2 Samuel 2:20

Hebrew (Westminster Leningrad Codex)

English Translation

Then Abner looked behind him, and said, Is it you, Asahel? He answered, It is I.

World English Bible · Public Domain

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עֲשָׂהאֵ֑ל

ʻĂsâhʼêl

H6214

“Asahel”

Noun, Proper

Appears 23× in the Hebrew Bible
First appears at 2 Samuel 2:18

Full BDB Definition

Origin: from H6213 and H410

TWOT: None

Asahel = "God-made" - nephew of David, son of David's sister Zeruiah, and brother of Joab and Abishai; swift of foot he was killed by Abner when he pursued him in battle and caught him - a Levite in the reign of king Jehoshaphat of Judah who went through the kingdom giving instruction in the law - a Levite in the reign of king Hezekiah of Judah in charge of the tithes and dedicated things in the temple - a priest, father of Jonathan, in the time of Ezra

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 →

9: words
8: distinct lemmas
Historical: section

Notable vocabulary

The rarest word here is עֲשָׂהאֵ֑ל Asahel H6214 — appearing just 23 times in the whole Hebrew Bible.

Shared distinctive vocabulary

עֲשָׂהאֵ֑ל Asahel H6214 occurs in 17 verses of the Hebrew Bible. Also found in:

Grammatical profile

3 verbs
2 nouns
3 pronouns
1 preposition

Verb forms

וַיִּ֤פֶן Qal · Sequential Imperfect
וַיֹּ֕אמֶר Qal · Sequential Imperfect
וַיֹּ֖אמֶר Qal · Sequential Imperfect

Repetition

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

וַיֹּ֕אמֶר to say H559 ×2

Hebrew & Septuagint length

In English translation the verse runs 16 words from the Hebrew and 16 from the Septuagint (LXX English) — the same length.

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.

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 2:20 Masoretic · Westminster Leningrad Codex

וַיִּ֤פֶן אַבְנֵר֙ אַֽחֲרָ֔יו וַיֹּ֕אמֶר הַאַתָּ֥ה זֶ֖ה עֲשָׂהאֵ֑ל וַיֹּ֖אמֶר אָנֹֽכִי

Then Abner looked behind him, and said, Is it you, Asahel? He answered, It is I.

World English Bible · Public Domain

Greek LXX 2 Samuel 2:20 Septuagint · lemma form

καί ἐπιβλέπω αβεννηρ εἰς ὁ ὀπίσω αὐτός καί εἶπον εἰ σύ εἰμί αὐτός ασαηλ καί εἶπον ἐγώ εἰμί

And Abenner looked behind him, and said, Are you Asael himself? and he said, I am.

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)

וְאִיתְפְּנִי אַבְנֵר בַּתְרוֹהִי וַאֲמַר הַאַתְּ דֵין עֲשָׂהאֵל וַאֲמַר אֲנָא:

(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 2:20 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 2:20 Then Abner looked behind him, and said, [Art] thou Asahel? And he answered, I [am].

Ver. 20. Art thou Asahel?] Abner had no mind to meddle with any son of Zeruiah, David’s sister: he therefore first turneth querist to this currist, - Luther’s words, - and then twice adviseth him to retreat from pursuing his own peril. But quisque suos patitur manes.

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

2:20-22 Go fight someone else! . . . Get away from here! Abner’s words reflect respect between peers trained for the same career, as well as a sense of fair play. The youthful Asahel would have been no match for the more experienced Abner. Abner also knew that if he killed Asahel, the conflict with David would escalate and David’s forces would seek revenge (see 3:22-39).

John Gill's Exposition

Then Abner looked behind him,.... Perceiving one at his heels, and making haste up to him.

And said, art thou Asahel? for it seems he knew him personally, being well acquainted with his family:

and he answered, I am; so that they were very near to each other, as to discourse together, and be heard and understood by each other.

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

Keil & Delitzsch

C. F. Keil & F. Delitzsch

Then Abner turned round, asked him whether he was Asahel, and said to him, "Turn to thy right hand or to thy left, and seize one of the young men and take his armour for thyself," i.e., slay one of the common soldiers, and take his accoutrements as booty, if thou art seeking for that kind of fame. But Asahel would not turn back from Abner. Then he repeated his command that he would depart, and added, "Why should I smite thee to the ground, and how could I then lift up my face to Joab thy brother?" from which we may see that Abner did not want to put the young hero to death, out of regard for Joab and their former friendship.

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.)

unfoldingWord translationNotes

Door43 World Missions Community

Asahel

This is the name of a man. (See: How to Translate Names)

Turn aside to your right or to your left ... turn aside

"Stop chasing me ... stop chasing Abner"

seize one of the young men and take his armor

Abner was asking Asahel to kill and plunder another younger soldier who would not be as dangerous as Abner. He did not want to kill Asahel. AT: "fight with another soldier and take his equipment as plunder" (See: Euphemism)

translationWords

Abner

armor

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 9 words (8 distinct Hebrew lemmas). Its most distinctive word is ʻĂsâhʼêl (“Asahel”). A historical commentator’s framing appears above. Read the whole chapter for the surrounding context.

Discussion questions

What does “Asahel” (ʻĂsâhʼêl) contribute to the verse as a whole?
How does 2 Samuel 2:18, which shares the word «Asahel», read alongside this verse?
What does the repetition of “to say” (2× in this one verse) do in this verse?
These translations render this verse differently. What is at stake in choosing one wording over another?
«וַיִּ֤פֶן» is a Qal Sequential Imperfect verb. How does that grammatical form shape the action described?
Compare how Trapp's Complete Commentary and Tyndale Open Study Notes read this verse. Where do they agree or differ?

Things to notice

These translations choose different wording for 5 words in this verse.
“to say” occurs 2× in this single verse.
8 distinct Hebrew lemmas span 9 words in this verse.