The structure of Revised Standard Version reflects the Hebrew, with a prepositional phrase at the beginning of the sentence. This word order will certainly need to be modified in some languages for the sake of naturalness. Compare Good News Translation.

Two hundred men from Jerusalem: some translators may need to know whether this indicates the city of birth of the men who accompanied Absalom, or simply states that they started out from Jerusalem to go to Hebron with their leader. Commentators do not really deal with this question, but the expression is almost certainly not intended to focus on their place of birth.

Invited guests: the plural noun used here is based on a root verb meaning “to call.” Absalom had called on them specifically (possibly because of their innocence?) to accompany him to Hebron.

Simplicity: the word used here has the root meaning of “fullness” or “completeness.” It is also used to speak of the integrity of a person (Gen 20.5). The guests who went along to Hebron were innocent of any complicity in Absalom’s plot. Fox translates “going in their innocence.” When the text says that they knew nothing, the idea is that they were unaware of anything about the plan to make Absalom king. It will be possible in some languages to translate both of these expressions by a single phrase such as “they had no idea what he was going to do” (Contemporary English Version) or “but they didn’t know what he was planning” (New Century Version). New Jewish Publication Society’s Tanakh has “they went in good faith, suspecting nothing.”

A possible restructuring of the whole verse might look something like this:

• Absalom had invited two hundred men to go with him from Jerusalem to Hebron. They went along but they were not at all aware of what Absalom was planning to do.

Quoted with permission from Omanson, Roger L. and Ellington, John E. A Handbook on the First and Second Books of Samuel, Volume 2. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 2001. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .