2 Samuel 1:3

Hebrew (Westminster Leningrad Codex) 2 Samuel 1:3 appears in the Hebrew Old Testament. The text above is from the Westminster Leningrad Codex. Each word links to its Strong’s number, a concise gloss, and parsing drawn from the Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible morphology. Click any word for its full Brown-Driver-Briggs (BDB) entry.
Download image
Cite this verse

2 Samuel 1:3 (World English Bible). Public Domain. Lemma interlinear Bible study tool, https://lemma.gebible.app/v/2-samuel/1/3.

Show BibTeX & RIS
BibTeX
RIS
English Translation
David said to him, From whence come you? He said to him, Out of the camp of Israel am I escaped.
World English Bible · Public Domain
Download a study sheet

One document with this verse’s original text, its word-by-word gloss line, the meaning frame, cross-references with their text, attributed commentary, and full source and license credits — printable, and it pastes into notes with its structure intact.

This verse Autodidact and up

Study sheet (.html) Plain text (.txt)

A passage Seminary Student

Up to 50 verses in one chapter. A passage sheet keeps up to 6 commentary sources and 12 cross-references per verse, in the order this page ranks them, and says so on the sheet whenever that leaves anything out. Ask for a single verse and you get the Autodidact verse sheet above.

Everything on this page stays free to read, with no account — the sheet is a download of what is already on screen, not access to it.

Want to remove ads? Support Godless Engineer
Compare translations 3

The same verse in 3 English versions, stacked beneath the original-language interlinear above. Click any original word for its lexicon entry.

Each is an independent rendering of the whole verse — the interlinear is not word-aligned to these translations.

Highlighted words mark where these versions differ — a whole-verse word diff, not a word-by-word alignment.

  • World English Bible Public Domain
    David said to him, From whence come you? He said to him, Out of the camp of Israel am I escaped.
  • King James Version Public Domain
    And David said unto him, From whence comest thou? And he said unto him, Out of the camp of Israel am I escaped.
  • unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
    And David said to him, “Where from this are you coming?” And he said to him, “I have escaped from the camp of Israel.”

unfoldingWord Literal Text — © unfoldingWord, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Word-aligned USFM3 via Door43 (git.door43.org/unfoldingWord/en_ult).

Versions to compare (up to 4)

3 of 4 selected

Show all 18 translations

Every available English version of this verse, each an independent rendering of the whole verse.

  • World English Bible Public Domain
    David said to him, From whence come you? He said to him, Out of the camp of Israel am I escaped.
  • Berean Standard Bible Public Domain
    “Where have you come from?” David asked. “I have escaped from the Israelite camp,” he replied.
  • Majority Standard Bible Public Domain
    “Where have you come from?” David asked. “I have escaped from the Israelite camp,” he replied.
  • King James Version Public Domain
    And David said unto him, From whence comest thou? And he said unto him, Out of the camp of Israel am I escaped.
  • American Standard Version (1901) Public Domain
    And David said unto him, From whence comest thou? And he said unto him, Out of the camp of Israel am I escaped.
  • Revised Version (1885) Public Domain
    And David said unto him, From whence comest thou? And he said unto him, Out of the camp of Israel am I escaped.
  • Geneva Bible (1599) Public Domain
    Then Dauid saide vnto him, Whence commest thou? And he said vnto him, Out of the host of Israel I am escaped.
  • Douay-Rheims (1899) Public Domain
    And David said to him: From whence comest thou? And he said to him: I am fled out of the camp of Israel.
  • Young's Literal Translation Public Domain
    And David saith to him, `Whence comest thou?' and he saith unto him, `Out of the camp of Israel I have escaped.'
  • Literal Standard Version CC BY-SA 4.0
    And David says to him, “Where do you come from?” And he says to him, “I have escaped out of the camp of Israel.”
  • Unlocked Literal Bible CC BY-SA 4.0
    David said to him, “Where did you come from?” He answered, “I escaped from the camp of Israel.”
  • unfoldingWord Literal Text CC BY-SA 4.0
    And David said to him, “Where from this are you coming?” And he said to him, “I have escaped from the camp of Israel.”
  • Darby Bible Public Domain
    And David said to him, Whence comest thou? And he said to him, Out of the camp of Israel am I escaped.
  • World Messianic Bible Public Domain
    David said to him, “Where do you come from?” He said to him, “I have escaped out of the camp of Israel.”
  • Webster's Bible Public Domain
    And David said to him, From whence comest thou? And he said to him, Out of the camp of Israel have I escaped.
  • Free Bible Version CC BY-SA 4.0
    “Where have you come from?” David asked him. “I got away from the Israelite camp,” he replied.
  • Bible in Basic English Public Domain
    And David said to him, Where have you come from? And he said, I have come in flight from the tents of Israel.
  • JPS Tanakh (1917) Public Domain
    And David said unto him: 'From whence comest thou?' And he said unto him: 'Out of the camp of Israel am I escaped.'

Literal Standard Version (2020), Covenant Press — licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API (eBible.org). Unlocked Literal Bible (unfoldingWord) — licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API (eBible.org). unfoldingWord Literal Text — © unfoldingWord, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Word-aligned USFM3 via Door43 (git.door43.org/unfoldingWord/en_ult). Free Bible Version, Dr. Jonathan Gallagher — licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API (eBible.org).

Word by word

More ways to search: Search by grammar → Find every occurrence → Compare this word →

Practice this passage: Drill this verse → Learn its vocabulary →

About this verse

These counts appear in no published source. They are computed here, from the morphology-tagged text and Lemma’s own curated glosses. What Lemma adds →

11
words
9
distinct lemmas
Historical
section

Shared distinctive vocabulary

אֵ֥י where H335 occurs in 36 verses of the Hebrew Bible. Also found in:

Grammatical profile

  • 4 verbs
  • 3 nouns
  • 1 pronoun
  • 2 prepositions
  • 1 particle

Verb forms

  • וַיֹּ֤אמֶר Qal · Sequential Imperfect
  • תָּב֑וֹא Qal · Imperfect
  • וַיֹּ֣אמֶר Qal · Sequential Imperfect
  • נִמְלָֽטְתִּי Niphal · Perfect

Repetition

A word recurs within this verse — often emphatic in Hebrew:

  • וַיֹּ֤אמֶר to say H559 ×2

Hebrew & Septuagint length

In English translation the verse runs 21 words from the Hebrew and 22 from the Septuagint (LXX English) — closely comparable.

A rough comparison of the two English renderings, which tokenize alike — not a word-level alignment.

Word counts can differ between the Hebrew and the Greek without any difference in meaning — e.g. the Hebrew direct-object marker אֵת has no separate Greek word, and Greek often adds the article ὁ.

In the original languages it is 11 Hebrew tokens and 17 Greek tokens — but the two are counted differently (Hebrew bundles its prefixes and suffixes into one token; the Greek is in lemma form), so that isn’t a like-for-like length.

Cross-references

2

Topical passages linked to 2 Samuel 1:3 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge — connected by theme and wording, ordered by reader-vote popularity; previews shown in the World English Bible.

  • 2 Kings 5:25 But he went in, and stood before his master. Elisha said to him, Whence come you, Gehazi? He said, Your servant went no where.
  • Job 1:15–19 and the Sabeans attacked, and took them away. Yes, they have killed the servants with the edge of the sword, and I alone have escaped to tell you."

Cross-references courtesy of OpenBible.info (CC BY 4.0).

Hebrew and Greek witnesses Masoretic Hebrew ↔ Greek Septuagint

The same verse in the two great witnesses to the Old Testament, shown verse-for-verse.

These are two independent witnesses, not word-aligned to each other, and the Septuagint is shown in lemma (dictionary) form.

Hebrew 2 Samuel 1:3 Masoretic · Westminster Leningrad Codex

וַיֹּ֤אמֶר לוֹ֙ דָּוִ֔ד אֵ֥י מִזֶּ֖ה תָּב֑וֹא וַיֹּ֣אמֶר אֵלָ֔יו מִמַּחֲנֵ֥ה יִשְׂרָאֵ֖ל נִמְלָֽטְתִּי

David said to him, From whence come you? He said to him, Out of the camp of Israel am I escaped.

World English Bible · Public Domain

Greek LXX 2 Samuel 1:3 Septuagint · lemma form

καί εἶπον αὐτός δαυίδ πόθεν σύ παραγίγνομαι καί εἶπον πρός αὐτός ἐκ ὁ παρεμβολή ἰσραήλ ἐγώ διασώζω

And David said to him, Whence come you? and he said to him, I have escaped out of the camp of Israel.

LXX2012 (modern English Septuagint) · Public Domain

Hebrew: Westminster Leningrad Codex (CC BY 4.0). Greek: Septuagint (public domain); English from LXX2012 (modern English Septuagint) (Public Domain). How the Septuagint differs from the Hebrew →

Targum (Aramaic paraphrase)

1

The Targum is the ancient Jewish Aramaic paraphrase of the Hebrew Scriptures — an interpretive translation, not the Hebrew text itself. Onkelos (literal) and Pseudo-Jonathan (expansive) render the Torah, and Jonathan the Prophets. Coverage is partial: where no permissively-licensed English translation exists for a verse, only the Aramaic is shown. This is verse-level text, not a word-by-word alignment to the Hebrew.

  1. Targum Jonathan Prophets (Joshua–Malachi)
    וַאֲמַר לֵיהּ דָוִד אֵי מִדֵין אַתְּ אָתֵי וַאֲמַר לֵיהּ מִמַשְׁרִיתָא דְיִשְׂרָאֵל אִשְׁתְּזֵיבִית:

    (no public-domain English translation for this verse)

    Targum Jonathan — Aramaic: “Mikraot Gedolot” (public domain). English: “Sefaria Community Translation” (CC0 1.0 (public-domain dedication)); “London "Chaldee Paraphrase," 1871” (public domain). Text via Sefaria.

Commentary

Notes on 2 Samuel 1:3 from classic Christian and Jewish commentators (each source and its license shown beneath its notes). The classic Christian expositions comment on the surrounding passage and are grouped to its opening verse, so a note may address several verses; the Jewish commentaries on the Tanakh (Rashi and others) are per-verse, so they appear only where the commentator wrote on this verse.

Lemma curates 59 commentaries, every one of them public domain or Creative Commons licensed, each selected and text-cleaned for this edition rather than reprinted as found. About our sources →

Trapp's Complete Commentary

John Trapp

2Sa 1:3 And David said unto him, From whence comest thou? And he said unto him, Out of the camp of Israel am I escaped.

Ver. 3. Out of the camp of Israel am I escaped.] But as good he had lost his life there; for his preservation was but a reservation to a worse end. Evil shall hunt the violent man to overthrow him. "Bloody and deceitful persons shall not live out half their days." {Psa 55:23}

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(3) Out of the camp of Israel.—It has been questioned whether this Amalekite had actually been in the army of Israel, and the expression in 2Sa_1:6, “As I happened by chance upon Mount Gilboa,” has been cited to show that his presence there was merely accidental, but no one who is not concerned in the matter is likely to stray into the midst of a battle, and the expression “by chance” is better referred to his coming upon Saul when he was wounded. He certainly here claims to have been a part of the “camp of Israel.” He tells David the general facts of the defeat, and the death of Saul and Jonathan, as they really occurred.

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

John Gill's Exposition

And David said unto him, from whence comest thou?.... It is very likely by his appearance and circumstances he suspected from whence he came:

and he said unto him, out of the camp of Israel am I escaped; which plainly suggested that that was in danger, confusion, and distress.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

The Pulpit Commentary

Out of the camp of Israel am I escaped. Non-combatants would hang about the army, watching, as soon as the battle had begun, the fortunes of the day, and immediately that they saw the impending defeat of their own side, would think chiefly of their personal safety. But for an active young man the opportunity would then have come for booty. The Philistines, in pursuit of the enemy, would soon leave the battlefield in their rear, and multitudes would quickly prowl about it to plunder the dead. While so busied, the Amalekite falsely represents himself as having come by chance upon the wounded, but still living, Saul.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

unfoldingWord translationNotes

Door43 World Missions Community

Many have fallen and many are dead

Possible meanings are 1) "Many were wounded and many were killed" or 2) "Many were wounded and killed."

translationWords

Israel

people group

die

Jonathan

unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.

Lesson kit

Teaching starters — assembled from the data on this page, not authored interpretation. Every prompt links to the verse data it draws on. Edit before teaching.

2 Samuel, in the Historical, opens this verse with 11 words (9 distinct Hebrew lemmas). Its most distinctive word is ʼay (“where”). A historical commentator’s framing appears above. Read the whole chapter for the surrounding context.

Discussion questions

  1. What does “where” (ʼay) contribute to the verse as a whole?
  2. How does Genesis 3:9, which shares the word «where», read alongside this verse?
  3. What does the repetition of “to say” (2× in this one verse) do in this verse?
  4. These translations render this verse differently; the difference is in the English rendering, not the original. What questions does that raise?
  5. «וַיֹּ֤אמֶר» is a Qal Sequential Imperfect verb. How does that grammatical form shape the action described?
  6. Compare how Trapp's Complete Commentary and Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers read this verse. Where do they agree or differ?

Things to notice

Reading settings

Reading text

Shown beneath each verse's original-language words.

Old Testament
Old Testament edition

Read the OT as the Masoretic Hebrew (MT) or the Greek Septuagint (LXX).

English shown for the Greek Septuagint (in the Hebrew ↔ Greek comparison).

Comparing translations? Open the Compare panel on any verse page to stack up to four side by side.