2 Samuel 18:4

Hebrew (Westminster Leningrad Codex)

English Translation

The king said to them, What seems you best I will do. The king stood by the gate-side, and all the people went out by hundreds and by thousands.

World English Bible · Public Domain

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יִיטַ֥ב

yâṭab

H3190

“to be good”

Verb, Qal, Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular

Appears 112× in the Hebrew Bible
First appears at Genesis 4:7

Full BDB Definition

Origin: a primitive root

TWOT: 863

to be good, be pleasing, be well, be glad - (Qal) - to be glad, be joyful - to be well placed - to be well for, be well with, go well with - to be pleasing, be pleasing to - (Hiphil) - to make glad, rejoice - to do good to, deal well with - to do well, do thoroughly - to make a thing good or right or beautiful - to do well, do right

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 →

17: words
15: distinct lemmas
Historical: section

Grammatical profile

5 verbs
7 nouns
2 adjectives
2 prepositions
1 particle

Verb forms

וַיֹּ֤אמֶר Qal · Sequential Imperfect
יִיטַ֥ב Qal · Imperfect
אֶעֱשֶׂ֑ה Qal · Imperfect
וַיַּעֲמֹ֤ד Qal · Sequential Imperfect
יָֽצְא֔וּ Qal · Perfect

Repetition

Words recur within this verse — often emphatic in Hebrew:

הַמֶּ֔לֶךְ king H4428 ×2
אֲלֵיהֶם֙ to H413 ×2

Hebrew & Septuagint length

In English translation the verse runs 29 words from the Hebrew and 37 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 17 Hebrew tokens and 31 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

Topical passages linked to 2 Samuel 18:4 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge — connected by theme and wording, ordered by reader-vote popularity; previews shown in the World English Bible.

2 Samuel 18:24 Now David was sitting between the two gates: and the watchman went up to the roof of the gate to the wall, and lifted up his eyes, and looked, and, behold, a man running alone.
1 Samuel 29:2 The lords of the Philistines passed on by hundreds, and by thousands; and David and his men passed on in the rearward with Achish.
2 Samuel 18:1 David numbered the people who were with him, and set captains of thousands and captains of hundreds over them.
Isaiah 28:6 and a spirit of justice to him who sits in judgment, and strength to those who turn back the battle at the gate.

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 18:4 Masoretic · Westminster Leningrad Codex

וַיֹּ֤אמֶר אֲלֵיהֶם֙ הַמֶּ֔לֶךְ אֲשֶׁר יִיטַ֥ב בְּעֵינֵיכֶ֖ם אֶעֱשֶׂ֑ה וַיַּעֲמֹ֤ד הַמֶּ֨לֶךְ֙ אֶל יַ֣ד הַשַּׁ֔עַר וְכָל הָעָם֙ יָֽצְא֔וּ לְמֵא֖וֹת וְלַאֲלָפִֽים

The king said to them, What seems you best I will do. The king stood by the gate-side, and all the people went out by hundreds and by thousands.

World English Bible · Public Domain

Greek LXX 2 Samuel 18:4 Septuagint · lemma form

καί εἶπον πρός αὐτός ὁ βασιλεύς ὅς ἐάν ἀρέσκω ἐν ὀφθαλμός σύ ποιέω καί ἵστημι ὁ βασιλεύς ἀνά χείρ ὁ πύλη καί πᾶς ὁ λαός ἐκπορεύομαι εἰς ἑκατοντάς καί εἰς χιλίας

And the king said to them, Whatsoever shall seem good in your eyes I will do. And the king stood by the side of the gate, and all the people went out by hundreds and by thousands.

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)

וַאֲמַר לְהוֹן מַלְכָּא דְתַקִין בְּעֵינֵיכוֹן אַעְבֵּיד וְקָם מַלְכָּא עַל כֵּיבַשׁ אוֹרַח תַּרְעָא וְכָל עַמָא נְפָקוּ לְמָאתָן וּלְאַלְפִין:

(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 18:4 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 18:4 And the king said unto them, What seemeth you best I will do. And the king stood by the gate side, and all the people came out by hundreds and by thousands.

Ver. 4. What seemeth you best I will do.] So meekly doth David submit himself to the will of his men. Affliction and meekness grow both on the same root in the holy tongue. "A man of understanding is of an excellent" - or, of a cool - "spirit." {Pro 17:27}

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

(4) What seemeth you best.—David was nothing loth to avoid the personal encounter with his son, and readily yielded, He, however, encouraged the troops by reviewing them as they passed out, and improved the opportunity to give his generals special and public charge concerning Absalom. He speaks of him tenderly as “the young man” (2Sa_18:5; comp. 2Sa_18:29; 2Sa_18:32), to imply that his sin was a youthful indiscretion.

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 the king said unto them, what seemeth you best I will do,.... Which was an instance of great condescension in him; and it was his wisdom and prudence to yield to them at such a time as this, and especially as their sentiments were founded on affection and loyalty to him:

and the king stood by the gate side; of the city of Mahanaim:

and all the people came out by hundreds, and by thousands; and passed by him, to whom no doubt he gave his blessing and best wishes; and, as Abarbinel thinks, now it was he composed and said the twentieth psalm, "The Lord hear thee in the day of trouble", &c. Psa 20:1.

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

By the gate side, i.e. between the two gates of the city, as it is expressed below, 2Sa 18:24.

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

Keil & Delitzsch

C. F. Keil & F. Delitzsch

The king gave his consent to these proposals, and went to the side of the gate, whilst the people went out by hundreds and thousands; but in the hearing of all he commanded the principal generals, "Mildly for me (i.e., deal gently for my sake) with the boy Absalom." לאט is not the imperative of לאט, to cover over, which would not suit the connection, and could not be construed with ל, but an adverb from אט, as in Isa 8:6; Kg1 21:27; Job 15:11.

Keil & Delitzsch — Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament (1861–1891) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API. (Old Testament only.)

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

Discussion questions

What does “to be good” (yâṭab) contribute to the verse as a whole?
2 Samuel 18:24 shares this passage’s theme. How do the two illuminate each other?
“king” occurs 2× in this one verse. What is the effect of the repetition?
These translations render this verse differently; the difference is in the English rendering, not the original. What questions does that raise?
The verb «וַיֹּ֤אמֶר» is Qal Sequential Imperfect. How does its form color the action?
Reading how Trapp's Complete Commentary and Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers read this verse, where do the two commentators agree and where do they part?

Things to notice

This verse counts 17 Hebrew ↔ 31 Greek words.
These translations choose different wording for 12 words in this verse.
“king” occurs 2× in this single verse.
15 distinct Hebrew lemmas span 17 words in this verse.