of Man will commission His angels, and they will gather up out of His kingdom all the scandalous ones and the ones who practice lawlessness, and they will throw them into the fiery furnace; weeping and gnashing of teeth will be there.” (Matthew 13:38-42, NAW)
And the Apostles carried on that theme:
Paul in Acts 17:31 “...[God] has appointed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness by the Man whom He has ordained…” (NKJV) the man He raised from the dead.
Peter in 2 Peter 3:10 “But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night, in which the heavens will pass away with a great noise, and the elements will melt with fervent heat; both the earth and the works that are in it will be burned up.” (NKJV)
And John in Revelation 21:8 “But the cowardly, unbelieving, abominable, murderers, sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.” (NKJV)
This warning should be very sobering, but it comes in the context of David’s proclamation that God provided salvation for him through an everlasting covenant, and if it is everlasting, it is still around for you!
Is Jesus’ eternal covenant in His blood “all your salvation” as it was David’s?
“Nothing but this will save us, and this is ‘sufficient:’ it is this only upon which our salvation depends... therefore it must be ‘all our desire.’ Let me have an interest in this covenant and the promises of it, and I have enough, I desire no more… Let those that have had long experience of God's goodness and the pleasantness of wisdom, when they come to finish their course, leave a record of that experience and bear their testimony to the truth of the promise.” ~Matthew Henry
Greek OT |
Brenton |
DRB |
KJV |
NAW |
MT |
1
Καὶ οὗτοι οἱ
λόγοι Δαυιδ
οἱ ἔσχατοι
|
1
And these are the last words of David. |
1
Now these are David's last words. David the son of Isai |
1
Now these be
the last words of David. David the son of Jesse |
1 Now, these are the last words of David: the utterance of David, the son of Jesse, even the utterance of the mighty-man set up high, the anointed of the God of Jacob and the pleasant things of the music of Israel. |
(א) וְאֵלֶּה דִּבְרֵי דָוִד הָאַחֲרֹנִיםB נְאֻם דָּוִד בֶּן יִשַׁי וּנְאֻםC הַגֶּבֶר הֻקַם עָלD מְשִׁיחַ אֱלֹהֵי יַעֲקֹב וּנְעִים זְמִרוֹתE יִשְׂרָאֵל. |
2 πνεῦμα κυρίου ἐλάλησεν ἐν ἐμοί, καὶ ὁ λόγος αὐτοῦ ἐπὶ γλώσσης μου· |
2 The Spirit of the Lord spoke by me, and his word was upon my tongue. |
2 The spirit of the Lord hath spoken by me and his word by my tongue. |
2 The Spirit of the LORD spake by me, and his word was in my tongue. |
2 The Spirit of Yahweh spoke through me, and His message was upon my tongue. |
|
3
Xλέγει
ὁ θεὸς ΙσραηλG,
ἐμοὶ ἐλάλησεν
|
3
The God of Israel sa |
3
The God of Israel said to me[,]
the |
3
The God of Israel said, the Rock of Israel spake to me, He that
ruleth |
3 The God of Israel has spoken. To me the landmark-rock of Israel said, “A ruler among mankind is righteous when he is ruling {in} the fear of God, |
(ג) אָמַר אֱלֹהֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל לִי דִבֶּר צוּר יִשְׂרָאֵל מוֹשֵׁל בָּאָדָם צַדִּיק מוֹשֵׁלL Mיִרְאַת אֱלֹהִים. |
4
καὶ |
4
And |
4
X As the
light of the morning, when the sun riseth, shin |
4 And he shall be as the light of the morning, when the sun riseth, even a morning without clouds; as the tender grass springing out of the earth by clear shining after rain. |
4 and the sun will rise like the light of morning – a morning without fog, {like} grass from the ground glistening from rain.” |
(ד) וּכְאוֹרO בֹּקֶר יִזְרַח שָׁמֶשׁP בֹּקֶר לֹא עָבוֹת מִנֹּגַהּ מִמָּטָרQ דֶּשֶׁא מֵאָרֶץR. |
5
οὐ γὰρ
οὕτως ὁ οἶκός
μου μετὰ |
5
For
my house is not so with the |
5 Neither is my house so [great] with God, that he should make with me an eternal covenant, firm in all things and assured. For [he is] all my salvation, and all [my] will: neither [is there ought thereof] that springeth not up. |
5 Although my house be not so with God; yet he hath made with me an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things, and sure: for this is all my salvation, and all my desire, although he make it not to grow. |
5 Since it was not so in my house with God, then it was an eternal covenant that He put in place for me – organized in every way and preserved, for is there any salvation for me or any delight, that He will not make sprout up? |
(ה) כִּי לֹא כֵן בֵּיתִי עִם אֵל כִּי בְרִית עוֹלָם שָׂם לִי עֲרוּכָה בַכֹּל וּשְׁמֻרָה כִּי כָל יִשְׁעִי וְכָל חֵפֶץS כִּיT לֹא יַצְמִיחַ. |
X
ὁ
παράνομος.
6 ὥσπερ ἄκανθα
ἐξωσμένη πάντες
αὐτοί, ὅτι οὐ
χειρὶ λημφ |
6
X X All these
are as a thorn thrust forth, for they shall not |
6
But transgressors
shall all of them be |
6
But the sons
of Belial shall
be all of them as thorn [s]
thrust away, because they cannot |
6 The ungodly, however, is like a thorn-plant: all of them are cast-away, because that’s not what folks take in hand, |
(ו) וּבְלִיַּעַל כְּקוֹץU מֻנָד כֻּלָּהַם כִּי לֹא בְיָד יִקָּחוּV. |
7
καὶ ἀνὴρ [οὐ]
|
7
and a man shall [not]
|
7 And [if] a man will touch X them, he must be armed with iron and with the staff of a lance: but they shall be set on fire [and] burnt to nothing. |
7 But the man that shall touch X them must be fenced with iron and the staff of a spear; and they shall be utterly burned with fire in the same place. |
7 and should a person come into contact with them, he should be equipped with steel on a wooden pole, and they will surely be burned in the fire at their destination. |
(ז) וְאִישׁ יִגַּע בָּהֶם יִמָּלֵא בַרְזֶל וְעֵץ חֲנִיתZ וּבָאֵשׁ שָׂרוֹף יִשָּׂרְפוּ בַּשָּׁבֶתAA. |
1“I
rather thinke with Iunius, that these were the last solemne words
which Dauid vttered, after he had charged his sonne Salomon, and
commended him vnto God, by that prayer Psalm 72.” ~Andrew
Willett, 1611 A.D.
“We have there the last will and
testament of King David, or a codicil annexed to it, after he had
settled the crown upon Solomon…” ~Matthew Henry, 1714
A.D.
“...the last after he had finished the book of
Psalms…” ~John Gill, 1766 A.D.
“a prophetic
declaration uttered by David at the close of his life and by divine
inspiration, concerning the true King of the kingdom of God”
~Keil & Delitzsch, 1891 A.D.
“the last Psalm which he
composed” ~S. Goldman (Soncino), 1949 A.D.
2These quotes are from https://www.boredpanda.com/famous-last-words accessed 21 Jan 2023.
31 Sam.16:18; 20:27; 20:30-31; 22:7-13; 25:10; 2 Sam. 20:1
4In the Soncino commentary, Goldman noted “many modern scholars prefer to render as ‘the darling of the songs of Israel’ i.e. the favorite subject of popular songs and poems.” This works well except that the Hebrew word is plural.
5“God the Father, and God the Sonne, who is v. 3. called the rock of Israel [and the word of God ~NAW], spake vnto Dauid by the holy Ghost: here then is an euident demonstration of the Trinitie...” ~Willett
6Isaiah 61:1 The Spirit of the Lord Yahweh is upon me, because Yahweh has anointed me to evangelize lowly ones. He has sent me to bind up those who are broken of heart, for the calling out of liberty to the captives, and opening of the eyes for those which have been bound, 2 for the calling out of a year of acceptance for Yahweh…” (NAW)
7Concerning some of the points I have not elucidated, Matthew Henry expounds: “It is herein ‘well ordered,’ that whatever is required in the covenant is promised, and that every transgression in the covenant does not throw us out of covenant, and that it puts our salvation, not in our own keeping, but in the keeping of a Mediator... the promised mercies are sure on the performance of the conditions. The particular application of it to true believers is sure; it is sure to all the seed….” John Gill added: “...it stands upon a sure basis, the unchangeable will and favour of God, and is in the hands of Christ, the same today, yesterday, and for ever…” also Keil & Delitzsch: “all eventualities were foreseen, even the falling away of the bearers of the covenant of God, so that such an event as this would not annul the covenant (2Sam. 7:14-15),” and Driver (quoted by Tsumura), “probably from legal terminology… terms are fully and duly set forth… secured by proper precautions against surreptitious alteration or injury.”
8There are only two verbs in this verse, “He set in place,” and “He will not cause to sprout.” Any other verbs in English translations of this verse are added.
9Although interrogatives exist in the Hebrew language, there are no interrogatives in the Hebrew text of this verse, so if you see a question mark in an English translation of this verse, it is an interpretation. Keil & Delitzsch advocated for this, “The first and last clauses of this verse can only be made to yield a meaning in harmony with the context, by being taken interrogatively… [albeit this] is only indicated by the tone…” The Jewish AJV and Soncino commentary, as well as the New International Commentary on the Old Testament also supported the interrogative interpretation.
10Matthew Henry, John Gill, and Robert Jamieson concurred. On the other hand, the old Geneva Version and Andrew Willet (citing Borrhais in support) took it in a different direction: “For so shall not mine house be with God… mine health and... whole desire is, that he will not make it growe so. ” – not clouded over or stormy.
11So Gill. Alternately, in the case of the LXX, Targums, and Borrhaius, a wish that the godless would not flourish, making the first word of v.6 the last word of v.5, or, in the case of Osiander and Willett, David resigning himself to the fact that he would not get to see the Messiah in his lifetime.
AMy
original chart includes the NASB, NIV, and ESV, but their copyright
restrictions have forced me to remove them from the
publicly-available edition of this chart. NAW is my translation.
When a translation adds words not in the Hebrew text, but does not
indicate it has done so by the use of italics or greyed-out text, I
put the added words in [square brackets]. When one version chooses a
wording which is different from all the other translations, I
underline it. When a version chooses a translation which, in
my opinion, either departs too far from the root meaning of the
Hebrew word or departs too far from the grammar form of the original
text, I use strikeout. And when a version omits a
word which is in the original text, I insert an X. I also place an X
at the end of a word if the original word is plural but the English
translation is singular. I occasionally use colors to help the
reader see correlations between the various editions and versions
when there are more than two different translations of a given word.
There are three known Dead Sea Scrolls containing 2 Samuel 23: 4Q51
Samuela (containing parts of verses 1-6, 14-16, 21-22,
38-39 and dated between 50-25 BC), 1Q7 (containing vs. 9-12 and
dated c. 150BC), and 11Q5 Psalms (containing part of v.7 and dated
30-50 AD). Where the DSS is legible and in agreement with the MT,
the MT is colored purple. Where the DSS
supports the LXX or Vulgate with omissions or text not in the MT, I
have highlighted with
yellow the LXX and its translation into English, and where I
have accepted that into my NAW translation, I have marked it with
{pointed brackets}.
BTargums add that this is a “prophecy” by David about the last “days.”
CDespite the Old Latin and Greek “faithful” (reading נאם as אמן – moving the nun from the beginning to the end of the word), the Vulgate, Targums, and Syriac support the MT with forms of “saying.” Cf. the “utterance” of Balaam similarly-formatted in Numbers 24.
DTargums
reads “the man anointed as king
לְמַלכֻו,
anointed [by the words] of God…”
DSS reads
“...the man God אל
established, anointed of the God…”
Vulgate
reads, “...man [to whom] it was appointed concerning
[על]
the Christ of the God...”
Syriac reads “…man
whose rule נירא
has been established, anointed of God…” and
LXX: “…man
whom the
Lord
[יה]
caused to raise up
upon
[על]
anointing of God…”
(apparently incorporating both the DSS textual
tradition and the MT
textual tradition,
as was typically done when there was a disputed word. However,
if the LXX
were looking at the same word as the DSS, they would have made the
first translation θεος
instead
of κυριος,
so
they weren’t looking at the DSS text.)
Another difficulty with
the reading which
makes ‘el
the subject of the verb “established/raised up” is that,
in the MT, this verb is spelled in the Hophal stem, which is
passive, not active, so if “God” is the subject, then it
has to be rendered “God was established/raised up,” and
that is nonsensical. (In the DSS, the verb is spelled as a Hiphal
Infinitive, which would make sense as
“the man God
caused to raise up.” LXX, while not rendering this verb as
infinitive, nevertheless could be a translation of a Hiphal
Infinitive, but not a Hophal Perfect.)
According to
https://hb.openscriptures.org/structure/OshbVerse/index.html?b=2Sam&c=23&v=1,
there is a strong disjunction between this word “upon/God”
and the next word “anointed/messiah.”
The English
translation “high” was supported by every English
commentary I read.
EMizmor
(“psalm”) has the same ZMR root as this word, but this
is a different word having to do with instrumental music, and it
only occurs in 5 other places: Job 35:10; Psalms 95:2; 119:54;
Canticles 2:12; Isaiah 24:16, none of which do any English version
translate as “psalmist.” The previous word
“sweet/pleasant/enjoyable” only occurs a dozen other
places, characterized by:
Psalm 16:11 “You will
cause me to know the path of life; fullness of happinesses is with
Your presence; endless pleasures are in Your right hand!”
(NAW)
Psalm 81:2 “...The pleasant harp with
the lute…
Psalm 133:1 “Behold, how good and
how pleasant it is For brethren to dwell together in
unity!”
Psalm 135:3 “...Sing praises to His
name, for it is pleasant.”
Canticles
1:16 “Behold, you are handsome, my beloved! Yes, pleasant!
...” (NKJV)
FOutside of this instance in the Bible, there are 34 instances in Job, then Psalm 19:5 “their messages have gone out to the end of the world,” Psalm 139:4 “before there is a message on my tongue, O Lord you know it,” and Prov. 23:9 “fool… will despise the wisdom of your message.”
GGreek Lucian Rescription reads Iakwb, en..., which isn’t essentially different, since “Israel” was another name for “Jacob,” and the dative case can mean the same as the preposition en.
HVaticanus adds εξ (“out of”), but that preposition is not in Rahlfs’ edition of the LXX.
ILXX reads θεου (“of God” agreeing with the MT), but Vaticanus reads χριστου (“of the anointed one”).
JTargums and Syriac concur with Vulgate with תַקִיפָא (“strong”).
KThe
pointing of the MT does not support “righteous” being an
adjective describing the second “ruler.”
cf.
https://hb.openscriptures.org/structure/OshbVerse/index.html?b=2Sam&c=23&v=3
L“The ruler over men whom David sees in spirit, is... the Messiah himself, the righteous Shoot whom the Lord would raise up to David (Jer. 23:5), and who would execute righteousness and judgment upon earth (Jer. 33:15).” ~K&D
MMultiple Hebrew manuscripts insert the preposition “in” -בּ, followed by Syriac, Targums, Old Latin, Vulgate (in), and Greek Lucian Rescription (εν). LXX seems to be the outlier reading. Yarat elohim only occurs two other places in the O.T.: Genesis 20:11 & Nehemiah 5:15.
NVaticanus added a circumflex accent to ου, turning the correct meaning (“not”) into a relative pronoun (“of whom”), then it also added “the Lord;” which is not in the standard LXX. The next word in the LXX appears to be reading the Hebrew עבות (“thick/cloud”) as though it were עבר (“passing on”).
OThe “and” is missing in the Old Latin, Vulgate, Syriac, and Greek Lucian Rescription, but is there in the LXX. DSS is obliterated, so it can’t help decide.
PAccording to https://hb.openscriptures.org/structure/OshbVerse/index.html?b=2Sam&c=23&v=4, there is a strong disjunctive accent here, forcing “sun” to be the subject of “rise,” and not allowing “morning” to be in construct with “sun.”
QDSS, old Latin, Vulgate, & LXX all add “like,” and Syriac, LXX, & Vulgate add “and.”
RK&D commented: “...rain is not to be expected when the sun has risen with a cloudless sky. The rays of the sun, as it rises after a night of rain, strengthen the fresh green of the plants.”
SDespite the addition of “my” to “desire” in all the standard English versions, it is not in the MT, the LXX, or Vulgate. It is, however, in the Syriac and Targums. “כָּל־חֵפֶץ, not ‘all my desire,’ but ‘all the good pleasure’ of God, i.e., all the saving counsel of God expressed in that covenant.” ~K&D
TThe
disjunctive pointing here is not as strong as it is before the three
previous ki’s in this verse.
(https://hb.openscriptures.org/structure/OshbVerse/index.html?b=2Sam&c=23&v=5)
The ki is missing in the
Syriac and a few Hebrew manuscripts.
U“They are like thorns, not to be touched with hands, so passionate and furious that they cannot be managed or dealt with by a wise and faithful reproof, but must be restrained by law and the sword of justice (Ps. 32:9).” ~Matt. Henry
VThe verb is Qal imperfect 3rd plural with an indefinite subject, “they take.” The “thorn” above is singular, and it is the understood object, not the subject.
WLXX translates as though the root of this word was יגע (“labor/do hard work with”), whereas all the other versions (Vulgate, Syriac, Targums, English) translate as though the root of this word is נגע (“come into contact with”), with the first letter dropped out, since it is a weak letter in a weak position. But really either translation works.
XLXX seems to be reading the Hebrew word בּשׁת (“shame”), whereas the MT is בַּשָּׁבֶת (see W for meaning).
YRahlf’s edition of the LXX does not include this “and,” and therefore matches the MT, unlike the Vaticanus which inserted an “and” here which breaks the one emphatic verb into two clauses.
Z“refers merismatically to the whole of a spear” ~Tsumura (NICOT). In DSS 11Q5 Psalmsa, where this verse is inserted after Psalm 150, this word is spelled with two extra characters חיצנית (“outdoors”?) instead of “spear.”
AAOf all the other instances of this word in the Hebrew O.T., some are related to “sitting/dwelling/residing” (Num. 21:15, 1 Ki. 10:19; 2 Chr. 9:18; Amos 6:3; Obad. 1:3; Lam. 3:63), and some are translated “stop/cease/do-nothing” Exod. 21:19; Isa. 30:7; Prov. 20:3. I tried to translate with an English word that included both concepts: “destination.”