¹tn Heb “from the hand of the Philistines.” Here “hand” is figurative language for “control.”
²tn Heb “and the Moabites were servants of David, carriers of tribute.”
³tn Heb “when he went to set up his hand at the Euphrates River.” The Hebrew word dy, “hand,” is usually understood to mean “control” or “dominion” here. However, since dy does occasionally refer to a monument, perhaps one could translate, “to set up his monument at the Euphrates River” (i.e., as a visible marker of the limits of his dominion). For another example of the Hiphil of bxn used with dy, “monument,” see 1 Sam 15:12.
⁴tn Or “horsemen.”
⁵tn Heb “his”; the referent (Hadadezer) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
⁶tn Heb “and David cut the hamstrings of all the chariot horses, and he left from them one hundred chariot horses.”
⁷tc Heb “and David placed in Aram of Damascus.” The object <ybyxn, “garrisons,” appears to have been accidentally omitted from the text. See v. 13, as well as the parallel passage in 2 Sam 8:6, which includes it.
⁸tn Or “delivered.”
⁹tn Or “wherever he went.”
¹⁰tn Heb “which were upon the servants of Hadadezer.”
¹¹map For location see Map5-B1; Map6-F3; Map7-E2; Map8-F2; Map10-B3; JP1-F4; JP2-F4; JP3-F4; JP4-F4.
¹²tn The MT reads “Tibhath” here, a variant name for Tebah (cf. 2 Sam 8:8). Some English translations substitute the other version of the name here (e.g., NIV, NLT), while others follow the reading of the Hebrew text at this point (e.g., NAB, NASB, NRSV).
¹³tn Heb “the sea of bronze,” or “[the] sea, the bronze one.” See the note at 1 Kgs 7:23.
¹⁴tn Heb “to ask concerning him for peace.”
¹⁵tn Heb “and to bless him because he fought with Hadadezer and defeated him, for Hadadezer was a man of battles with Tou.”
¹⁶tn Heb “[along with] all items of gold and silver and bronze.”
¹⁷tn Heb “also them King David made holy to the Lord.”
¹⁸tn Heb “from.”
¹⁹tn Or “delivered.”
²⁰tn Or “wherever he went.”
²¹tn Heb “and he was doing what is just and fair for all his people.”
²²tn Heb “over.”
²³tn Heb “[was] over.”
²⁴tn Heb “and the sons of David [were] the heads at the hand of David.”