Bible Strands
2 Samuel 2:12
One day Abner son of Ner and the servants of Ish-bosheth son of Saul marched out from Mahanaim to Gibeon.
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — The narrator records Abner and Ish-bosheth’s troops departing Mahanaim for Gibeon, occurring immediately after the note of David’s seven-and-a-half-year reign over Judah in Hebron.
The words — וַיֵּצֵא (va.ye.tze') marks the decisive military departure, while אִישׁ־בֹּשֶׁת ('ish-Bo.shet) literally renders as "man of shame," preserving the text’s specific designation for Saul’s son.
The thread — Gibeon functions as a known strategic location in Joshua 9:3, 10:2, and 10:4, where it previously secured peace with Israel. This movement places Saul’s northern forces at that same city, setting the stage for the territorial confrontation detailed in 2 Samuel 2:13.
Why it lands — It establishes the geographic and military positioning that initiates the next clash, requiring the reader to track the competing claims of Saul’s dynasty and David’s house without assuming the outcome.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
And Abner the son of Ner, and the servants of Ish–bosheth the son of Saul, went out from Mahanaim to Gibeon.
Cross-references
- Joshua 9:3 But the people of Gibeon, having heard what Joshua had done to Jericho and Ai,
- Joshua 10:2 So Adoni-zedek and his people were greatly alarmed, because Gibeon was a great city, like one of the royal cities; it was larger than Ai, and all its men were mighty.
- Joshua 10:4 “Come up and help me. We will attack Gibeon, because they have made peace with Joshua and the Israelites.”
- Joshua 18:25 Gibeon, Ramah, Beeroth,
- Genesis 32:2 When Jacob saw them, he said, “This is the camp of God.” So he named that place Mahanaim.
- Joshua 10:12 On the day that the LORD gave the Amorites over to the Israelites, Joshua spoke to the LORD in the presence of Israel: “O sun, stand still over Gibeon, O moon, over the Valley of Aijalon.”
- 2 Samuel 17:14 Then Absalom and all the men of Israel said, “The advice of Hushai the Archite is better than that of Ahithophel.” For the LORD had purposed to thwart the good counsel of Ahithophel in order to bring disaster on Absalom.