Core Glossary

Step 1 — Core Glossary: 2 Samuel

This glossary lists every load-bearing theological term identified in analysis/07_semantic_analysis.md, covering the full book (chapters 1-24) with the core passage (2 Samuel 7:1-17) treated in full verse-level depth. Terms already recorded in the baseline Romans translation_memory.json reuse the baseline’s exact English rendering and risk tier; this glossary adds Old Testament contextual nuance without contradicting the baseline. New terms not present in the baseline are marked [NEW] and are recommended for addition to translation memory following this curriculum’s Phase 1 output.

Risk tiers and categories follow the baseline framework exactly, extended with the fourth category this curriculum requires:

False-friend drift — a dominant secular/legal/contemporary meaning silently displaces the theological sense
Denominational contest — English-speaking Christian traditions disagree on the term’s meaning or implications
Obsolescence/cultural erosion — the term is rare or has been drained of felt weight in ordinary speech
Typological collapse (new, OT-specific) — the term’s original historical-covenantal sense is prematurely equated with its fuller New Testament technical sense, erasing the original audience’s meaning and short-circuiting the NT’s own typological argument

A. Davidic Covenant and the Promise of an Eternal Throne

Term	Original (Hebrew)	Transliteration	Literal / Semantic Meaning	English Variants	Risk Tier	Rendering Risk Notes	Baseline Cross-Reference
house (dynasty sense)	בַּיִת	bayit	dwelling / household / dynasty — triple pun central to ch. 7	house, palace, dynasty, line, household	Critical	Typological collapse + cultural erosion: the pun (temple vs. dynasty) is the chapter’s theological hinge and must be explicitly taught; English “house” retains the pun structurally but readers default to the literal-building sense first	New; related in spirit to baseline `church` (living-house-of-God imagery) but not identical
throne	כִּסֵּא	kisse	royal seat; symbol of dynastic rule	throne, royal seat, reign	Critical	Cultural erosion: dominant contemporary association is a globally popular fantasy-genre media franchise centered on cynical, violent power struggles — the opposite of God’s stable, unilaterally-guaranteed promise; must be actively distinguished	New [NEW]
kingdom	מַמְלָכָה	mamlakah	royal dominion/reign	kingdom, reign, realm	Medium	Typological collapse risk if silently equated with NT basileia tou theou; related but historically distinct concepts converging in Christ	Cf. baseline `kingdom_of_god` (fantasy-fiction drift note applies here too)
forever / everlasting	עַד־עוֹלָם	ad-olam	unending or very long duration depending on context; here pushed toward full eternity by repetition and canonical trajectory	forever, everlasting, eternal	High	False-friend (casual hyperbolic overuse of “forever”) + denominational contest (readings differ on the covenant’s relationship to the exile’s apparent interruption)	New [NEW]; conceptually parallel to baseline’s `resurrection` in requiring plain historical-theological affirmation against dilution
covenant	בְּרִית	berit	binding relational/promissory bond, ranging from human treaties to God’s own covenants	covenant, treaty, pact	High	Reuse baseline `covenant` exactly; additional OT nuance: same word covers both human political covenants (chs. 3, 5) and God’s unconditional covenant with David (ch. 7) — do not conflate registers	Baseline `covenant` (exact reuse)
everlasting covenant	בְּרִית עוֹלָם	berit olam	the fixed technical phrase combining covenant + forever	everlasting covenant, eternal covenant	High	Combination of the two risks above (covenant + olam); David’s own late-life confession (23:5) that God’s promise is “ordered in all things and secure”	Baseline `covenant`; new olam nuance [NEW]
Zion	צִיּוֹן	Tziyon	the captured Jebusite fortress; by extension Jerusalem/City of David	Zion, City of David, Jerusalem	Medium	Contemporary political sensitivity (modern Zionism/Israeli geopolitics) risks overwriting the historical-narrative referent; anchor to the biblical narrative explicitly	Cf. baseline `israel` political-sensitivity note
ark of God / ark of the covenant	אֲרוֹן הָאֱלֹהִים / אֲרוֹן בְּרִית־יְהוָה	aron ha’elohim / aron berit-YHWH	sacred chest, locus of God’s presence	ark of God, ark of the covenant, the ark	Medium	Pop-culture “adventure relic” association (Indiana Jones-type framing) should be anticipated and set aside, similar to baseline’s “Abba”/ABBA note	New [NEW]

B. David’s Sin and Repentance

Term	Original (Hebrew)	Transliteration	Literal / Semantic Meaning	English Variants	Risk Tier	Rendering Risk Notes	Baseline Cross-Reference
sin (chattah root)	חָטָא / חַטָּאת	chata / chattah	to miss the mark; moral failure	sin, wrongdoing	High	Reuse baseline `sin` exactly (trivialization by marketing/casual usage; therapeutic resistance to guilt-language); David’s unqualified confession (12:13) is a positive contemporary model against self-justifying culture	Baseline `sin` (exact reuse)
“evil in the eyes of the LORD”	רַע בְּעֵינֵי יְהוָה	ra be’eyney YHWH	evaluated as evil by God’s own moral perspective	displeased the LORD, evil in God’s sight	High	Reuse baseline `universal_human_accountability` doctrine notes; must not be softened for non-judgmental cultural norms	Baseline `universal_human_accountability` doctrine
”put away” sin / forgiveness	הֶעֱבִיר חַטָּאתְךָ	he’evir chattat’kha	causing sin to pass over/away; removal of immediate penalty	forgiven, sin put away, pardoned	High	Typological collapse risk: do not silently equate with the NT’s fuller forensic `justification`; teach as real but preliminary OT forgiveness pointing forward	Baseline `justification` (distinguish, do not equate)
iniquity	עָוֹן	avon	guilt, moral distortion, bearable liability	iniquity, guilt, wrongdoing	Medium	Distinct from chattah and pesha; English “sin” often flattens all three Hebrew terms into one word, losing meaningful distinctions	Baseline `sin` (family term)

C. Consequences of Sin within the Covenant Family

Term	Original (Hebrew)	Transliteration	Literal / Semantic Meaning	English Variants	Risk Tier	Rendering Risk Notes	Baseline Cross-Reference
”the sword shall never depart from your house”	לֹא־תָסוּר חֶרֶב מִבֵּיתְךָ	lo-tasur cherev mibeit’kha	covenant-curse pronouncement of ongoing generational violent consequence	the sword will never depart, violence will never leave your house	High	Must hold real forgiveness (12:13) and real ongoing consequence (12:10) together without collapsing either; guard against therapeutic-culture aversion to intergenerational consequence-language	New [NEW]; relates to `bayit` (house)
folly / disgrace	נְבָלָה	nevalah	senseless, morally scandalous covenant-community disgrace	disgraceful folly, outrageous wrong	Medium	English “folly” sounds mild/whimsical and understates the term’s true gravity (grave sexual/moral scandal)	New [NEW]
bloodguilt	דָּמִים	damim	liability incurred by unjust bloodshed, potentially trans-generational	bloodguilt, guilt of bloodshed, blood debt	High	Contemporary individualist culture resists corporate/trans-generational guilt; present honestly, don’t smooth over	New [NEW]
inheritance / portion	חֵלֶק / נַחֲלָה	cheleq / nachalah	allotted tribal share/possession	portion, inheritance, share	Medium	Useful contrast case (Sheba’s rejection of inheritance in David) alongside baseline `adoption`’s positive inheritance-rights emphasis	Cf. baseline `adoption` (inheritance rights)
discipline / rod	מוּסָר / שֵׁבֶט	musar / shevet	corrective instruction; a shepherd’s/ruler’s staff	discipline, correction, the rod	Medium	Contested contemporary associations (harshness/abuse vs. accepted parenting method); clarify as loving correction that does not revoke relationship	New [NEW]

D. God’s Steadfast Love despite Human Failure

Term	Original (Hebrew)	Transliteration	Literal / Semantic Meaning	English Variants	Risk Tier	Rendering Risk Notes	Baseline Cross-Reference
steadfast love	חֶסֶד	chesed	loyal, covenant-keeping love/kindness; faithful commitment despite the other party’s failure	steadfast love, unfailing love, lovingkindness, mercy	Critical	[NEW — priority addition to translation memory.] False-friend risk: English “love” defaults to feeling/emotion, not loyal covenant action; under-differentiation risk: readers may collapse this into baseline `grace` and miss its specifically relational, prior-covenant dimension. Central term for this entire doctrine.	New [NEW]; related to, but distinct from, baseline `grace`
favor	חֵן	chen	unearned or relationally-granted goodwill from a superior	favor, grace, “if I find favor”	Medium	Family resemblance to both chesed and baseline `grace`, but a distinct Hebrew term with a moment-specific (not sustained-covenant) nuance; teach the resemblance without asserting technical identity	Baseline `grace` (related, not identical)
cursing	קָלַל	qalal	solemn invocation of harm/disgrace; opposite of blessing	curse, revile, contempt	Medium	Contemporary “cursing” usually means profanity or superstition, not the biblical sense of a solemn judgment-pronouncement	New [NEW]
blessing	בָּרַךְ / בְּרָכָה	barakh / berakah	to speak/enact favor and flourishing over someone	bless, blessing, favor	Low	Minor secular dilution (“blessed” as social-media humblebrag) but core sense recoverable from context	New [NEW]
providence (narrative pattern)	(cf. 2 Sam 16:12; 17:14)	—	God’s personal governance working through ordinary human decisions and events	providence, God’s hand, God’s ordaining	Critical	Reuse baseline `providence` exactly (rare/archaic word; secular “everything happens for a reason” substitute implies impersonal fate, not the personal God of this narrative)	Baseline `providence` (exact reuse)

E. The Messianic Hope Rooted in David’s Line

Term	Original (Hebrew)	Transliteration	Literal / Semantic Meaning	English Variants	Risk Tier	Rendering Risk Notes	Baseline Cross-Reference
offspring / seed	זֶרַע	zera	seed; descendant(s), singular or collective	offspring, descendant, seed	High	Reuse baseline `seed_of_david` exactly. Teach near fulfillment (Solomon) before far fulfillment (Christ); do not collapse the immediate historical referent into an exclusively messianic first reading	Baseline `seed_of_david` (exact reuse)
father / son (2 Sam 7:14)	אָב / בֵּן	av / ben	adoptive, covenantal, royal father-son relationship (disciplinable, non-divine)	father, son	Critical	Do not conflate with baseline `son_of_god` (Christ’s eternal, essential, sinless divine Sonship). This verse’s sonship explicitly includes correction for iniquity — impossible for Christ’s own eternal Sonship. Teach as the adoptive pattern the NT (Hebrews 1:5) typologically escalates in Christ, not as an original direct description of Christ	Baseline `son_of_god` (explicitly distinguish, do not equate)
anointed / the LORD’s anointed	מָשִׁיחַ (יְהוָה)	mashiach (YHWH)	ritually consecrated, divinely designated king (generic sense)	the LORD’s anointed, God’s anointed one	High	Reuse baseline `messiah` entry’s risk framing but flag explicitly: this is the generic royal sense (any anointed Israelite king), not yet the technical eschatological title; reserve capitalized “Messiah” for the baseline’s technical usage	Baseline `messiah` (generic vs. technical sense distinguished)
throne	כִּסֵּא	kisse	(see Section A)	throne	Critical	See Section A entry	New [NEW]
justice and righteousness	מִשְׁפָּט וּצְדָקָה	mishpat u-tzedaqah	fair, socially responsible royal governance	justice and righteousness, justice and equity	High	Typological collapse risk with baseline `righteousness` (forensic, faith-received standing before God); these are related but distinct senses — royal ethical governance here, not Paul’s forensic doctrine	Baseline `righteousness` (distinguish, do not equate)
Spirit of the LORD	רוּחַ יְהוָה	ruach YHWH	God’s Spirit empowering specific individuals for specific tasks	the Spirit of the LORD, God’s Spirit	High	Typological collapse risk with baseline `holy_spirit` (permanent, universal, post-Pentecost personal indwelling); teach real continuity without asserting simple identity	Baseline `holy_spirit` (distinguish, do not equate)
salvation / deliverance	יְשׁוּעָה / יָשַׁע	yeshu’ah / yasha	concrete, this-worldly rescue from enemies; root behind the name Jesus/Yeshua	salvation, deliverance, rescue, victory	Critical	Reuse baseline `salvation` exactly, but note the correction runs in the opposite direction here: this OT usage genuinely IS this-worldly and physical; teach accurately without prematurely spiritualizing OR losing the real linguistic/theological continuity with the NT doctrine	Baseline `salvation` (exact reuse, opposite-direction caution)

F. Supporting / General Narrative Terms (reused across multiple chapters, no separate doctrine section required)

Term	Original (Hebrew)	Transliteration	Literal / Semantic Meaning	English Variants	Risk Tier	Rendering Risk Notes	Baseline Cross-Reference
rest	נוּחַ	nuach	ceasing from conflict; secure covenantal settledness	rest, peace, respite	Medium	Contemporary “rest” defaults to wellness/self-care sense rather than covenantal military-political security	Cf. baseline `peace`
word of the LORD	דְּבַר־יְהוָה	devar-YHWH	technical formula for authoritative divine revelation	the word of the LORD, divine revelation	Medium	Reuse baseline `inspiration_of_scripture` doctrine notes (secular “human literary product” framing)	Baseline `inspiration_of_scripture` doctrine
servant	עֶבֶד	eved	honorific royal/covenantal title, not menial status	servant, my servant	Medium	Contemporary “servant” implies menial/historical-slavery status, inverting the intended honorific sense	New [NEW]
shepherd	רָעָה	ra’ah	royal metaphor for just, protective, provisioning rule	shepherd, tend, pastor	Medium	Flattened to literal agricultural job title in contemporary usage; unpack the royal-care metaphor explicitly (bridge: derived word “pastor”)	New [NEW]
prince	נָגִיד	nagid	divinely designated ruler, distinct from hereditary “king”	prince, ruler, leader	Medium	Contemporary “prince” evokes hereditary/monarchical entitlement or Machiavellian strategy, obscuring the divine-designation sense	New [NEW]
name (shem)	שֵׁם	shem	reputation/legacy across generations, God-granted not self-achieved	name, reputation, renown, legacy	Medium	Contemporary “making a name for yourself” is self-driven/self-promotional; reversal (God grants it) must be stated explicitly	Cf. baseline `calling` (God’s initiative, not self-actualization)
holy	קָדוֹשׁ	qadosh	set apart for God; here also carries a strong ritual-danger dimension (Uzzah, ch. 6)	holy, set apart	Medium	Reuse baseline `holy` exactly; add OT’s fuller ritual-purity/danger dimension without contradicting the baseline’s moral/relational emphasis	Baseline `holy` (exact reuse, expanded nuance)
lament	קִינָה	qinah	formal funeral dirge genre	lament, dirge, elegy	Low	Minor obsolescence risk (unfamiliar literary genre); no competing false meaning	New [NEW]
atonement	כָּפַר	kaphar	to cover, appease, wipe away guilt; resolves bloodguilt/covenant offense	atonement, make amends, appease, expiate	Critical	Typological collapse risk: historically specific OT remedy (ch. 21, ch. 24); do not present as a direct template for or equivalent to Christ’s atonement — broader thematic trajectory only. Also: modern readers may find the ch. 21 remedy morally troubling and require careful historical-covenantal framing	New [NEW]; conceptually upstream of baseline’s `imputed_righteousness` and `justification`
burnt offerings and peace offerings	עֹלוֹת וּשְׁלָמִים	olot u-shelamim	sacrificial categories: total consecration; restored fellowship	burnt offerings, peace/fellowship offerings	Medium	Obsolescence risk: technical sacrificial-system vocabulary unfamiliar to most contemporary readers; needs brief definition	New [NEW]
census / numbering	פָּקַד	paqad	military muster; here a sinful act of self-reliant pride	census, numbering, muster	High	The text’s ascription of incitement to God’s anger (24:1) requires careful, honest handling of divine sovereignty and human moral responsibility (cf. 1 Chronicles 21:1’s “Satan” parallel) rather than silent smoothing-over	New [NEW]
mighty men	גִּבּוֹרִים	gibborim	David’s elite warrior corps	mighty men, champions, “the Thirty”	Low	Minor risk of superhero/fantasy-genre misreading rather than historical military honor	New [NEW]

Glossary Notes for Phase 2

Priority new terms for translation memory versioning: chesed (steadfast love), bayit (house/dynasty pun), kisse (throne), kaphar (atonement), and the 2 Samuel 7:14 father/son (adoptive royal sonship) entry are the five highest-priority additions, given their Critical risk tier and centrality to this curriculum’s five doctrines.
Every Critical-risk term above requires human theologian review per the baseline’s routing rules, consistent with doctrine_risk_registry.json’s escalation framework.
Typological collapse flags (Section E primarily) should be routed with an explicit instruction to reviewers: confirm the curriculum teaches the Old Testament sense first, on its own terms, before drawing the New Testament connection — never the reverse.
This glossary does not restate baseline entries already fully defined in translation_memory.json and bible_term_registry.json (e.g., gospel, god, jesus, holy_spirit as headwords) except where 2 Samuel’s Old Testament usage requires an explicit nuance not covered by the baseline’s New Testament-oriented notes.

Critical Risk Terms

Grace

Approved rendering: grace
Transliteration: grace
Doctrine: Grace
Rejected alternatives: elegance/poise (the dominant secular sense), a grace period (the dominant legal/financial sense)

Inherited from Romans package (baseline: unmerited favor from God toward sinners; Critical false-friend and denominational-contest risk). 2 Samuel extension: this book’s central covenant-loyalty term, steadfast love (chesed), is a related but distinct concept — chesed presupposes an existing covenant relationship being kept faithfully, whereas grace as defined here is favor extended more generally to the undeserving. Do not silently collapse chesed into this entry; see ‘steadfast_love’ below.

Salvation

Approved rendering: salvation
Transliteration: salvation
Doctrine: Salvation
Rejected alternatives: being saved (contested denominational shorthand), rescue (too generic a gloss on its own)

Inherited from Romans package (baseline: deliverance and reconciliation with God through Christ’s death and resurrection; must not be conflated with a this-worldly notion of well-being). 2 Samuel extension: the correction runs in the opposite direction here — 2 Samuel 22’s ‘salvation’ (yeshu’ah) genuinely IS concrete, this-worldly, military deliverance from real enemies, and should be taught accurately as such without prematurely spiritualizing it into the New Testament’s eternal doctrine, while still noting the real linguistic and theological continuity (the root behind the name Joshua/Yeshua/Jesus).

Righteousness

Approved rendering: righteousness
Transliteration: righteousness
Doctrine: Salvation
Rejected alternatives: self-righteous / holier-than-thou

Inherited from Romans package (baseline: right standing before God received through faith, not achieved through works). 2 Samuel extension: 8:15’s ‘justice and righteousness’ (mishpat u-tzedaqah) is an identical English headword but a this-worldly royal-governance-ethics sense, not Paul’s forensic doctrine; teach both as related through God’s own righteous character but never as interchangeable technical terms. See ‘justice_and_righteousness’ below.

Justification

Approved rendering: justification
Transliteration: justification
Doctrine: Salvation
Rejected alternatives: justifying your answer / justifying an action

Inherited from Romans package (baseline: God’s forensic declaration that a believer is righteous). 2 Samuel extension: David’s forgiveness at 12:13 (‘the LORD has put away your sin’) is real but must not be silently equated with this fuller, once-for-all forensic doctrine — David’s penalty is turned aside within an ongoing relationship of discipline (12:10-14), not a permanent declared-righteous status grounded in Christ’s atoning work, which had not yet been accomplished at this point in redemptive history. See ‘put_away_sin’ below.

Lord

Approved rendering: Lord
Transliteration: Lord
Doctrine: Lordship of Christ
Rejected alternatives: boss / master, a British Lord

Inherited from Romans package (baseline: kyrios, exclusive supreme authority). 2 Samuel extension: this book’s dominant divine title is not kyrios/adonai but the personal covenant name YHWH, conventionally rendered small-capitals ‘LORD’ — a typographically distinct entry from this one. See ‘lord_yhwh’ below; do not conflate the title-sense documented here with the personal-name sense documented there.

Son Of God

Approved rendering: Son of God
Transliteration: Son of God
Doctrine: Sonship of Christ

Inherited from Romans package (baseline: Christ’s eternal, unique, co-equal divine Sonship; must not read as metaphorical, adoptive, or honorary). 2 Samuel extension: 2 Samuel 7:14’s adoptive, disciplinable royal father-son formula (‘when he commits iniquity, I will discipline him’) is the highest-stakes typological-collapse risk in this curriculum — do not render or teach 7:14 as if it originally and directly describes this baseline doctrine. See ‘father_son_davidic’ below, which must always be taught first, on its own terms, before any New Testament connection is drawn.

Holy Spirit

Approved rendering: Holy Spirit
Transliteration: Holy Spirit
Doctrine: Sanctification
Rejected alternatives: good vibes / positive energy

Inherited from Romans package (baseline: a specific, personal, divine Person who permanently indwells every believer, a post-Pentecost reality). 2 Samuel extension: 23:2’s ‘the Spirit of the LORD speaks by me’ reflects the Old Testament’s occasional, task-specific empowerment pattern for particular individuals at particular times, not yet the baseline’s fuller doctrine of universal, permanent indwelling; teach real continuity of the same divine Person without asserting simple identity of experience. See ‘spirit_of_the_lord’ below.

Providence

Approved rendering: providence
Transliteration: providence
Doctrine: Providence
Rejected alternatives: everything happens for a reason, Providence (the city in Rhode Island)
Original: cf. 2 Samuel 16:12; 17:14 (no single fixed Hebrew term; the theological name for God’s governance of ordinary events)
Category: God’s Steadfast Love

Inherited from Romans package (baseline: God’s personal, purposive governance; the word is now rare/archaic, and the folk-spiritual substitute ‘everything happens for a reason’ implies an impersonal cosmic mechanism, not a personal God). 2 Samuel extension: David’s submission to Shimei’s cursing (16:5-14) and the narrated defeat of Ahithophel’s counsel (‘for the LORD had ordained to defeat the good counsel of Ahithophel,’ 17:14) are this book’s clearest narrative illustrations and must be taught as instances of a personal God’s purposive governance working through, not overriding, real human agency.

God

Approved rendering: God
Transliteration: God
Doctrine: Deity of Christ
Rejected alternatives: a higher power, the universe
Original: אֱלֹהִים
Category: God

Inherited from Romans package (baseline: the one true, personal, self-revealing God, not a vague placeholder concept). 2 Samuel extension: 2 Samuel 7’s God is the specific covenant God who initiates every term of the Davidic promise entirely unprompted, choosing David from the sheepfold — the entire chapter’s grace-not-merit logic depends on this initiating, unprompted divine agency being made explicit.

Church

Approved rendering: church
Transliteration: church
Doctrine: Church as God’s People

Inherited from Romans package (baseline: the living, Spirit-indwelt people of God, not a declining institution or a building). 2 Samuel extension: this book’s ‘house’ (bayit) wordplay — a physical dwelling, a household, and a royal dynasty all in one word (ch. 7) — is a distant conceptual cousin of this doctrine’s living-household-of-God imagery, but the two must not be treated as identical; 2 Samuel’s ‘house’ is a royal dynasty promise, not the New Testament church. See ‘house_dynasty’ below.

House Dynasty

Approved rendering: house
Transliteration: bayit
Doctrine: The Davidic Covenant and the Promise of an Eternal Throne
Rejected alternatives: dynasty/lineage alone (loses the deliberate ambiguity with the literal-building sense the wordplay depends on), temple alone (collapses the pun prematurely)
Original: בַּיִת
Category: Covenant

NEW TERM. A single Hebrew word covering three senses 2 Samuel 7 deliberately exploits at once: a physical dwelling/building, a household, and a royal dynasty. David proposes to build God a bayit (temple); God instead promises to build David a bayit (dynasty) — the chapter’s central theological reversal. English ‘house’ preserves the pun structurally (as in ‘the House of Windsor’), a genuine asset, but contemporary readers default overwhelmingly to the literal-building sense first and will miss the wordplay unless it is explicitly flagged at every occurrence (7:2, 5, 11, 13, 16). TYPOLOGICAL COLLAPSE risk: without this flagging, the passage’s grace-precedes-and-exceeds-human-initiative logic collapses into a flat succession announcement.

Throne

Approved rendering: throne
Transliteration: kisse
Doctrine: The Davidic Covenant and the Promise of an Eternal Throne
Rejected alternatives: royal seat (an accurate but overly clinical gloss that loses rhetorical weight)
Original: כִּסֵּא
Category: Covenant

NEW TERM. The royal seat, and by extension dynastic rule itself; God promises to establish David’s throne ‘forever’ (7:13, 16). CULTURAL EROSION risk: for contemporary English-speaking audiences, especially younger readers, the dominant association with the exact word ‘throne’ is a globally popular fantasy-genre media franchise centered on cynical, violent, zero-sum struggles for power — nearly the opposite of God’s stable, unconditional, unilaterally-guaranteed promise here. Must be actively and explicitly distinguished on first substantive use in every document, not assumed neutral.

Steadfast Love

Approved rendering: steadfast love
Transliteration: chesed
Doctrine: God’s Steadfast Love despite Human Failure
Rejected alternatives: unfailing love / lovingkindness (acceptable established-translation variants, use only when directly quoting a cited Bible version), mercy (undersells the loyalty/faithfulness component), love (too generic; defaults to feeling/emotion)
Original: חֶסֶד
Category: Steadfast Love

PRIORITY NEW TERM. Loyal, covenant-keeping love and kindness; faithful commitment that persists despite the other party’s failure (7:15; also chs. 2, 9, 19, 22). Not recorded in the Romans baseline. Double grounded risk: (1) FALSE-FRIEND — ordinary English ‘love’ is read as feeling/emotion, not loyal covenant action; (2) UNDER-DIFFERENTIATION from the baseline’s Critical-risk ‘grace’ entry — readers may collapse chesed into generic unmerited favor, missing its specifically relational, prior-covenant-loyalty dimension (contrasted explicitly with Saul, from whom it was withdrawn, 7:15). Fixed, consistent rendering required across all lesson material; always gloss on first use per document as ‘covenant loyalty-love.‘

Father Son Davidic

Approved rendering: father / son
Transliteration: av / ben
Doctrine: The Messianic Hope Rooted in David’s Line
Rejected alternatives: eternal divine Sonship (explicitly rejected as the original sense of this verse — see notes)
Original: אָב / בֵּן
Category: Messianic Hope

PRIORITY NEW TERM. An adoptive, covenantal, royal father-son relationship conferred on the Davidic king (7:14): ‘I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son. When he commits iniquity, I will discipline him.’ This is the single highest-stakes term-pairing in the book for doctrinal precision. Hebrews 1:5 quotes this verse of Christ, but the New Testament’s own argument depends on first establishing that the original sense here is adoptive, disciplinable, royal sonship — explicitly including correction for iniquity, impossible for Christ’s sinless, eternal, divine Sonship (baseline son_of_god entry). Do not render or teach 7:14 as if it originally and directly describes Christ’s own eternal Sonship; teach it as the adoptive pattern (fulfilled immediately in Solomon) the New Testament typologically escalates in Christ.

Salvation Deliverance

Approved rendering: salvation
Transliteration: yeshu’ah / yasha
Doctrine: The Messianic Hope Rooted in David’s Line
Rejected alternatives: deliverance/rescue (acceptable synonyms; do not substitute where ‘salvation’ is used to maintain the linguistic link to the baseline term)
Original: יְשׁוּעָה / יָשַׁע
Category: Messianic Hope

Reuses the baseline salvation entry exactly (see above) applied to this book’s distinct usage: concrete, this-worldly rescue from enemies (David’s victory hymn, 22:2-3), the historical-linguistic root behind the baseline’s New Testament doctrine and the name Joshua/Yeshua/Jesus. Teach accurately as physical, historical deliverance without either prematurely spiritualizing it or losing its real continuity with the fuller doctrine.

Atonement

Approved rendering: atonement
Transliteration: kaphar
Doctrine: Atonement and Sacrifice
Rejected alternatives: appeasement (too transactional, loses the covenant-restoration dimension), Christ’s atonement (explicitly rejected as a direct equivalence — see notes)
Original: כָּפַר
Category: Worship and Sacrifice

PRIORITY NEW TERM. To cover, appease, or wipe away guilt; the root behind Yom Kippur (‘Day of Atonement’). David asks, ‘How shall I make atonement?’ for Saul’s broken Gibeonite oath (21:3), resolved through the execution of seven of Saul’s descendants. Not present in the Romans baseline. Two converging risks: (1) contemporary readers may find the specific remedy morally troubling without covenant-oath context; (2) readers may over-hastily read this episode as directly prefiguring or equivalent to Christ’s substitutionary atonement, when the connection is a broader thematic trajectory (the seriousness of bloodguilt requiring costly resolution), not a one-to-one typological equation. Both risks require explicit framing, never silent smoothing or silent equation.

Lord Yhwh

Approved rendering: LORD
Transliteration: YHWH
Doctrine: The Davidic Covenant and the Promise of an Eternal Throne
Rejected alternatives: Jehovah (a documented cult/sect rendering — see analysis/05_translation_landscape.md Section 3 on the New World Translation; NEVER use), Yahweh (breaks established English Bible small-capitals convention without added benefit)
Original: יְהוָה
Category: God

NEW TERM. The personal, covenant name of God, conventionally rendered small-capitals ‘LORD’ in English Bible translation, distinct from adonai/kyrios (‘Lord,’ a title — see baseline lord entry). Casual English readers do not reliably track the typographic distinction between small-capitals ‘LORD’ (the divine name) and title-case ‘Lord’; make explicit at least once per document that this is God’s own personal, self-revealed name bound to Israel by covenant, not merely a generic honorific. FORBIDDEN SUBSTITUTION: never render as ‘Jehovah,’ the documented Jehovah’s Witness New World Translation practice that obscures the New Testament’s own application of Old Testament divine-name texts to Christ.

High Risk Terms

Covenant

Approved rendering: covenant
Transliteration: covenant
Doctrine: Davidic Covenant
Rejected alternatives: a restrictive covenant (the dominant contemporary legal sense: a binding clause in a property deed, employment contract, or loan agreement)
Original: בְּרִית
Category: Covenant

Inherited from Romans package (baseline: relational covenant bond, more than a legal contract; most contemporary English speakers now encounter ‘covenant’ chiefly in real estate or contract law). 2 Samuel extension: the same English and Hebrew word covers both purely human political treaties (3:12-13, 21; 5:3) and God’s unconditional, unilateral covenant with David (ch. 7) — readers must be taught these are not the same kind of promise despite the identical word.

Holy

Approved rendering: holy
Transliteration: holy
Doctrine: Sanctification
Rejected alternatives: holier-than-thou, holy cow / holy moly
Original: קָדוֹשׁ
Category: Worship and Sacrifice

Inherited from Romans package (baseline: set apart for God; morally pure; survives mainly in negative idiom or content-free exclamation). 2 Samuel extension: Uzzah’s death for touching the ark (6:6-7) displays the Old Testament’s fuller emphasis on the danger of God’s holy presence alongside the moral sense; teach both dimensions as part of Scripture’s complete portrait of holiness without contradicting the baseline’s moral/relational emphasis.

Sin

Approved rendering: sin
Transliteration: sin
Doctrine: Universal Human Accountability
Rejected alternatives: sinfully delicious / my one sin (trivialized marketing usage)
Original: חָטָא / חַטָּאת
Category: Sin and Repentance

Inherited from Romans package (baseline: real moral guilt before a personal God, trivialized by marketing usage and resisted by non-judgmental therapeutic culture). 2 Samuel extension: David’s unqualified, undefended confession (‘I have sinned against the LORD,’ 12:13) is the Old Testament’s paradigm of genuine repentance and a positive contemporary model against a culture that prizes self-justification and reputation management — the very behavior David himself modeled one chapter earlier.

Seed Of David

Approved rendering: seed of David
Transliteration: seed of David
Doctrine: Davidic Covenant
Rejected alternatives: descendant of David (acceptable modern-register gloss)
Original: זֶרַע
Category: Messianic Hope

Inherited from Romans package (baseline: physical descent from David fulfilling the Davidic covenant, requiring supplied OT background). 2 Samuel extension: this curriculum’s core passage (7:12) is the very covenant text the baseline entry presupposes, which elevates risk above the baseline’s Medium tier — teach the near fulfillment (Solomon, confirmed by 1 Kings 8) before the far fulfillment (Christ), presenting the latter as the New Testament’s own typological move, never the passage’s plain original sense to Nathan’s audience.

Imputed Righteousness

Approved rendering: imputed righteousness
Transliteration: imputed righteousness
Doctrine: Justification by Faith
Rejected alternatives: earned righteousness / good-person status

Inherited from Romans package (baseline: righteousness credited by faith, not earned by behavior). 2 Samuel extension: chapter 21’s and 24’s atonement/sacrifice episodes (kaphar) are conceptually upstream of, but not identical to, this doctrine — they resolve a specific historical covenant-oath violation through a specific ancient remedy, not a forensic crediting of righteousness. See ‘atonement’ below for the required distinction.

Resurrection

Approved rendering: resurrection
Transliteration: resurrection
Doctrine: Resurrection of Christ
Rejected alternatives: Easter (the commercialized cultural holiday sense)

Inherited from Romans package (baseline: real, bodily, historical event, not myth or metaphor). 2 Samuel extension: the covenant’s ‘forever’ language (7:13, 16) and David’s own confident trust that God’s promise persists beyond his own death and ‘lying down with his fathers’ (7:12) belong to the same larger biblical trajectory of hope beyond death that culminates in this doctrine; teach the connection as a trajectory, not an equivalence — 2 Samuel 7 itself makes no explicit resurrection claim.

Calling

Approved rendering: calling
Transliteration: calling
Doctrine: Divine Calling
Rejected alternatives: finding your calling (career-vocation secular sense)

Inherited from Romans package (baseline: God’s initiative, not self-actualized career vocation). 2 Samuel extension: 7:9’s promise that God himself will make David’s ‘name’ great parallels this doctrine’s direction-of-agency principle — God grants the name/reputation rather than David achieving it through self-promotion, a reversal of the contemporary ‘making a name for yourself’ idiom. See ‘name_shem’ below.

Forever Everlasting

Approved rendering: forever
Transliteration: ad-olam
Doctrine: The Davidic Covenant and the Promise of an Eternal Throne
Rejected alternatives: a long time (undersells the term’s full canonical trajectory toward genuine eternity)
Original: עַד־עוֹלָם
Category: Covenant

NEW TERM. ‘Unto forever’; can denote a long but bounded duration or genuine unending eternity depending on context — the threefold repetition (7:13, 16) and the whole canon’s trajectory push toward the fullest sense here. FALSE-FRIEND risk: casual contemporary English drastically overuses ‘forever’ as hyperbole (‘this is taking forever’), flattening its force. DENOMINATIONAL CONTEST: English-speaking traditions differ (dispensationalist, covenantal, amillennial, premillennial) on how this ‘forever’ language relates to the apparent historical rupture of the exile; this curriculum states the covenant persists through the exile and is fulfilled, not annulled, in Christ, while noting other readings exist.

Everlasting Covenant

Approved rendering: everlasting covenant
Transliteration: berit olam
Doctrine: The Davidic Covenant and the Promise of an Eternal Throne
Rejected alternatives: eternal covenant (acceptable synonym, less traditional)
Original: בְּרִית עוֹלָם
Category: Covenant

NEW TERM. David’s own late-life summary of God’s chapter 7 promise (23:5): ‘he has made with me an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things and secure.’ Combines the risks of ‘covenant’ and ‘forever’ above. Grounded teaching value: models trust that does not depend on the human party’s own perfect performance (‘though my house is not so with God,’ 23:5) — a direct restatement of the steadfast-love doctrine.

Put Away Sin

Approved rendering: put away
Transliteration: he’evir chattat’kha
Doctrine: David’s Sin and Repentance
Rejected alternatives: justified (rejected — see justification cross-reference)
Original: הֶעֱבִיר חַטָּאתְךָ
Category: Sin and Repentance

NEW TERM. ‘The LORD has caused your sin to pass over/away’ (12:13) — forgiveness expressed as removal of immediate penalty. TYPOLOGICAL COLLAPSE risk: must not be silently equated with the baseline’s fuller doctrine of justification, a permanent forensic declaration grounded in Christ’s atoning work not yet accomplished at this point in redemptive history. Teach as real but preliminary Old Testament forgiveness, pointing forward to, not identical with, the New Testament doctrine.

Sword Never Depart

Approved rendering: the sword shall never depart from your house
Transliteration: lo-tasur cherev mibeit’kha
Doctrine: Consequences of Sin within the Covenant Family
Rejected alternatives: violence will never leave your family (acceptable plain-language gloss)
Original: לֹא־תָסוּר חֶרֶב מִבֵּיתְךָ
Category: Consequences within the Covenant Family

NEW TERM. A covenant-curse-style pronouncement of ongoing, generational violent consequence (12:10), using ‘house’ again in its dynastic sense. Frames the violent chain across chapters 13, 15-18, and 20 as covenantally patterned discipline, not random narrative violence. Contemporary readers shaped by therapeutic culture’s aversion to intergenerational consequence-language may read this as harsh cruelty rather than sin’s real unfolding damage; must be taught together with, not instead of, the genuine forgiveness granted in the very same scene (12:13).

Bloodguilt

Approved rendering: bloodguilt
Transliteration: damim
Doctrine: Consequences of Sin within the Covenant Family
Rejected alternatives: blood debt (acceptable synonym, less established)
Original: דָּמִים
Category: Consequences within the Covenant Family

NEW TERM. Liability incurred by unjust bloodshed, potentially extending across generations and outliving the original offender; Saul’s broken Gibeonite oath brings a national famine a generation later (21:1). Contemporary Western individualist culture resists corporate/trans-generational guilt; present honestly, with the covenant-oath seriousness and corporate solidarity of ancient Israel explained, rather than smoothed over for modern comfort.

Anointed

Approved rendering: the LORD’s anointed
Transliteration: mashiach (YHWH)
Doctrine: The Messianic Hope Rooted in David’s Line
Rejected alternatives: the Messiah (anachronistic capitalized technical title — see baseline messiah entry)
Original: מָשִׁיחַ (יְהוָה)
Category: Messianic Hope

NEW TERM. A ritually consecrated, divinely designated king; used of Saul even after his rejection (1:14-16) and of David (2:4; 22:51) — the generic royal sense, not yet the narrowed technical eschatological title. Render lowercase as ‘the LORD’s anointed’ / ‘God’s anointed one’ in every 2 Samuel occurrence; never substitute the baseline’s capitalized ‘Messiah,’ which would be anachronistic and would flatten the very distinction the New Testament’s own typological argument depends on.

Justice And Righteousness

Approved rendering: justice and righteousness
Transliteration: mishpat u-tzedaqah
Doctrine: The Messianic Hope Rooted in David’s Line
Rejected alternatives: justice and equity (acceptable synonym pairing)
Original: מִשְׁפָּט וּצְדָקָה
Category: Messianic Hope

NEW TERM. A fixed royal-administration word pair describing fair, socially responsible governance; summarizes the ideal of David’s reign (8:15) and later Isaiah’s Davidic-king expectation (9:7; 11:4-5). The English word ‘righteousness’ is identical to the baseline’s Romans headword, but this sense (royal social ethics) must not be silently equated with Paul’s forensic ‘declared righteous by faith apart from works’ doctrine — a genuine typological-collapse risk given the identical spelling.

Spirit Of The Lord

Approved rendering: the Spirit of the LORD
Transliteration: ruach YHWH
Doctrine: The Messianic Hope Rooted in David’s Line
Rejected alternatives: the Holy Spirit (do not substitute without the OT/NT distinction noted — see baseline holy_spirit entry)
Original: רוּחַ יְהוָה
Category: Messianic Hope

NEW TERM. God’s Spirit empowering, inspiring, and equipping a specific individual for a specific task at a specific time; David claims this for his own final oracle (23:2). Must be presented as real continuity with, but not simple identity with, the baseline’s fuller doctrine of the Spirit’s permanent, personal, universal indwelling of every believer, a post-Pentecost reality (cf. Romans 8).

Census

Approved rendering: census
Transliteration: paqad
Doctrine: Human Responsibility and Divine Sovereignty
Rejected alternatives: muster (accurate military term, less familiar to general readers)
Original: פָּקַד
Category: Providence and Human Responsibility

NEW TERM. To visit, appoint, number, or muster; here specifically a military troop census presented as a sinful act of self-reliant pride (24:1-10). The chapter’s difficult ascription of the incitement to ‘the anger of the LORD’ (24:1), alongside 1 Chronicles 21:1’s parallel attribution to Satan, requires careful, honest handling of divine sovereignty and human moral responsibility together — David remains fully accountable even as the text attributes the incitement to God’s anger. Must not be silently smoothed over.

Evil In The Eyes Of The Lord

Approved rendering: evil in the eyes of the LORD
Transliteration: ra be’eyney YHWH
Doctrine: David’s Sin and Repentance
Rejected alternatives: a mistake / a lapse in judgment (softens the verdict impermissibly)
Original: רַע בְּעֵינֵי יְהוָה
Category: Sin and Repentance

NEW TERM. A recurring biblical idiom evaluating an act by God’s own moral perspective rather than by human or social consequence; the narrator’s blunt verdict on David’s adultery and Uriah’s murder (11:27). Directly connects to the baseline’s Universal Human Accountability doctrine. Contemporary non-judgmental therapeutic culture resists any external, God’s-eye moral evaluation; this idiom’s plain, unmitigated verdict must be preserved without softening, despite David’s political success in concealing the acts from human eyes.

Medium Risk Terms

Father

Approved rendering: Father
Transliteration: Father
Doctrine: Adoption into God’s Family

Inherited from Romans package (baseline: God as personal Father to believers; minor denominational note re: Catholic priestly address; pastoral sensitivity for readers with painful human father figures). 2 Samuel extension: 2 Samuel 7:14 uses ‘father’ of God’s relationship to the Davidic king specifically, a distinct adoptive-royal-covenant sense from the baseline’s general believer-adoption doctrine; see ‘father_son_davidic’ for the required disambiguation.

Messiah

Approved rendering: Messiah
Transliteration: Messiah
Doctrine: Messianic Promise
Rejected alternatives: a messiah complex (pop-psychology pejorative)

Inherited from Romans package (baseline: the capitalized, technical, singular eschatological title fulfilled exclusively in Jesus). 2 Samuel extension: 2 Samuel’s own usage of mashiach (‘the LORD’s anointed,’ applied even to the rejected Saul, 1:14-16) is the generic ritual-designation sense, not yet this technical title. Reserve capitalized ‘Messiah’ strictly for the baseline’s New Testament usage; render 2 Samuel’s occurrences lowercase as ‘the LORD’s anointed.’ See ‘anointed’ below.

Kingdom Of God

Approved rendering: kingdom of God
Transliteration: kingdom of God
Doctrine: Kingdom Mission
Rejected alternatives: a fantasy kingdom (contemporary media associations)

Inherited from Romans package (baseline: God’s sovereign reign advancing through the gospel; fantasy-fiction drift risk for younger readers). 2 Samuel extension: Solomon’s earthly mamlakah (7:12-13) is the immediate historical referent behind this New Testament trajectory — a historically distinct but theologically converging concept. State the relationship explicitly; do not collapse the two. See ‘kingdom_mamlakah’ below.

Peace

Approved rendering: peace
Transliteration: peace
Doctrine: Peace with God
Rejected alternatives: world peace / inner peace

Inherited from Romans package (baseline: relational, judicial peace with God through justification, distinct from political or therapeutic senses). 2 Samuel extension: 7:1’s ‘rest’ (nuach) is a related but distinct term — covenantal military-political security in the land, not this book’s own occurrence of ‘peace’ per se. See ‘rest’ below for the specific disambiguation this book requires.

Power Of God

Approved rendering: power of God
Transliteration: power of God
Doctrine: Power of God for Salvation

Inherited from Romans package (baseline: God’s power specifically for salvation, distinguished from the largely negative secular power discourse). 2 Samuel extension: ‘LORD of hosts’ (YHWH tseva’ot, 7:8) is this book’s martial-sovereignty title expressing the same divine power in a military-command register; see ‘lord_of_hosts’ below.

Israel

Approved rendering: Israel
Transliteration: Israel
Doctrine: Unity of Jews and Gentiles
Original: יִשְׂרָאֵל
Category: Covenant

Inherited from Romans package (baseline: standard proper name; note the modern nation-state’s live political contest in contemporary discourse). 2 Samuel extension: ‘Zion’ (5:7), David’s captured Jebusite fortress and the seat of his throne, carries the same contemporary political-sensitivity risk (modern ‘Zionism’) and should be anchored explicitly to the historical narrative referent. See ‘zion’ below.

Jesus

Approved rendering: Jesus
Transliteration: Jesus
Doctrine: Lordship of Christ
Rejected alternatives: Jesus (as a casual interjection/expletive)

Inherited from Romans package (baseline: stable proper name; guard against ‘historical Jesus’ framings that strip out divine claims). 2 Samuel extension: this curriculum’s Messianic Hope doctrine must present Christ as the New Testament’s own typological escalation of the Davidic pattern (Hebrews 1:5’s use of 7:14), never as though 2 Samuel 7 originally and directly names or describes Jesus to Nathan’s audience.

Kingdom Mamlakah

Approved rendering: kingdom
Transliteration: mamlakah
Doctrine: The Davidic Covenant and the Promise of an Eternal Throne
Rejected alternatives: reign/realm alone (acceptable near-synonyms, but ‘kingdom’ remains the standard established rendering)

NEW TERM. Royal dominion or reign; Solomon’s earthly kingdom is the immediate referent of 7:12-13. TYPOLOGICAL COLLAPSE risk with the baseline’s kingdom_of_god entry: mamlakah must not be silently treated as simply identical to the New Testament’s basileia tou theou; state the historically distinct but theologically converging relationship rather than collapsing it. Also shares baseline kingdom_of_god’s fantasy-fiction drift risk for readers whose primary ‘kingdom’ association is imaginative media.

Zion

Approved rendering: Zion
Transliteration: Tziyon
Doctrine: The Davidic Covenant and the Promise of an Eternal Throne
Rejected alternatives: Jerusalem alone (loses the specific captured-fortress narrative referent)
Original: צִיּוֹן
Category: Covenant

NEW TERM. Originally the Jebusite fortress David captures (5:7); by extension the City of David/Jerusalem, later a theologically loaded name for God’s dwelling place and the seat of the Davidic throne. Contemporary political sensitivity around modern ‘Zionism’ and Israeli geopolitics risks overwriting the historical-narrative referent; anchor explicitly to David’s captured city in the narrative, per the baseline’s parallel caution on ‘Israel.‘

Ark Of God

Approved rendering: ark of God
Transliteration: aron ha’elohim
Doctrine: Holiness and God’s Presence
Rejected alternatives: the ark of the covenant (fuller, also acceptable form)
Original: אֲרוֹן הָאֱלֹהִים / אֲרוֹן בְּרִית־יְהוָה
Category: Worship and Sacrifice

NEW TERM. The sacred wooden chest housing the tablets of the covenant, the locus of God’s manifest presence among Israel (ch. 6; 7:2; 15:24-29). Not present in the Romans baseline. Risk is chiefly a pop-culture association: contemporary readers may recall ‘the ark’ primarily from adventure-film treasure-hunt narratives rather than as the sign of God’s covenant presence; this association should be anticipated and explicitly set aside, similar to the baseline’s handling of ‘Abba’/the pop group ABBA.

Iniquity

Approved rendering: iniquity
Transliteration: avon
Doctrine: David’s Sin and Repentance
Original: עָוֹן
Category: Sin and Repentance

NEW TERM. Guilt, crookedness, moral distortion, and the resulting liability for it; distinct from chattah (‘sin,’ missing the mark) and pesha (‘transgression,’ rebellion). Used in 7:14 of the future sin of David’s descendants. English commonly flattens all three distinct Hebrew terms into one undifferentiated ‘sin’/‘iniquity,’ losing meaningful moral-taxonomy distinctions the Hebrew text preserves.

Folly

Approved rendering: folly
Transliteration: nevalah
Doctrine: Consequences of Sin within the Covenant Family
Rejected alternatives: poor judgment (drastically understates the term)
Original: נְבָלָה
Category: Consequences within the Covenant Family

NEW TERM. Senselessness, moral disgrace, an outrageous violation of covenant decency — Tamar’s own word (13:12) for Amnon’s coming assault. Contemporary English ‘folly’ sounds mild and whimsical and drastically understates the term’s actual gravity as a grave moral scandal; retain ‘folly’ for consistency with established English Bible translation tradition but pair it every time with a strengthening gloss such as ‘an outrageous, disgraceful wrong.‘

Inheritance Portion

Approved rendering: inheritance
Transliteration: cheleq / nachalah
Doctrine: Consequences of Sin within the Covenant Family
Rejected alternatives: share/portion alone (acceptable, less common in established translation)
Original: חֵלֶק / נַחֲלָה
Category: Consequences within the Covenant Family

NEW TERM. An allotted tribal share/possession; Sheba’s rallying cry, ‘We have no portion in David, and we have no inheritance in the son of Jesse’ (20:1), rejects covenant belonging to David’s house. Useful contrast case alongside the baseline’s adoption entry’s inheritance-rights emphasis: here the same vocabulary is inverted into rejection of belonging.

Discipline Rod

Approved rendering: discipline
Transliteration: musar / shevet
Doctrine: Consequences of Sin within the Covenant Family
Rejected alternatives: punishment (too harsh; loses the relationship-preserving nuance)
Original: מוּסָר / שֵׁבֶט
Category: Consequences within the Covenant Family

NEW TERM. Paternal/pedagogical correction and the staff symbolizing it; God promises to discipline David’s disobedient offspring ‘with the rod of men’ (7:14) through ordinary historical means, not supernatural annihilation. Contemporary English ‘discipline’ and ‘the rod’ carry contested associations (harshness/abuse vs. a controverted parenting method); clarify as loving correction that never revokes the underlying relationship, always paired with 7:15’s resolution clause.

Favor

Approved rendering: favor
Transliteration: chen
Doctrine: God’s Steadfast Love despite Human Failure
Rejected alternatives: grace (a distinct baseline term; do not use interchangeably)
Original: חֵן
Category: Steadfast Love

NEW TERM. Unearned or relationally-granted goodwill from a superior toward a subordinate; David invokes it in exile, ‘if I find favor in the eyes of the LORD’ (15:25). Close conceptual cousin of both chesed and the baseline’s grace, but a distinct Hebrew term with a moment-specific nuance rather than chesed’s sustained-covenant-loyalty sense. Teach the family resemblance without asserting technical identity with either term.

Cursing

Approved rendering: curse
Transliteration: qalal
Doctrine: God’s Steadfast Love despite Human Failure
Rejected alternatives: profanity/bad language (a completely different modern sense)
Original: קָלַל
Category: Steadfast Love

NEW TERM. To curse, to treat with contempt; the direct covenantal opposite of blessing. David’s restrained response to Shimei’s cursing (16:5-12) exemplifies trust in God’s providence amid unjust suffering. Contemporary English ‘cursing’ is mostly understood as profanity or superstition, not the biblical sense of a solemn, God-invoking pronouncement of judgment; brief disambiguation needed so David’s restraint reads as theological trust, not mere thick skin.

Rest

Approved rendering: rest
Transliteration: nuach
Doctrine: The Davidic Covenant and the Promise of an Eternal Throne
Rejected alternatives: relaxation/self-care (the dominant contemporary wellness sense)
Original: נוּחַ
Category: Davidic Covenant

NEW TERM. To settle down, cease from motion, be at ease; the LORD ‘had given him rest from all his surrounding enemies’ (7:1), the narrative occasion for the covenant. Contemporary English ‘rest’ competes with a therapeutic/wellness sense rather than the covenantal sense of secure possession of a God-given inheritance in the land; requires brief anchoring, similar to the baseline’s treatment of ‘peace.‘

Word Of The Lord

Approved rendering: the word of the LORD
Transliteration: devar-YHWH
Doctrine: Inspiration of Revelation
Rejected alternatives: divine revelation (acceptable gloss)
Original: דְּבַר־יְהוָה
Category: Revelation

NEW TERM. The technical formula introducing authoritative divine revelation to a prophet, distinct from human counsel or opinion; marks the transition from Nathan’s own mistaken advice (7:3) to actual prophecy (7:4-16). Connects to the baseline’s Inspiration of Scripture doctrine notes: contemporary secular and academic culture widely treats prophetic claims as human literary construction; state plainly this is presented as genuine divine speech.

Servant

Approved rendering: servant
Transliteration: eved
Doctrine: Kingship as Shepherd-Care
Rejected alternatives: slave (accurate for the word’s full semantic range but wrong register here)
Original: עֶבֶד
Category: Kingship

NEW TERM. Ranges from a chattel slave to, as in ‘my servant David’ (7:5, 8), an honorific royal and covenantal title of highest trust. Contemporary English ‘servant’ carries mostly menial or historical-slavery connotations, which inverts the intended honorific sense; must be actively reframed as a title of privileged, trusted covenant service.

Shepherd

Approved rendering: shepherd
Transliteration: ra’ah / ro’eh
Doctrine: Kingship as Shepherd-Care
Rejected alternatives: tend/pasture (accurate but loses the royal-metaphor weight)
Original: רָעָה
Category: Kingship

NEW TERM. To tend or pasture a flock; a pervasive ancient Near Eastern royal metaphor for just, protective, provisioning rule. God took David ‘from following the sheep’ to ‘shepherd my people Israel’ (7:7-8). Contemporary secular usage flattens this to a literal agricultural job title; unpack the royal-care metaphor explicitly, leveraging the derived church word ‘pastor’ as a teaching bridge.

Prince

Approved rendering: prince
Transliteration: nagid
Doctrine: Kingship as Shepherd-Care
Rejected alternatives: king (loses the distinction between divinely designated and hereditarily entitled rule)
Original: נָגִיד
Category: Kingship

NEW TERM. One appointed or designated to lead, distinct from melekh (‘king’); God’s own term for a divinely designated ruler chosen from humble beginnings (7:8). Contemporary ‘prince’ primarily evokes hereditary royal-family status or Machiavellian political strategy, both obscuring the intended sense of divine designation over dynastic entitlement — the point grounding the whole chapter’s grace-not-merit logic.

Name Shem

Approved rendering: name
Transliteration: shem
Doctrine: Kingship as Shepherd-Care
Rejected alternatives: reputation alone (acceptable but flattens the generational-legacy weight)
Original: שֵׁם
Category: Kingship

NEW TERM. Name, reputation, or renown carrying the weight of character and legacy across generations; God promises to make David’s name great (7:9), ironically anticipating v.13’s attachment of God’s own name to the temple. Contemporary ‘making a name for yourself’ is an overwhelmingly self-driven, self-promotional idiom; the reversal — God grants the name — must be stated explicitly, paralleling the baseline’s caution on ‘calling.‘

Burnt And Peace Offerings

Approved rendering: burnt offerings and peace offerings
Transliteration: olot u-shelamim
Doctrine: Atonement and Sacrifice
Rejected alternatives: fellowship offerings (acceptable synonym for peace offerings)
Original: עֹלוֹת וּשְׁלָמִים
Category: Worship and Sacrifice

NEW TERM. The two primary categories of Israelite sacrifice: offerings wholly consumed by fire, expressing total consecration, and offerings of well-being shared in a communal meal, expressing restored fellowship. David’s offerings on Araunah’s threshing floor halt the plague (24:25). Obsolescence risk: this technical sacrificial-system vocabulary is unfamiliar to most contemporary readers and requires brief definition; shares the ‘atonement’ entry’s typological-collapse caution.

Lord Of Hosts

Approved rendering: LORD of hosts
Transliteration: YHWH tseva’ot
Doctrine: Power of God for Salvation
Rejected alternatives: LORD Almighty (acceptable established-translation alternative)
Original: יְהוָה צְבָאוֹת
Category: God

NEW TERM. ‘LORD of armies’ — God’s title as commander of the heavenly and, by extension, Israel’s armies, a title of martial sovereignty invoked in God’s promise to David (7:8). Related to the baseline’s power_of_god entry. Contemporary ‘hosts’ (a party host, hosting a website) has no military connotation left in ordinary English and requires a gloss.

Low Risk Terms

Adoption

Approved rendering: adoption
Transliteration: adoption
Doctrine: Adoption into God’s Family

Inherited from Romans package (baseline: full, permanent, loving family inclusion with full inheritance rights; a rare positive secular-drift case). 2 Samuel extension: David’s restoration of Mephibosheth to his own table (ch. 9), despite Mephibosheth’s disqualifying lameness and dangerous royal-rival lineage, is this book’s clearest narrative illustration of the doctrine — use explicitly as a teaching bridge, and contrast with Sheba’s rejection of inheritance in David (20:1).

Prophet

Approved rendering: prophet
Transliteration: prophet
Doctrine: Inspiration of Scripture
Rejected alternatives: a tech prophet / prophet of doom
Original: נָבִיא
Category: Revelation

Inherited from Romans package (baseline: God’s spokesperson, not an astrologer or fortune-teller). 2 Samuel extension: Nathan the prophet’s own narrative models the needed distinction between his sincere but uncertified personal advice (7:3) and his later certified ‘word of the LORD’ (7:4) — a built-in teaching tool for discernment worth drawing out explicitly.

David

Approved rendering: David
Transliteration: David
Doctrine: Davidic Covenant
Original: דָּוִד
Category: Covenant

Inherited from Romans package (baseline: standard proper name; most readers’ independent knowledge comes from the David-and-Goliath narrative alone). 2 Samuel extension: the covenant background this book depends on (ch. 7) should be actively supplied, not assumed already known from that single earlier narrative.

Blessing

Approved rendering: blessing
Transliteration: barakh / berakah
Doctrine: God’s Steadfast Love despite Human Failure
Original: בָּרַךְ / בְּרָכָה
Category: Steadfast Love

NEW TERM. To speak or enact favor and flourishing over someone; God’s blessing on Obed-edom’s household for housing the ark (6:11-12) reassures David that God’s rightly-approached presence brings favor, not only danger. Minor secular dilution (‘blessed’ as a social-media humblebrag caption) but the core sense remains largely intact and recoverable from context.

Lament

Approved rendering: lament
Transliteration: qinah
Doctrine: Mourning and Lament in Faith
Original: קִינָה
Category: Consequences within the Covenant Family

NEW TERM. A formal funeral dirge, a set poetic genre of mourning; David composes one over Saul and Jonathan (1:17-27) and mourns Absalom similarly (18:33). Minor obsolescence risk only — the qinah genre is unfamiliar to many contemporary readers — with no competing false meaning threatening active misreading.

Mighty Men

Approved rendering: mighty men
Transliteration: gibborim
Doctrine: Kingship as Shepherd-Care
Rejected alternatives: champions (‘the Thirty,’ an acceptable established alternative)
Original: גִּבּוֹרִים
Category: Kingship

NEW TERM. An honored military-elite designation for David’s inner circle of exceptional warriors (23:8-39). Minor risk of a superhero/fantasy-genre misreading (‘mighty’ evoking comic-book strength) rather than historical military honor; brief context resolves it.

Vision

Approved rendering: vision
Transliteration: chizzayon
Doctrine: Inspiration of Revelation
Original: חִזָּיוֹן
Category: Revelation

NEW TERM. A revelatory sight, a mode of prophetic disclosure distinct from an audible word alone; used to certify Nathan’s message as genuine divine revelation (7:17), not merely a private hunch. Minor risk that contemporary secular usage (‘having a vision for the company’) drains the word of its specifically revelatory, God-given sense.

Judges

Approved rendering: judges
Transliteration: shophetim
Doctrine: The Davidic Covenant and the Promise of an Eternal Throne
Rejected alternatives: rulers/leaders (acceptable synonyms)

NEW TERM. The charismatic tribal deliverer-rulers of the pre-monarchic period (the book of Judges), referenced at 7:7. Minor risk that contemporary readers import a modern courtroom-judge image rather than a military/tribal-deliverer image; brief context suffices.

Altar

Approved rendering: altar
Transliteration: mizbe’ach
Doctrine: Atonement and Sacrifice

NEW TERM. The constructed site for offering sacrifices to God. David builds one on Araunah’s threshing floor to stop the plague (24:18-25); per 2 Chronicles 3:1, this exact site becomes Solomon’s temple location — a concrete narrative confirmation of 7:13’s promise. Stable term, minimal competing secular sense; the key teaching point is the narrative-geographic link to the core passage, not lexical risk.

Angel Of God Idiom

Approved rendering: like the angel of God
Transliteration: ke-mal’akh ha-elohim
Doctrine: Consequences of Sin within the Covenant Family
Rejected alternatives: a literal claim of angelic status (rejected — this is courtly hyperbole)

NEW TERM. A courtly compliment idiom (14:17, 20) attributing superhuman discernment to the king, not a literal claim of angelic status. Minor risk of over-literal reading (assuming actual angelology is in view); brief note suffices.

Library content is free and openly licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 — share and adapt it for non-commercial use, with attribution to tri-bible.ai.