---
title: 2 Samuel 16:10
url: https://jw-apologetics.app/verses/2-samuel-16-10/
markdown: https://jw-apologetics.app/verses/2-samuel-16-10.md
type: verse
perspective: Protestant (historic Nicene) response to Jehovah's Witness teaching
reference: 2 Samuel 16:10
testament: OT
section: History
index: https://jw-apologetics.app/llms.txt
---

# 2 Samuel 16:10

## Text (Berean Standard Bible)

> But the king replied, “What have I to do with you, O sons of Zeruiah? If he curses me because the LORD told him, ‘Curse David,’ who can ask, ‘Why did you do this?’”

## JW Usage

JWs do not cite 2 Samuel 16:10 as a distinct proof-text. David's rebuke to the sons of Zeruiah — "What have I to do with you, O sons of Zeruiah?" — surfaces only incidentally in Watchtower treatment. The rs book's flat-English reading of John 2:4 ("Woman, what have I to do with thee?") as Jesus's rejection of Mary does not notice that David's identical phrasing in 2 Samuel 16 is neither hostile nor dismissive — it is a refusal to align agendas with Abishai and Joab.

## Protestant Usage

2 Samuel 16:10 is one of five Old Testament occurrences of the Hebrew idiom *mah-li va-lak* ("what to me and to you") that stands behind the Greek phrase "ti emoi kai soi" in John 2:4. The other four are Judges 11:12 (Jephthah to Ammonites), 1 Kings 17:18 (widow of Zarephath to Elijah), 2 Kings 3:13 (Elisha to the king of Israel), and 2 Chronicles 35:21 (Neco to Josiah). In each case the idiom signals *distance of intent* or *non-alignment of agenda* — never contempt or personal rejection.
David is not rejecting Abishai and Joab as persons; he is declining to align his response to Shimei's cursing with their preferred violent solution. That is the governing sense of the phrase whenever it appears. When Jesus uses the same idiom to Mary at Cana, he is telling her that his messianic timing is not set by her social cue — his hour has not yet come. Mary responds calmly in verse 5, Jesus performs the miracle in verse 7, and the whole scene makes sense only if 2:4 is not a rebuke. The Watchtower's reading imports a hostility into the phrase that the Hebrew idiom simply does not carry.

## Arguments Using This Verse

- [Theotokos Is About Jesus, Not About Mary](https://jw-apologetics.app/arguments/mary-theotokos-christological-fence.md) — Luke 1:43 / John 1:14 / Colossians 2:9 [Deity of Christ]