1. these are the last words of David. David’s victory psalm in the preceding chapter is now followed by a second archaic poetic text, quite different in style, unrelated to the psalm tradition, and a good deal obscurer in many of its formulations. Although there is scholarly debate about the dating of this poem, the consensus puts it in or close to David’s own time in the tenth century B.C.E. The mystifying features of the language certainly suggest great antiquity, and it is just possible that the poem was really by David. The exact application of “the last words of David” is unclear. In terms of the narrative, they are not literally his last words because he will convey a deathbed testament to Solomon (1 Kings 2). The phrase might be intended to designate the last pronouncement in poetry of David the royal poet.

Thus spoke David. This introductory formula is a mark of prophetic or oracular language—compare the beginning of Balaam’s third oracle in Numbers 24:3.

raised on high. The two Hebrew words reflected in this translation, huqam ʿal, have a gorgeous strangeness as compacted idiom—so strange that both the Septuagint and the Qumran Samuel prefer a more common Hebrew locution, heqim ʾel, “God has raised up.” In either case, the phrase refers to David’s elevation to the throne.

sweet singer of Israel. The eloquent and famous wording of the King James Version (KJV) seems worth emulating (though the KJV uses “psalmist”), because the divergent proposals for understanding the phrase are scarcely more certain than that of the KJV. The literal meaning of neʿim zemirot yisraʾel is “sweet one [or favorite] of the chants of Israel.” The root z-m-r has a homonymous meaning—strength—which has encouraged some interpreters to construe this as “preferred of the Strong One [or Stronghold] of Israel” in parallel to “anointed of the God of Israel.” It must be said, however, that there are no instances in which the root z-m-r in the sense of strength serves as an epithet for the deity.

2. The LORD’S spirit has spoken in me. This does not mean, as some have understood, that David is claiming actual status as a prophet but rather that he is attesting to an access of oracular elevation as he proclaims his lofty (and enigmatic!) verse.

3. He who rules men, just. The translation reproduces the cryptic (elliptic?) syntax of the Hebrew, adding a clarifying comma (the Hebrew of course has no punctuation).

who rules in the fear of God. The compacted syntax of the Hebrew has no “in,” but most interpreters assume it is implied.

4. from radiance, from showers—grass from earth. The meaning of these images is much disputed, and some critics move “from radiance” altogether back to the preceding clause. The tentative reading presumed by the translation is as follows: The anointed king has been compared to the brilliant rising sun on a cloudless morning (solar imagery for kings being fairly common in ancient Near Eastern literature). The poet now adds that from the sun’s radiance, coupled with rainfall, grass springs forth from the earth. Thus the rule of the just king is a source of blessed fruitfulness to his subjects.

5. For is not thus my house with God? The Hebrew grammar here is a little confusing. It is most plausible to construe both this clause and the one at the end of the verse not as negative statements but as affirmative questions. The image of bringing to bloom in the concluding clause suggests that David’s dynasty in relation to God is to be imagined like the earth in relation to sun and showers and like the people in relation to the king: because of the everlasting covenant with David, God will make his house blossom.

6. the worthless man is like a thorn— / uprooted every one. The antithesis between flourishing soft grass and the prickly thorn torn from its roots is manifest (though it must be said that “uprooted” for the obscure munad is conjectural, if widely accepted).

7. he must get himself iron. The translation adopts the common proposal that the verb yimale’ (literally, “he will fill”) is an ellipsis for yimaleʾ yado, “he will fill his hand,” “equip himself with”). Others emend it to read ’im lo’, “except [with].”

or the shaft of a spear. The Hebrew is usually construed as “and the shaft,” but the particle waw does occasionally have the force of “or,” which is more plausible here.

in fire they’ll be utterly burned. The only suitable disposition of these nasty thorns is to rake them up with an iron tool or a spear shaft and make a bonfire of them, in order to get entirely rid of the threat they pose. The fact that weapons are used for the raking suggests the political referent of the metaphor. Such will be the fate of mischief makers (“the worthless”)—evidently all who would presume to oppose the legitimate monarchy.

where they are. This phrase reflects a single, highly dubious word in the Masoretic Text, bashavet. That word may well be an inadvertent repetition by a baffled scribe of the seventh Hebrew word in the following verse. The whole phrase in which that term occurs is itself textually problematic.

8. These are the names of the warriors of David. This list of military heroes and their exploits is perhaps the strongest candidate of any passage in the Book of Samuel to be considered a text actually written in David’s lifetime. The language is crabbed, and the very abundance of textual difficulties, uncharacteristic for prose, reflects the great antiquity of the list. These fragmentary recollections of particular heroic exploits do not sound like the invention of any later writer but, on the contrary, like memories of remarkable martial acts familiar to the audience (for example, “he . . . killed the lion in the pit on the day of the snow” [verse 20]) and requiring only the act of epic listing, not of narrative elaboration. It should also be noted that the list invokes the early phase of David’s career—when the Philistines were the dominant military force in the land, when David was at Adullam and in “the stronghold,” and when Asahel, destined to perish at the hands of Abner at the beginning of the civil war, was an active member of David’s corp of elite fighters.

Josheb-Basshebeth a Tahchemonite. So reads the Masoretic Text. But this looks quite dubious as a Hebrew name. One version of the Septuagint has Ish-Baal (alternately, Jeshbaal), which by scribal euphemism also appears as Ish-Bosheth and hence may have produced the confusion in the Masoretic Text. Many authorities prefer the gentilic “Hachmoni,” in accordance with the parallel verse in Chronicles.

the Three. Throughout the list, there are confusions between three, third, and thirty. The received text at this point seems to read shalishim, “commanders of units of thirty,” but “three” makes far better sense.

He brandished his spear. This whole phrase, which seems strictly necessary to make the sentence intelligible, is lacking in the Masoretic Text but appears in the parallel verse in Chronicles.

10. to strip the slain. No object of the verb “to strip” appears in the Hebrew, but this may be a simple ellipses for a common military idiom rather than a scribal omission.

11. at Lehi. The translation presupposes a minor emendation of the Masoretic laḥayah (meaning obscure, though some understand it as “in a force”) to leḥi, a place-name, which the rest of the clause seems to require.

there was a plot of land there full of lentils. The homey specificity of the detail is another manifestation of the feeling of remembered anecdote in this catalogue of exploits.

13. at the head. The Hebrew says only “head,” but the word seems to have an adverbial function, and so “at the head” is not unlikely.

15. Who will give me water to drink from the well of Bethlehem. Or “Would that I might drink water . . .” Bethlehem, of course, is David’s hometown, at this juncture a headquarters of the occupying Philistine forces. David expresses a sudden yen to taste the sweet water he remembers from that well by the gate of his native town, although he scarcely intends this as a serious invitation to his men to undertake anything so foolhardy as to attempt breaking through the Philistine lines in order to get it. Presumably, the three warriors—it is unclear as to whether they are identical with the Three just named, for they are said to be part of the Thirty—do not misunderstand David’s intentions. Rather, as daring fighters, they decide to take him at his word and risk their necks in raiding the Philistine garrison at Bethlehem in order to prove they can execute a seemingly impossible mission. It is easy to understand how such an exploit would be vividly recalled and registered in the epic list.

17. Shall I drink the blood of men. The verb (one word in the Hebrew) “shall I drink” is missing from the Masoretic Text, though present in both the parallel verse in Chronicles and in the Septuagint. It is possible that some ancient scribe recoiled from an expression that had David drinking human blood, even in a hyperbolic verbal gesture.

18. he was chief of the Thirty. The received text here and in verse 19 reads “Three,” but this makes no sense, as we are told that Abishai “did not attain to the Three.”

with the Three. Or, “in the three.” Since Abishai is not a member of the Three, this would have to mean that his prowess won him a reputation even among the legendary Three. Another solution is to emend the initial ba (“in,” “among”) to ka (“like”), yielding “he had a name like the Three.”

20. son of a valiant man. Many textual critics conclude that “son of” (ben) is an erroneous scribal addition.

he struck down the two sons of Ariel of Moab. These words are among the most enigmatic in the report of the exploits of David’s heroes. The words “two sons of” (sheney beney) are supplied from the Septuagint in an effort to make this clause at least a little intelligible. “Ariel” is probably a cultic site or object in Moab.

22. he had a name with the Three Warriors. See the comment on verse 18. The same problem is reflected here.

25. the Harodite. All these identifying terms in the list designate the villages from which the warriors come. A likely location of the biblical Harod would be not far from Bethlehem. The earlier names in the list cluster geographically in the territory of Judah, David’s tribe. Some of the later names indicate places in the territories of tribes to the north—perhaps reflecting new recruits to the elite unit after the conclusion of the civil war. Toward the end of the list there are also non-Israelites: these could have been mercenaries, or perhaps rather naturalized subjects of the new monarchy.

32. sons of Jashen Jonathan. This identification definitely looks scrambled. “Sons of” appears not to belong, and many textual critics omit it. “Jonathan,” as a second proper name immediately after “Jashen,” is also problematic, and one wonders whether Jashen (Hebrew yashen means “sleeping”) was ever a name.

34. Eliam son of Ahitophel. One notes that the son of the state councillor who betrayed David for Absalom was a member of David’s elite corps. He might also be the same Eliam who is Bathsheba’s father.

39. Uriah the Hittite. Is it an intended irony that the list of David’s picked warriors concludes with the man he murdered? The irony may be an artifact of the editor, if this list was composed after the events recorded in the Bathsheba story.

thirty-seven in all. As elsewhere in biblical tabulations, it is hard to make this figure compute. One system of counting yields a total of thirty-six, and the addition of Joab—rather surprisingly, omitted from the list—would produce thirty-seven.