NET Bible is a very unique study Bible. Most of the notes are textual critical notes. Textual criticism help us determine the original wording in the 5000 existing manuscripts of the NT. Because no two manuscripts are the same, textual criticism identifies what the original authors wrote. There are a lot of notes: 60,237 of them. It is called NET Bible because it can be downloaded. It was written so translators could download the NET Bible with its textual critical notes to aid them in translating the Bible into the native language. You can get a free NET Bible at www.netbible.com. If you are into the Hebrew and Greek this Bible will help you exegeting a passage. Even if you are not into the original languages you can still benefit from the interpretive notes. There are both translation notes and study notes.
Here are the notes from 2 Sam 24:1. The sn stands for study notes and the tn stands for translation notes in the NET. “sn The parallel text in 1 Chr 21:1 says, ‘An adversary opposed Israel, inciting David to count how many warriors Israel had.’ The Samuel version gives an underlying theological perspective, while the Chronicler simply describes what happened from a human perspective. The adversary in 1 Chr 21:1 is likely a human enemy, probably a nearby nation whose hostility against Israel pressured David into numbering the people so he could assess his military strength”( page 550).
Here are the notes from 1 Chr 21:1 “An adversary opposed Israel inciting David to count how many warriors Israel had.” Here are the notes based on this verse: “tn Heb ‘and incited David to count Israel.’ As v. 5 indicates, David was not interested in a general census, but in determining how much military strength he had. sn The parallel text in 2 Sam 24:1 says, ‘The LORD’s anger again raged against Israel and he incited David against them, saying: ‘Go, count Israel and Judah!’ The version of the incident in the book of 2 Samuel gives an underlying theological perspective, while the Chronicler simply describes what happened from a human perspective. You can read Constable’s very helpful notes on 2 Sam 24:1.
Bible.org also has the NET Bible along with Thomas Constable’s commentary on every book in the Bible. When I am preparing for a sermon I like to read and reread the text as many times as possible. In one of those readings, I like to read NET Bible notes. The first commentary I read is Bible Knowledge Commentary in order to get the big picture of the text and then I usually read Constable’s commentary for a similar reason. Then I start with the exegetical commentaries. The last commentaries I read are the sermonic commentaries like Wiersbe and MacArthur. This is Donald Sunukjian’s suggested procedure for using commentaries.
