2nd Samuel Chapter 17 verse 3 Holy Bible
and I will bring back all the people unto thee: the man whom thou seekest is as if all returned: `so' all the people shall be in peace.
read chapter 17 in ASV
And I will make all the people come back to you as a bride comes back to her husband: it is the life of only one man you are going after; so all the people will be at peace.
read chapter 17 in BBE
and I will bring back all the people to thee. The man whom thou seekest is as if all returned: all the people shall be in peace.
read chapter 17 in DARBY
And I will bring back all the people unto thee: the man whom thou seekest is as if all returned: so all the people shall be in peace.
read chapter 17 in KJV
And I will bring back all the people to thee: the man whom thou seekest is as if all returned: so all the people shall be in peace.
read chapter 17 in WBT
and I will bring back all the people to you: the man whom you seek is as if all returned: [so] all the people shall be in peace.
read chapter 17 in WEB
and I bring back all the people unto thee -- as the turning back of the whole `is' the man whom thou art seeking -- all the people are peace.
read chapter 17 in YLT
Pulpit Commentary
Pulpit CommentaryVerse 3. - The man whom thou seekest is as if all returned; Hebrew, as the return of the whole is the man whom thou seekest. Both the amendments of the text and the various translations offered are innumerable, but nothing is really more satisfactory than the literal rendering of the words, virtually given us in the Authorized Version. Naturally, Ahithophel did not wish to parade David's death too openly. In his heart Absalom must have known that the safe possession of the kingdom could be assured him only by his father's death, but yet he might have shrunk from publicly avowing this, and having it talked of before his courtiers as a settled purpose. One reason why he adopted the counsel of Hushai may have been his reluctance to commit parricide: for plainly the one main purpose of Ahithophel was David's death. This thorough traitor may have seen even a tremor of alarm in Absalom's countenance when he spake out his purpose so frankly of "smiting the king only," and may have felt that, slumbering in the besom of the son, was something of that generous spirit which had made the father condemn the Amalekite to death for boasting that he had slain Saul. At all events, he was unwilling to dilate upon so ghastly a theme, and this general reference to David, as the man whom Absalom sought, without dwelling upon the subject, is in far better taste than the coarse open villainy so unreservedly expressed in ver. 2. The reading, however, of the Septuagint has many followers: "And I will bring back all the people to thee as a bride returns to her husband, excepting the life of the one man thou seekest; and for all the people there shall be peace." Ahithophel was bad enough, but scarcely so brutal as to compare to a bridal procession the sad return of David's mourning friends and companions in arms weeping round the corpse of their master murdered at the bidding of his own son.
Ellicott's Commentary
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers(3) Bring back all the people.--This evil counsellor, with artful flattery, assumes that Absalom is the rightful king, and that the people who have gone off after David only need to be brought back to their allegiance.
