David again refers to himself indirectly as a sign of respect for God, but this is hardly common in most languages. And for a person to use his own name within a direct quotation may actually be misleading. So it will probably be better to translate using the pronoun “I,” as in Good News Translation.

Likewise thy servant is an indirect way to refer to himself, but it will be more natural to use the first person singular object pronoun “me” in many languages.

It is unwise to translate the rhetorical question as a statement like “I cannot say anything more to you…,” since David does, in fact, say quite a bit more in the next several verses. The Hebrew should probably be understood to mean that David could not ask God for anything more, since God had already so richly blessed him. The sense is, therefore, not that David cannot talk any more to God. Anchor Bible suggests that the real meaning may be “What more can David add to you (that is, that you do not already have) to honor your servant?” That is, David may be saying that there is nothing more he could ask God to do for him. Anderson, for example, translates “What more can David ask of you?”

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 .