Again, whom should I serve? Shouldn't I serve in the presence of his son? as I have served in your father's presence, so will I be in your presence.
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The same verse in 3 English versions, stacked beneath the original-language interlinear above. Click any original word for its lexicon entry.
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Again, whom should I serve? Shouldn't I serve in the presence of his son? as I have served in your father's presence, so will I be in your presence.
And again, whom should I serve? should I not serve in the presence of his son? as I have served in thy father's presence, so will I be in thy presence.
And second, I, before whom shall I serve? not to the face of his son? Just as I served to the face of your father, thus I will be to your face.”
unfoldingWord Literal Text — © unfoldingWord, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Word-aligned USFM3 via Door43 (git.door43.org/unfoldingWord/en_ult).
Every available English version of this verse, each an independent rendering of the whole verse.
Again, whom should I serve? Shouldn't I serve in the presence of his son? as I have served in your father's presence, so will I be in your presence.
Furthermore, whom should I serve if not the son? As I served in your father’s presence, so also I will serve in yours.”
Furthermore, whom should I serve if not his son? As I served in your father’s presence, so also I will serve in yours.”
And again, whom should I serve? should I not serve in the presence of his son? as I have served in thy father's presence, so will I be in thy presence.
And again, whom should I serve? `should I' not `serve' in the presence of his son? as I have served in thy father's presence, so will I be in thy presence.
And again, whom should I serve? should I not serve in the presence of his son? as I have served in thy father’s presence, so will I be in thy presence.
And moreouer vnto whome shall I doe seruice? not to his sonne? as I serued before thy father, so will I before thee.
Besides this, whom shall I serve? is it not the king's son? as I have served thy father, so will I serve thee also.
and secondly, for whom do I labour? is it not before his son? as I served before thy father so am I before thee.'
and secondly, for whom do I labor? Is it not before his son? As I served before your father, so I am before you.”
Also, what man should I serve? Should I not serve in the presence of his son? As I have served in your father's presence, I will serve in your presence.”
And second, I, before whom shall I serve? not to the face of his son? Just as I served to the face of your father, thus I will be to your face.”
And again, whom should I serve? should it not be in the presence of his son? as I have served in thy father's presence, so will I be in thy presence.
Again, whom should I serve? Shouldn’t I serve in the presence of his son? As I have served in your father’s presence, so I will be in your presence.”
And again, whom should I serve? should I not serve in the presence of his son? as I have served in thy father's presence, so will I be in thy presence.
In any case, why shouldn't I serve his son? In the same way I served your father I will serve you.”
And more than this! where is my place as a servant? is it not before his son? as I have been your father's servant, so will I be yours.
And again, whom should I serve? should I not serve in the presence of his son? as I have served in thy father's presence, so will I be in thy presence.'
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).
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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 →
Grammatical profile
Verb forms
Repetition
Words recur within this verse — often emphatic in Hebrew:
Hebrew & Septuagint length
In English translation the verse runs 29 words from the Hebrew and 31 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 14 Hebrew tokens and 21 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.
Topical passages linked to 2 Samuel 16:19 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge — connected by theme and wording, ordered by reader-vote popularity; previews shown in the World English Bible.
Cross-references courtesy of OpenBible.info (CC BY 4.0).
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.
וְהַשֵּׁנִ֗ית לְמִי֙ אֲנִ֣י אֶֽעֱבֹ֔ד הֲל֖וֹא לִפְנֵ֣י בְנ֑וֹ כַּאֲשֶׁ֤ר עָבַ֨דְתִּי֙ לִפְנֵ֣י אָבִ֔יךָ כֵּ֖ן אֶהְיֶ֥ה לְפָנֶֽיךָ
Again, whom should I serve? Shouldn't I serve in the presence of his son? as I have served in your father's presence, so will I be in your presence.
World English Bible · Public Domain
καί ὁ δεύτερος τίς ἐγώ δουλεύω οὐ ἐνώπιον ὁ υἱός αὐτός καθάπερ δουλεύω ἐνώπιον ὁ πατήρ σύ οὕτως εἰμί ἐνώπιον σύ
And again, whom shall I serve? should I not in the presence of his son? As I served in the sight of your father, so will I be in your presence.
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 →
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.
וְתִנְיָנוּת קֳדָם מַן אֲנָא אֶפְלַח הֲלָא קֳדָם בְּרֵיהּ כְּמָא דְפַלְחִית קֳדָם אֲבוּךְ כֵּן אֲהֵי פְלַח קֳדָמָךְ:
(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.
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 14 words (11 distinct Hebrew lemmas). Its most distinctive word is shênîy (“second”). A historical commentator’s framing appears above. Read the whole chapter for the surrounding context.
Commentary
Notes on 2 Samuel 16:19 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
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.
Tyndale Open Study Notes
Tyndale Open Resources
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Geneva Bible (1599)
Geneva Bible translators
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.
John Gill's Exposition
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
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes
Door43 World Missions Community
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.