Please explain 2 Samuel 15:7 and why 40 years is recorded in the King James Version rather than 4 years.

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Question:In the KJV 2 Samuel 15:7 the Bible says that "...after 40 years Absalom..." As far as I know David was king forty years and Absalom wan't banish from the presence of the king for that long or was him?

Please explain to me about 2 Samuel 15:7.

In Christ,

MS


ATP: MS, thanks for the question. MS, there are two possibilities to explain the passage.

One is a simple one: that there was a minor copyists error that caused 40 to be written where 4 should have been. For example in the ancient manuscript called the Septuagint (an ancient Greek translation from the Hebrew that was done about 250 years before the time of Christ) the number is recorded as 4, not 40.

So it is possible simply that the copies of the ancient documents the King James translators used in 1611 had a minor typographical error in them. That does not mean that the original manuscripts of the ancient documents were in error.

As I noted, a translation that was done as long ago as 250 years before the time of Christ, uses the number 4, rather than 40. So clearly, under this likely scenario, there were ancient Hebrew manuscripts used by the Greek translators, that had the number 4 instead of 40 in them.

A second possibility is that the 40 is counting from some other time rather than the beginning of David’s reign. Perhaps the counting began with David being anointed to be kind for example, rather than when he actually took over rule of Israel years after the point of his anointing.

However, it seems most likely that there was a simple copyists error and that the number 4 is the correct number.

I hope this helps! Thanks for writing in! If there are any other questions I can help with, please let me know!