2 Samuel 5:6–10, King James Version
Italic words were supplied in the English translation for clarity.
2 Samuel 5:6–10
David Captures Jerusalem
Zion is taken through a compressed, difficult notice
The king and his men go to Jerusalem against the Jebusites, the inhabitants of the land. The Jebusites tell David that except he take away the blind and the lame, he will not come in, thinking David cannot come in. Nevertheless David takes the strong hold of Zion: the same is the city of David.
The taunt uses disability as a figure of contempt for David's power. It is hostile speech, not a description of who the Jebusites are, and not a truth about blind or lame people. The capture itself is real in the narrative and tactically thin. The rare word later rendered gutter or water shaft is uncertain. No secure reconstruction of the assault follows from it.
A proverb is born from ugly words, and David grows great
David says on that day that whoever gets up to the gutter and smites the Jebusites, and the lame and the blind that are hated of David's soul, he shall be chief and captain. Wherefore they said, The blind and the lame shall not come into the house. The wording is textually difficult and morally unsafe if repeated as policy. It must not be used as a judgment on disabled people, a reason to keep anyone out of worship, or a spiritual diagnosis.
David dwells in the fort and calls it the city of David. He builds round about from Millo and inward. He goes on and grows great, and the LORD God of hosts is with him. Presence and growth here establish a capital. They do not sanctify the taunt, the proverb, or every later use of Jerusalem.
How this should shape us
Do not recruit disability language as an insult, a joke, a spiritual label, or a reason to exclude. Leave the water-shaft wording difficult. Keep an ancient conquest distinct from how neighbors, worshipers, and disabled people are treated now.
Teach it back
Explain 2 Samuel 5:6–10 in your own words. Include its narrative movement, one source-supported detail, one material uncertainty, one person or cost power can obscure, and one use the context rules out.
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Go deeper
The explanation above is meant to stand on its own. Open these notes only if you want language, history, disagreements, or source locations.
Where careful interpreters disagreeThe strongest options and their difficulties
Where do careful interpreters disagree?
Best judgment: Interpreters differ over source layers, chronology, historicity, characterization, textual readings, and whether the court story mainly legitimates, indicts, or holds David in sustained tension. The package states the received movement first and labels reconstructions.
How certain? probableResearch trail and exact locationsThe source record behind this section
Supports: Exact reader-facing KJV wording, paragraph metadata, supplied-word markup, and complete verse coverage.
2 Samuel 5:6-10, pinned eng-kjv2006 USFM corpus
Supports: Masoretic Hebrew wording, morphology, repeated verbs, names, syntax, and the base text behind translation and textual discussion.
Open Scriptures MorphHB v.2.2, commit 6a5db284c715c18b239422e57bb89684e6a19f00, wlc/2Sam.xml, 5:6-10
Supports: Unit-bounded wording, older-English clarification, textual witnesses, syntax, names, numbers, and major historical or literary notes actually printed for these verses.
NET Bible 2 Samuel PDF, printed pp. 550–552, translation and all translator notes attached to 5:6-10
Supports: Current publisher-visible controls for textual plurality, historical and archaeological limits, David's reception, political power, sexual violence, trauma, and the relationship with Kings and Chronicles; abstract-only chapters carry only their exposed claims.
Oxford Handbook of King David (2026), official Introduction pp. xxiii–xxvii and chapter 3 abstract and bibliographic record, pp. 37–53
Supports: One early-composition and historiographical-optimism proposal, literary structure, source integration, ethical poetics, and the limits of treating the proposal as consensus.
Garsiel, Journal of Hebrew Scriptures 10, article 5 (2010), complete open-access article pp. 1–42, especially the introduction and sections on composition, comparative structure, literary poetics, and historiographical value
Supports: The bounded epigraphic case for reading a house-of-David reference in the Tel Dan inscription, not proof of 2 Samuel's detailed events, territorial scale, or royal morality.
Halpern, 'The Stela from Dan: Epigraphic and Historical Considerations,' Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 296 (1994), pp. 63–80; official bibliographic record and abstract
Sources for This Section
These records identify the source, the claim it supports, and the exact location used. A source remains evidence to evaluate; it does not replace the biblical text.
Biblical text
King James (Authorized) Version — eng-kjv2006
eBible.org and CrossWire Bible Society
USFM archive eng-kjv2006_usfm.zip; source files dated 2026-08-19; downloaded 2026-08-24; archive SHA-256 aec1b3b26c622fd3d963d2bbac963016b9513246ffbfa20da00bb100372ea007; normalized corpus SHA-256 09aef51d90488aa7b9722b3fd9a93f4b25f6bf2064c5fd798fb39673c300ddf2.
Supports: Exact reader-facing KJV wording, paragraph metadata, supplied-word markup, and complete verse coverage.
Exact location: 2 Samuel 5:6-10, pinned eng-kjv2006 USFM corpus
Open source ↗hebrew text and morphology
Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible: 2 Samuel
Open Scriptures
Open Scriptures, release 2.2
Supports: Masoretic Hebrew wording, morphology, repeated verbs, names, syntax, and the base text behind translation and textual discussion.
Exact location: Open Scriptures MorphHB v.2.2, commit 6a5db284c715c18b239422e57bb89684e6a19f00, wlc/2Sam.xml, 5:6-10
Open source ↗translation and translator notes
NET Bible: 2 Samuel with translators' notes
Biblical Studies Press
Biblical Studies Press, 2006
Supports: Unit-bounded wording, older-English clarification, textual witnesses, syntax, names, numbers, and major historical or literary notes actually printed for these verses.
Exact location: NET Bible 2 Samuel PDF, printed pp. 550–552, translation and all translator notes attached to 5:6-10
Open source ↗modern scholarly handbook limited access
The Oxford Handbook of King David
Edited by Mahri Leonard-Fleckman and Christine Mitchell
Oxford University Press, 2026
Supports: Current publisher-visible controls for textual plurality, historical and archaeological limits, David's reception, political power, sexual violence, trauma, and the relationship with Kings and Chronicles; abstract-only chapters carry only their exposed claims.
Exact location: Oxford Handbook of King David (2026), official Introduction pp. xxiii–xxvii and chapter 3 abstract and bibliographic record, pp. 37–53
Open source ↗peer reviewed open access scholarly article
The Book of Samuel: Its Composition, Structure and Significance as a Historiographical Source
Moshe Garsiel
Journal of Hebrew Scriptures 10, article 5, 2010; published online 2011
Supports: One early-composition and historiographical-optimism proposal, literary structure, source integration, ethical poetics, and the limits of treating the proposal as consensus.
Exact location: Garsiel, Journal of Hebrew Scriptures 10, article 5 (2010), complete open-access article pp. 1–42, especially the introduction and sections on composition, comparative structure, literary poetics, and historiographical value
Open source ↗peer reviewed epigraphic article abstract
The Stela from Dan: Epigraphic and Historical Considerations
Baruch Halpern
Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 296, pp. 63-80, 1994
Supports: The bounded epigraphic case for reading a house-of-David reference in the Tel Dan inscription, not proof of 2 Samuel's detailed events, territorial scale, or royal morality.
Exact location: Halpern, 'The Stela from Dan: Epigraphic and Historical Considerations,' Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 296 (1994), pp. 63–80; official bibliographic record and abstract
Open source ↗