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25 The Benjaminites formed their ranks[a] behind Abner and were like a single army, standing at the top of a certain hill.

26 Then Abner called out to Joab, “Must the sword devour forever? Don’t you realize that this will turn bitter in the end? When will you tell the people to turn aside from pursuing their brothers?” 27 Joab replied, “As surely as God lives, if you had not said this, it would have been morning before the people would have abandoned pursuit[b] of their brothers.”

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Footnotes

  1. 2 Samuel 2:25 tn Heb “were gathered together.”
  2. 2 Samuel 2:27 tn The Hebrew verb נַעֲלָה (naʿalah) used here is the Niphal perfect third person masculine singular of עָלָה (ʿalah, “to go up”). In the Niphal this verb “is used idiomatically, of getting away from so as to abandon…especially of an army raising a siege…” (see S. R. Driver, Notes on the Hebrew Text and the Topography of the Books of Samuel, 244).