2 Samuel 22:19

Hebrew (Westminster Leningrad Codex)

English Translation

They came on me in the day of my calamity; But Yahweh was my stay.

World English Bible · Public Domain

Highlights

1 first appearance in the Hebrew Bible

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Word by word

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מִשְׁעָ֖ן

mishʻên

H4937

“staff”

Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute

Appears 5× in the Hebrew Bible
First appears here

Full BDB Definition

Origin: from H8172

TWOT: 2434a , 2434b

support, staff

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 →

7: words
6: distinct lemmas
Historical: section

Notable vocabulary

The rarest word here is מִשְׁעָ֖ן staff H4937 — appearing just 5 times in the whole Hebrew Bible.

First appearance in Scripture

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

מִשְׁעָ֖ן staff H4937

Shared distinctive vocabulary

מִשְׁעָ֖ן staff H4937 occurs in 3 verses of the Hebrew Bible. Also found in:

Grammatical profile

2 verbs
4 nouns
1 preposition

Verb forms

יְקַדְּמֻ֖נִי Piel · Imperfect
וַיְהִ֧י Qal · Sequential Imperfect

Hebrew & Septuagint length

In English translation the verse runs 15 words from the Hebrew and 13 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 7 Hebrew tokens and 11 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 22:19 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge — connected by theme and wording, ordered by reader-vote popularity; previews shown in the World English Bible.

Psalms 71:20–21 You, who have shown us many and bitter troubles, You will let me live. You will bring us up again from the depths of the earth.
1 Samuel 19:11–17 Saul sent messengers to David's house, to watch him, and to kill him in the morning: and Michal, David's wife, told him, saying, If you don't save your life tonight, tomorrow you will be slain.
1 Samuel 23:26–27 Saul went on this side of the mountain, and David and his men on that side of the mountain: and David made haste to get away for fear of Saul; for Saul and his men compassed David and his men round about to take them.
Psalms 23:4 Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me. Your rod and your staff, they comfort me.
Psalms 118:10–13 All the nations surrounded me, But in the name of Yahweh, I cut them off.
2 Samuel 15:10–13 But Absalom sent spies throughout all the tribes of Israel, saying, As soon as you hear the sound of the trumpet, then you shall say, Absalom is king in Hebron.
Psalms 18:18–19 They came on me in the day of my calamity, But Yahweh was my support.
Isaiah 26:19 Your dead shall live; my dead bodies shall arise. Awake and sing, you who dwell in the dust; for your dew is [as] the dew of herbs, and the earth shall cast forth the dead.

Isaiah 50:10 Who is among you who fears Yahweh, who obeys the voice of his servant? He who walks in darkness, and has no light, let him trust in the name of Yahweh, and rely on his God.
Matthew 27:39–44 Those who passed by blasphemed him, wagging their heads,

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 22:19 Masoretic · Westminster Leningrad Codex

יְקַדְּמֻ֖נִי בְּי֣וֹם אֵידִ֑י וַיְהִ֧י יְהוָ֛ה מִשְׁעָ֖ן לִֽי

They came on me in the day of my calamity; But Yahweh was my stay.

World English Bible · Public Domain

Greek LXX 2 Samuel 22:19 Septuagint · lemma form

προφθάνω ἐγώ ἐν ἡμέρα θλῖψις ἐγώ καί γίγνομαι κύριος ἐπιστήριγμα ἐγώ

The days of my affliction prevented me; but the Lord was my stay.

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)

יְקַדְמוּנִי בְּיוֹם טִלְטוּלִי וַהֲוַת מֵימְרָא דַייָ סְמַךְ לִי:

(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 22:19 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 →

Geneva Bible (1599)

Geneva Bible translators

I was so beset, that all means seemed to fail.

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

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne

19. They prevented me] They encountered me, the same word as in 2Sa_22:6, meaning to meet with hostile intention. Prevent is used in a sense which illustrates the transition from the original meaning ‘to go before’ to the modern meaning ‘to hinder.’ See the Bible Word Book, p. 383. Cp. Milton’s Paradise Lost, vi. 129:

Half way he met

His daring foe, at this prevention more

Incens’d.

my stay] The staff on which he leaned for support. Cp. Psa_23:4.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

John Gill's Exposition

He teacheth my hands to war; so that a bow of steel is broken by mine arms. See Gill on Psa 18:34.

.

2 Samuel 22:36

sa2 22:36

sa2 22:36

sa2 22:36Thou hast also given me the shield of thy salvation: and thy gentleness hath made me great. See Gill on Psa 18:35.

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

Whedon's Commentary on the Bible

Daniel D. Whedon

19. Day of my misfortune — While he was a fugitive and an outlaw, and also afterwards, when rebellion broke out in his own family.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

unfoldingWord translationNotes

Door43 World Missions Community

General Information:

This continues David's song to Yahweh. He uses parallelism to emphasize what he is saying. (See: Parallelism)

They came against me on the day of my distress

"My enemies fought against me when I was in great trouble"

the day of my distress

"the time of my distress"

but Yahweh was my support

"but Yahweh supported me" or "but Yahweh helped me"

a wide open place

This refers to a place where there was no danger and his enemies could not trap him.

to the measure of the cleanness of my hands

Here "cleanness of my hands" means the same as "righteousness." AT: "because I obey his commands" (See: Idiom and Metaphor)

translationWords

save

reward

righteous

restore

clean

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 7 words (6 distinct Hebrew lemmas). Its most distinctive word is mishʻên (“staff”). A historical commentator’s framing appears above. Read the whole chapter for the surrounding context.

Discussion questions

How does “staff” (mishʻên) shape what this verse is saying?
This is the first place “staff” appears in Scripture (first appears here). What does its debut here establish?
How does Psalms 18:18, which shares the word «staff», read alongside this verse?
These translations render this verse differently; the difference is in the English rendering, not the original. What questions does that raise?
«יְקַדְּמֻ֖נִי» is a Piel Imperfect verb. How does that grammatical form shape the action described?
Compare how Geneva Bible (1599) and The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges read this verse. Where do they agree or differ?

Things to notice

1 word makes its first canonical appearance in Scripture here.
This verse counts 7 Hebrew ↔ 11 Greek words.
These translations choose different wording for 7 words in this verse.
6 distinct Hebrew lemmas span 7 words in this verse.