2 Samuel 19:36

Hebrew (Westminster Leningrad Codex)

English Translation

Your servant would but just go over the Jordan with the king: and why should the king recompense it me with such a reward?

World English Bible · Public Domain

Highlights

1 first appearance in the Hebrew Bible

Full analysis ↓

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הַגְּמוּלָ֖ה

gᵉmûwlâh

H1578

“the · recompense”

Particle, Definite Article + Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Absolute

Appears 3× in the Hebrew Bible
First appears here

Full BDB Definition

Origin: from H1576

TWOT: 360b

dealing, recompense

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 →

12: words
11: distinct lemmas
Historical: section

Notable vocabulary

The rarest word here is הַגְּמוּלָ֖ה recompense H1578 — appearing just 3 times in the whole Hebrew Bible.

First appearance in Scripture

This word makes its first canonical appearance in the Hebrew Bible here:

הַגְּמוּלָ֖ה recompense H1578

Shared distinctive vocabulary

הַגְּמוּלָ֖ה recompense H1578 occurs in 3 verses of the Hebrew Bible. Also found in:

Grammatical profile

2 verbs
6 nouns
1 pronoun
1 preposition
2 particles

Verb forms

יַעֲבֹ֧ר Qal · Imperfect
יִגְמְלֵ֣נִי Qal · Imperfect

Repetition

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

הַמֶּ֑לֶךְ king H4428 ×2

Hebrew & Septuagint length

In English translation the verse runs 24 words from the Hebrew and 21 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 19:36 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge — connected by theme and wording, ordered by reader-vote popularity; previews shown in the World English Bible.

Luke 6:38 "Give, and it will be given to you: good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over, will be given to you. For with the same measure you measure it will be measured back to 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 19:36 Masoretic · Westminster Leningrad Codex

כִּמְעַ֞ט יַעֲבֹ֧ר עַבְדְּךָ֛ אֶת הַיַּרְדֵּ֖ן אֶת הַמֶּ֑לֶךְ וְלָ֨מָּה֙ יִגְמְלֵ֣נִי הַמֶּ֔לֶךְ הַגְּמוּלָ֖ה הַזֹּֽאת

Your servant would but just go over the Jordan with the king: and why should the king recompense it me with such a reward?

World English Bible · Public Domain

Greek LXX 2 Samuel 19:36 Septuagint · lemma form

υἱός ὀγδοήκοντα ἔτος ἐγώ εἰμί σήμερον μή γιγνώσκω ἀνά μέσος ἀγαθός καί κακός ἤ γεύω ὁ δοῦλος σύ ἔτι ὅς ἐσθίω ἤ πίνω ἤ ἀκούω ἔτι φωνή ᾄδω καί ᾄδω ἵνα τίς εἰμί ἔτι ὁ δοῦλος σύ εἰς φορτίον ἐπί ὁ κύριος ἐγώ ὁ βασιλεύς

Your servant will go a little way over Jordan with the king: and why does the king return me this recompense?

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)

בַּר תַּמְנָן שְׁנִין אֲנָא יוֹמָא דֵין הַאִידַע בֵּין טַב לְבִישׁ אִם יִטְעַם עַבְדָךְ יַת מָה דְאֵיכוּל וְיַת מָה דְאֶשְׁתֵּי אִם אֶשְׁמַע עוֹד בְּקַל כִּנְרִין וְתוּשְׁבָּחָן וּלְמָה יְהֵי עַבְדָךְ עוֹד לְמַטוּל עַל רִבּוֹנִי מַלְכָּא:

(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 19:36 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 19:36 Thy servant will go a little way over Jordan with the king: and why should the king recompense it me with such a reward?

Ver. 36. And why should the king recompense it me with such a reward?] The saints in heaven say so doubtless; being wholly swallowed up with admiration at that "excessive and eternal weight of glory," so freely conferred upon them. For coals we shall have pearls, said that martyr to his fellows; joys without measure or mixture; desiderio generante satistatem, et satistate desiderium parante, as Bernard {a} hath it; desire begetting satiety, and satiety bringing forth desire.

{a} De Pass. Dom.

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.

Joseph Benson's Commentary

2Sa 19:36-38. Why should the king recompense it me with such a reward?— Since he had but done his duty to his sovereign, he did not expect to be so highly rewarded for it. That I may die in mine own city — That my bones may, with little ado, be carried to the place of their rest. The grave is ready for me; let me go and get ready for it, go and die in my house. But behold thy servant Chimham — That he might not seem rude in refusing the king’s gracious offer, he desires him to transfer his kindness to his son, and bestow upon him what he pleased. The king answered, Chimham shall go over with me — He readily consented to take the young man with him, promised to provide for him, and assured Barzillai he would do every thing else he desired.

Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

John Gill's Exposition

Thy servant will go a little way over Jordan with the king,.... That is, go a little way after he was over Jordan with him, and then return to his own city:

and why should the king recompense it with such a reward? the sense is, why should the king recompense so trifling a thing as I have done, and which was but my duty, with such a reward, as to maintain me in so grand a manner at his court?

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

Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary

With thee. He did not proceed as far as Galgal; (Haydock) but took his leave of the king, intimating, what we never witness at the present day, that he was too old to enjoy the pleasures of a court! (Calmet)

George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).

Matthew Poole's English Annotations

A little way over Jordan; a little onward in thy way to Jerusalem, and then return.

Recompense it me, or, recompense me, to wit, for my small kindness to thee at Mahanaim, which was but a part of my duty to thee.

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

Rashi

Rabbi Shlomo Yitzchaki (Rashi)

Between something good or bad? Between good food and bad food. Our Rabbis of blessed memory said, He overindulged in sexual relations causing old age to overtake him.

Rashi on the Tanakh — English translations: “The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg” (CC BY 4.0); “Pentateuch with Rashi's commentary by M. Rosenbaum and A.M. Silbermann, 1929-1934” (public domain); “The Metsudah Tanach series, Lakewood, N.J” (CC BY 4.0); and “The Book of Joshua, Metsudah Publications, 1997” (CC BY 4.0). Text via Sefaria.

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 12 words (11 distinct Hebrew lemmas). Its most distinctive word is gᵉmûwlâh (“recompense”). A historical commentator’s framing appears above. Read the whole chapter for the surrounding context.

Discussion questions

The word gᵉmûwlâh carries the sense “recompense.” How does it shape the verse?
The word “recompense” first appears here in Scripture. What is being introduced at this debut?
Isaiah 59:18 shares the word «recompense» with this verse. How do the two illuminate each other?
“king” 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 «יַעֲבֹ֧ר» is Qal Imperfect. How does its form color the action?
Reading how Trapp's Complete Commentary and Joseph Benson's Commentary read this verse, where do the two commentators agree and where do they part?

Things to notice

1 word makes its first canonical appearance in Scripture here.
These translations choose different wording for 11 words in this verse.
“king” occurs 2× in this single verse.
11 distinct Hebrew lemmas span 12 words in this verse.