There was of the house of Saul a servant whose name was Ziba, and they called him to David; and the king said to him, Are you Ziba? He said, Your servant is he.
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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.
Each is an independent rendering of the whole verse — the interlinear is not word-aligned to these translations.
Highlighted words mark where these versions differ — a whole-verse word diff, not a word-by-word alignment.
There was of the house of Saul a servant whose name was Ziba, and they called him to David; and the king said to him, Are you Ziba? He said, Your servant is he.
And there was of the house of Saul a servant whose name was Ziba. And when they had called him unto David, the king said unto him, Art thou Ziba? And he said, Thy servant is he.
Now to the house of Saul a servant, and his name Ziba. And they called him to David. And the king said to him, “ you Ziba?” And he said, “Your servant.”
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.
There was of the house of Saul a servant whose name was Ziba, and they called him to David; and the king said to him, Are you Ziba? He said, Your servant is he.
And there was a servant of Saul’s family named Ziba. They summoned him to David, and the king inquired, “Are you Ziba?” “I am your servant,” he replied.
And there was a servant of the house of Saul named Ziba. They summoned him to David, and the king inquired, “Are you Ziba?” “I am your servant,” he replied.
And there was of the house of Saul a servant whose name was Ziba. And when they had called him unto David, the king said unto him, Art thou Ziba? And he said, Thy servant is he.
And there was of the house of Saul a servant whose name was Ziba, and they called him unto David; and the king said unto him, Art thou Ziba? And he said, Thy servant is he.
And there was of the house of Saul a servant whose name was Ziba, and they called him unto David; and the king said unto him, Art thou Ziba? And he said, Thy servant is he.
And there was of the housholde of Saul a seruant whose name was Ziba, and when they had called him vnto Dauid, the King sayd vnto him, Art thou Ziba? And he sayd, I thy seruant am he.
Now there was of the house of Saul, a servant named Siba: and when the king had called him to him, he said to him: Art thou Siba? And he answered: I am Siba thy servant.
And the house of Saul hath a servant, and his name `is' Ziba, and they call for him unto David; and the king saith unto him, `Art thou Ziba?' and he saith, `Thy servant.'
And the house of Saul has a servant, and his name [is] Ziba, and they call for him to David; and the king says to him, “Are you Ziba?” And he says, “Your servant.”
There was in Saul's family a servant whose name was Ziba, and they called him to David. The king said to him, “Are you Ziba?” He replied, “Yes. I am your servant.”
Now to the house of Saul a servant, and his name Ziba. And they called him to David. And the king said to him, “ you Ziba?” And he said, “Your servant.”
And there was of the house of Saul a servant whose name was Ziba; and they called him to David. And the king said to him, Art thou Ziba? And he said, Thy servant!
There was of Saul’s house a servant whose name was Ziba, and they called him to David; and the king said to him, “Are you Ziba?” He said, “I am your servant.”
And there was of the house of Saul a servant whose name was Ziba. And when they had called him to David, the king said to him, Art thou Ziba? And he said, Thy servant is he.
There was a man called Ziba who used to be a servant of Saul's family. They called for him to come to David, and the king asked him, “Are you Ziba?” “Yes, I am your servant,” he replied.
Now there was of Saul's people a servant named Ziba, and they sent him to David; and the king said to him, Are you Ziba? And he said, I am.
Now there was of the house of Saul a servant whose name was Ziba, and they called him unto David; and the king said unto him: 'Art thou Ziba?' And he said: 'Thy servant is he.'
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 →
Notable vocabulary
The rarest word here is צִיבָ֔א Ziba H6717 — appearing just 16 times in the whole Hebrew Bible.
First appearance in Scripture
This word makes its first canonical appearance in the Hebrew Bible here:
Shared distinctive vocabulary
צִיבָ֔א Ziba H6717 occurs in 13 verses of the Hebrew Bible. Also found in:
Grammatical profile
Verb forms
Repetition
Words recur within this verse — often emphatic in Hebrew:
Hebrew & Septuagint length
In English translation the verse runs 34 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 16 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.
Topical passages linked to 2 Samuel 9:2 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.
וּלְבֵ֨ית שָׁא֥וּל עֶ֨בֶד֙ וּשְׁמ֣וֹ צִיבָ֔א וַיִּקְרְאוּ ל֖וֹ אֶל דָּוִ֑ד וַיֹּ֨אמֶר הַמֶּ֧לֶךְ אֵלָ֛יו הַאַתָּ֥ה צִיבָ֖א וַיֹּ֥אמֶר עַבְדֶּֽךָ
There was of the house of Saul a servant whose name was Ziba, and they called him to David; and the king said to him, Are you Ziba? He said, Your servant is he.
World English Bible · Public Domain
καί ἐκ ὁ οἶκος σαούλ παῖς εἰμί καί ὄνομα αὐτός σιβα καί καλέω αὐτός πρός δαυίδ καί εἶπον πρός αὐτός ὁ βασιλεύς εἰ σύ εἰμί σιβα καί εἶπον ἐγώ δοῦλος σός
And there was a servant of the house of Saul, and his name was Siba: and they call him to David; and the king said to him, Are you Siba? and he said, I am your servant.
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.
וּלְבֵית שָׁאוּל עַבְדָא וּשְׁמֵיהּ צִיבָא וּקְרוֹ לֵיהּ לְוַת דָוִד וַאֲמַר מַלְכָּא לֵיהּ הַאַתְּ צִיבָא וַאֲמַר עַבְדָךְ:
(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 16 words (11 distinct Hebrew lemmas). Its most distinctive word is Tsîybâʼ (“Ziba”). A historical commentator’s framing appears above. Read the whole chapter for the surrounding context.
Commentary
Notes on 2 Samuel 9:2 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.
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.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary
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
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Whedon's Commentary on the Bible
Daniel D. Whedon
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.