Bible Strands
2 Samuel 4:11
How much more, when wicked men kill a righteous man in his own house and on his own bed, shall I not now require his blood from your hands and remove you from the earth!”
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — David addresses Rechab and Baanah, the men who delivered Ish-bosheth’s head, immediately after recalling his past execution of the Amalekite who reported Saul’s death.
The words — אַ֞ף ('af) operates as an emphatic “how much more,” while רְשָׁעִ֗ים (re.sha.'Im) and צַדִּ֛יק (tza.Dik) explicitly classify the assassins as “wicked” and the slain leader as “righteous.”
The thread — The text’s demand for blood accountability runs through Genesis 9:5, Psalms 9:12, and Proverbs 2:22, which links wickedness with removal from the land.
Why it lands — The verse states that killing a leader in his own house warrants immediate execution, requiring the reader to accept that justice demands proportional retribution without exception.
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
How much more, when wicked men have slain a righteous person in his own house upon his bed? shall I not therefore now require his blood of your hand, and take you away from the earth?
Cross-references
- Psalms 9:12 For the Avenger of bloodshed remembers; He does not ignore the cry of the afflicted.
- Proverbs 2:22 but the wicked will be cut off from the land, and the unfaithful will be uprooted.
- Genesis 9:5 And surely I will require the life of any man or beast by whose hand your lifeblood is shed. I will demand an accounting from anyone who takes the life of his fellow man:
- Numbers 35:31 You are not to accept a ransom for the life of a murderer who deserves to die; he must surely be put to death.
- Genesis 4:11 Now you are cursed and banished from the ground, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother’s blood from your hand.
- Genesis 6:13 Then God said to Noah, “The end of all living creatures has come before Me, because through them the earth is full of violence. Now behold, I will destroy both them and the earth.
- Genesis 7:23 And every living thing on the face of the earth was destroyed—man and livestock, crawling creatures and birds of the air; they were blotted out from the earth, and only Noah and those with him in the ark remained.
- Exodus 9:15 For by this time I could have stretched out My hand and struck you and your people with a plague to wipe you off the earth.
- Exodus 21:12 Whoever strikes and kills a man must surely be put to death.
- 2 Samuel 3:27 When Abner returned to Hebron, Joab pulled him aside into the gateway, as if to speak to him privately, and there Joab stabbed him in the stomach. So Abner died on account of the blood of Joab’s brother Asahel.