18:12 The man replied to Joab, “Even if13 I were receiving14 a thousand pieces of silver,15 I would not strike16 the king’s son! In our very presence17 the king gave this order to you and Abishai and Ittai, ‘Protect the young man Absalom for my sake.’18
tc The Hebrew text is very difficult here. The MT reads מִי (mi, “who”), apparently yielding the following sense: “Show care, whoever you might be, for the youth Absalom.” The SyriacPeshitta reads li (“for me”), the Hebrew counterpart of which may also lie behind the LXX rendering μοι (moi, “for me”). This reading seems preferable here, since it restores sense to the passage and most easily explains the rise of the variant.