2 Samuel 5 — Dead Sea Scrolls
2 attestation entries • 0 variants • 4QSamᵃ family
Manuscript Overview
Summary
2 Samuel 5 narrates David's anointing as king over all Israel and his capture of Jerusalem. 4QSamᵃ preserves portions with several agreements with LXX in the regnal-summary verses (vv. 4–5) and the Jerusalem-capture description.
Notable Variants
Minor variants. The 'lame and blind' phrase in v. 8 (vexed in the MT) is preserved differently across witnesses; 4QSamᵃ's reading tends toward LXX. The 1 Chronicles 11 parallel for the Jerusalem capture omits this phrase entirely.
Manuscripts
4QSamᵃ (4Q51), 1QSam (1Q7) attests v. 18
Scroll Condition
Fragmentary; vv. 4–5 and 6–10 partly preserved.
David was thirty years old when he became king, and he reigned for forty years.
'David was thirty years old when he became king, and he reigned forty years' tracks MT — strikingly stable across witnesses and parallels (1 Chr 29:27, 1 Kgs 2:11).
fragmentary
David said on that day, "Whoever strikes down the Jebusites -- let him reach the water channel! -- and the lame and the blind whom David despises..." For this reason people say, "The blind and the lame will not enter the house."
The 'lame and blind' aphorism shows minor wording variation across MT, LXX, and 4QSamᵃ. The substance — that lame and blind people would not enter David's palace — tracks across all witnesses, but the precise grammatical construction is unclear.
fragmentary