2 Samuel 14:6

Hebrew (Westminster Leningrad Codex)

English Translation

Your handmaid had two sons, and they two strove together in the field, and there was none to part them, but the one struck the other, and killed him.

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

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 →

וַיִּנָּצ֤וּ

nâtsâh

H5327

“and · to struggle”

Conjunction + Verb, Niphal, Sequential Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Plural

Appears 11× in the Hebrew Bible
First appears at Exodus 2:13

Full BDB Definition

Origin: a primitive root

TWOT: 1399 , 1400 , 1401

(Qal) to fly - to struggle - (Niphal) to struggle - (Hiphil) to struggle - to strip off, make desolate, fall in ruins - (Qal) to fall in ruins - (Niphal) desolated, ruined heaps (participle)

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 →

15: words
12: distinct lemmas
Historical: section

Notable vocabulary

The rarest word here is וַיִּנָּצ֤וּ to struggle H5327 — appearing just 11 times in the whole Hebrew Bible.

Shared distinctive vocabulary

וַיִּנָּצ֤וּ to struggle H5327 occurs in 10 verses of the Hebrew Bible. Also found in:

Grammatical profile

4 verbs
3 nouns
4 adjectives
1 preposition
3 particles

Verb forms

וַיִּנָּצ֤וּ Niphal · Sequential Imperfect
מַצִּ֖יל Hiphil · Participle Active
וַיַּכּ֧וֹ Hiphil · Sequential Imperfect
וַיָּ֥מֶת Hiphil · Sequential Imperfect

Repetition

Words recur within this verse — often emphatic in Hebrew:

שְׁנֵ֣י two H8147 ×2
הָאֶחָ֛ד one H259 ×2

Hebrew & Septuagint length

In English translation the verse runs 29 words from the Hebrew and 33 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.

Cross-references

Topical passages linked to 2 Samuel 14:6 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge — connected by theme and wording, ordered by reader-vote popularity; previews shown in the World English Bible.

Genesis 4:8 Cain said to Abel, his brother, "Let's go into the field." It happened, when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel, his brother, and killed him.
Exodus 2:13 He went out the second day, and, behold, two men of the Hebrews were fighting with each other. He said to him who did the wrong, "Why do you strike your fellow?"
Deuteronomy 22:26–27 but to the lady you shall do nothing; there is in the lady no sin worthy of death: for as when a man rises against his neighbor, and kills him, even so is this matter;

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 14:6 Masoretic · Westminster Leningrad Codex

וּלְשִׁפְחָֽתְךָ֙ שְׁנֵ֣י בָנִ֔ים וַיִּנָּצ֤וּ שְׁנֵיהֶם֙ בַּשָּׂדֶ֔ה וְאֵ֥ין מַצִּ֖יל בֵּֽינֵיהֶ֑ם וַיַּכּ֧וֹ הָאֶחָ֛ד אֶת הָאֶחָ֖ד וַיָּ֥מֶת אֹתֽוֹ

Your handmaid had two sons, and they two strove together in the field, and there was none to part them, but the one struck the other, and killed him.

World English Bible · Public Domain

Greek LXX 2 Samuel 14:6 Septuagint · lemma form

καί γέ ὁ δούλη σύ δύο υἱός καί μάχομαι ἀμφότεροι ἐν ὁ ἀγρός καί οὐ εἰμί ὁ ἐκαἱρέω ἀνά μέσος αὐτός καί παίζω ὁ εἷς ὁ ἀδελφός αὐτός καί θανατόω αὐτός

And moreover your handmaid had two sons, and they fought together in the field, and there was no one to part them; and the one struck the other his brother, and killed him.

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)

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.

Targum Jonathan Prophets (Joshua–Malachi)

וּלְאַמְתָךְ תְּרֵין בְּנִין וְאִתְנְצִיאוּ תַרְוֵיהוֹן בְּחַקְלָא וְלֵית דִמְשֵׁיזֵיב בֵּינֵיהוֹן וּמְחוֹ חַד יַת חַד וּקְטַל יָתֵיהּ:

(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 14:6 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 14:6 And thy handmaid had two sons, and they two strove together in the field, and [there was] none to part them, but the one smote the other, and slew him.

Ver. 6. And they two strove together in the field.] Upon some sudden and perhaps slight occasion; such as was that recorded by Camerarius, who telleth a story of two brethren walking out in a starlit night: said one of the brethren, Would I had a pasture as large as this element. And said the other, Would I had as many oxen as there be stars. Says the other again, Where would you feed those oxen? In your pasture, replied he. What, whether I would or no? Yea, said he, whether you would or no. What, in spite of me? Yes, said he. And thus it went on from words, till at length the one killed the other.

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.

Geneva Bible (1599)

Geneva Bible translators

Under this parable she describeth the death of Amnon by Absalom.

Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(6) They two strove together.—The woman represents the fratricide as unpremeditated and without malice. This really made the case essentially different from that of Absalom; but at this point of the story the object is to dispose the king favourably towards the culprit, while by the time the application is reached, this point will have passed out of mind.

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 thy handmaid had two sons,.... Two are observed, that her case might suit with Amnon and Absalom:

and they two strove together in the field; they quarrelled, and fought in the field, where there were no witnesses of what they did to each other; whereby she would suggest that Ammon was killed in the field, of which there were no witnesses, and therefore Absalom ought not to die; whereas it was in Absalom's house, at his table, and where the rest of the king's sons were present, and witnesses of it:

and there was none to part them; which, had there been, might have prevented the sad disaster; this, as Abarbinel thinks, is pointed at David, who when Amnon forced Tamar, did not correct him for it, nor seek to make peace between the brethren, and hence followed what had happened:

but the one smote the other, and slew him; as say the accusers of him that is living; for the fable supposes there was none with them; however, she suggests, as the above writer observes, that one gave the first blow, and so was the aggressor; and that he that was smitten rose up in his own defence, and in his passion slew him that smote him; which is observed to lessen the crime, and to intimate that Amnon was the aggressor, who first began the sin and quarrel, in ravishing Tamar, and so reproaching Absalom; and therefore his blood was upon his own head.

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

Matthew Poole's English Annotations

There was none to part them; and therefore there is no witness, either that he killed him, or how he killed him, whether from some sudden passion and great provocation, or in his own necessary defence, or otherwise.

Slew him; as the avengers of blood report.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

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 15 words (12 distinct Hebrew lemmas). Its most distinctive word is nâtsâh (“to struggle”). A historical commentator’s framing appears above. Read the whole chapter for the surrounding context.

Discussion questions

The word nâtsâh carries the sense “to struggle.” How does it shape the verse?
Exodus 2:13 shares the word «to struggle» with this verse. How do the two illuminate each other?
“two” occurs 2× in this one verse. What is the effect of the repetition?
The translations on this page render this verse differently — a whole-verse word diff, not a word-by-word alignment. What might account for the different wordings?
The verb «וַיִּנָּצ֤וּ» is Niphal Sequential Imperfect. How does its form color the action?
Reading how Trapp's Complete Commentary and Geneva Bible (1599) read this verse, where do the two commentators agree and where do they part?

Things to notice

These translations choose different wording for 16 words in this verse.
“two” occurs 2× in this single verse.
12 distinct Hebrew lemmas span 15 words in this verse.