HarperCollins Study Bible

by Harold W. Attridge

  12Then the woman said, “Please let your servant speak a word to my lord the king.” He said, “Speak.” 13The woman said, “Why then have you planned such a thing against the people of God? For in giving this decision the king convicts himself, inasmuch as the king does not bring his banished one home again. 14We must all die; we are like water spilled on the ground, which cannot be gathered up. But God will not take away a life; he will devise plans so as not to keep an outcast banished forever from his presence.a 15Now I have come to say this to my lord the king because the people have made me afraid; your servant thought, ‘I will speak to the king; it may be that the king will perform the request of his servant. 16For the king will hear, and deliver his servant from the hand of the man who would cut both me and my son off from the heritage of God.’ 17Your servant thought, ‘The word of my lord the king will set me at rest’ for my lord the king is like the angel of God, discerning good and evil. The LORD your God be with you!”

  18Then the king answered the woman, “Do not withhold from me anything I ask you.” The woman said, “Let my lord the king speak.” 19The king said, “Is the hand of Joab with you in all this?” The woman answered and said, “As surely as you live, my lord the king, one cannot turn right or left from anything that my lord the king has said. For it was your servant Joab who commanded me; it was he who put all these words into the mouth of your servant. 20In order to change the course of affairs your servant Joab did this. But my lord has wisdom like the wisdom of the angel of God to know all things that are on the earth.”

  21Then the king said to Joab, “Very well, I grant this; go, bring back the young man Absalom.” 22Joab prostrated himself with his face to the ground and did obeisance, and blessed the king; and Joab said, “Today your servant knows that I have found favor in your sight, my lord the king, in that the king has granted the request of his servant.” 23So Joab set off, went to Geshur, and brought Absalom to Jerusalem. 24The king said, “Let him go to his own house; he is not to come into my presence.” So Absalom went to his own house, and did not come into the king’s presence.

  David Forgives Absalom

  25Now in all Israel there was no one to be praised so much for his beauty as Absalom; from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head there was no blemish in him. 26When he cut the hair of his head (for at the end of every year he used to cut it; when it was heavy on him, he cut it), he weighed the hair of his head, two hundred shekels by the king’s weight. 27There were born to Absalom three sons, and one daughter whose name was Tamar; she was a beautiful woman.

  28So Absalom lived two full years in Jerusalem, without coming into the king’s presence. 29Then Absalom sent for Joab to send him to the king; but Joab would not come to him. He sent a second time, but Joab would not come. 30Then he said to his servants, “Look, Joab’s field is next to mine, and he has barley there; go and set it on fire.” So Absalom’s servants set the field on fire. 31Then Joab rose and went to Absalom at his house, and said to him, “Why have your servants set my field on fire?” 32Absalom answered Joab, “Look, I sent word to you: Come here, that I may send you to the king with the question, ‘Why have I come from Geshur? It would be better for me to be there still.’ Now let me go into the king’s presence; if there is guilt in me, let him kill me!” 33Then Joab went to the king and told him; and he summoned Absalom. So he came to the king and prostrated himself with his face to the ground before the king; and the king kissed Absalom.

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  a Meaning of Heb uncertain

  14.1–24 Joab persuades David to allow Absalom to return to Jerusalem.

  14.2 Tekoa, the home of the prophet Amos (Am 1.1), was a village in the Judean hills about ten miles south of Jerusalem. Joab arranges for the services of a wise woman, a woman skilled in rhetoric (as also in 20.16).

  14.5–7 Normal judicial procedures would require that the woman’s son, who is guilty of manslaughter, be turned over to the family so that blood vengeance could be exacted; but the king has the power to free the slayer (see v. 16), and she petitions him to do so on the grounds that she is a widow and her son is her late husband’s only heir.

  14.11 Keep the LORD your God in mind, i.e., mention or utter the name of the Lord; the woman is asking David to swear a binding oath, and he does (as the LORD lives). The avenger of blood, the man mentioned in v. 16, is the kinsman who has the responsibility of avenging the death of the woman’s son according to the customs of family blood vengeance (see Num 35.16–28; Deut 19.4–13).

  14.16 Heritage of God, a common way of referring to the promised land, here designates the people of Israel.

  14.17 The word of…the king will set me at rest. The woman is not expressing confidence in a favorable judgment; instead, she is flattering the king by expressing the conviction that whatever he decides will be just. Her comparison of the king’s wisdom to that of an angel of God is also rhetorical adulation, as in v. 20; 19.27.

  14.25–33 Through Joab’s mediation, David and Absalom are reconciled.

  14.25 Absalom’s beauty partially explains how he stole the hearts of the people of Israel (15.6) and why David loved him so deeply that he was unable to discipline him.

  14.26 The reference to Absalom’s hair prepares readers for the bizarre calamity that occurs later in 18.9. Two hundred shekels, about 6 pounds.

  14.27 That Absalom had three sons seems to be contradicted by 18.18; his one daughter is evidently named for her aunt (13.1).

  14.28–33 Although he has to set a field on fire to get his attention, Absalom persuades Joab to intervene with his father, and a reconciliation of David and Absalom takes place.

  2 SAMUEL 15

  Absalom Usurps the Throne

  1After this Absalom got himself a chariot and horses, and fifty men to run ahead of him. 2Absalom used to rise early and stand beside the road into the gate; and when anyone brought a suit before the king for judgment, Absalom would call out and say, “From what city are you?” When the person said, “Your servant is of such and such a tribe in Israel,” 3Absalom would say, “See, your claims are good and right; but there is no one deputed by the king to hear you.” 4Absalom said moreover, “If only I were judge in the land! Then all who had a suit or cause might come to me, and I would give them justice.” 5Whenever people came near to do obeisance to him, he would put out his hand and take hold of them, and kiss them. 6Thus Absalom did to every Israelite who came to the king for judgment; so Absalom stole the hearts of the people of Israel.

  7At the end of foura years Absalom said to the king, “Please let me go to Hebron and pay the vow that I have made to the LORD. 8For your servant made a vow while I lived at Geshur in Aram: If the LORD will indeed bring me back to Jerusalem, then I will worship the LORD in Hebron.”b 9The king said to him, “Go in peace.” So he got up, and went to Hebron. 10But Absalom sent secret messengers throughout all the tribes of Israel, saying, “As soon as you hear the sound of the trumpet, then shout: Absalom has become king at Hebron!” 11Two hundred men from Jerusalem went with Absalom; they were invited guests, and they went in their innocence, knowing nothing of the matter. 12While Absalom was offering the sacrifices, he sent forc Ahithophel the Gilonite, David’s counselor, from his city Giloh. The conspiracy grew in strength, and the people with Absalom kept increasing.

  David Flees from Jerusalem

  13A messenger came to David, saying, “The hearts of the Israelites have gone after Absalom.” 14Then David said to all his officials who were with him at Jerusalem, “Get up! Let us flee, or there will be no escape for us from Absalom. Hurry, or he will soon overtake us, and bring disaster down upon us, and attack the city with the edge of the sword.” 15The king’s officials said to the king, “Your servants are ready to do whatever our lord the king decides.” 16So the king left, followed by all his household, except ten concubines whom he left behind to look after the house. 17The king left, followed by all the people; and they stopped at the last house. 18All his officials passed by hi
m; and all the Cherethites, and all the Pelethites, and all the six hundred Gittites who had followed him from Gath, passed on before the king.

  19Then the king said to Ittai the Gittite, “Why are you also coming with us? Go back, and stay with the king; for you are a foreigner, and also an exile from your home. 20You came only yesterday, and shall I today make you wander about with us, while I go wherever I can? Go back, and take your kinsfolk with you; and may the LORD showd steadfast love and faithfulness to you.” 21But Ittai answered the king, “As the LORD lives, and as my lord the king lives, wherever my lord the king may be, whether for death or for life, there also your servant will be.” 22David said to Ittai, “Go then, march on.” So Ittai the Gittite marched on, with all his men and all the little ones who were with him. 23The whole country wept aloud as all the people passed by; the king crossed the Wadi Kidron, and all the people moved on toward the wilderness.

  24Abiathar came up, and Zadok also, with all the Levites, carrying the ark of the covenant of God. They set down the ark of God, until the people had all passed out of the city. 25Then the king said to Zadok, “Carry the ark of God back into the city. If I find favor in the eyes of the LORD, he will bring me back and let me see both it and the place where it stays. 26But if he says, ‘I take no pleasure in you,’ here I am, let him do to me what seems good to him.” 27The king also said to the priest Zadok, “Look,e go back to the city in peace, you and Abiathar,f with your two sons, Ahimaaz your son, and Jonathan son of Abiathar. 28See, I will wait at the fords of the wilderness until word comes from you to inform me.” 29So Zadok and Abiathar carried the ark of God back to Jerusalem, and they remained there.

  30But David went up the ascent of the Mount of Olives, weeping as he went, with his head covered and walking barefoot; and all the people who were with him covered their heads and went up, weeping as they went. 31David was told that Ahithophel was among the conspirators with Absalom. And David said, “O LORD, I pray you, turn the counsel of Ahithophel into foolishness.”

  Hushai Becomes David’s Spy

  32When David came to the summit, where God was worshiped, Hushai the Archite came to meet him with his coat torn and earth on his head. 33David said to him, “If you go on with me, you will be a burden to me. 34But if you return to the city and say to Absalom, ‘I will be your servant, O king; as I have been your father’s servant in time past, so now I will be your servant,’ then you will defeat for me the counsel of Ahithophel. 35The priests Zadok and Abiathar will be with you there. So whatever you hear from the king’s house, tell it to the priests Zadok and Abiathar. 36Their two sons are with them there, Zadok’s son Ahimaaz and Abiathar’s son Jonathan; and by them you shall report to me everything you hear.” 37So Hushai, David’s friend, came into the city, just as Absalom was entering Jerusalem.

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  a Gk Syr: Heb forty

  b Gk Mss: Heb lacks in Hebron

  c Or he sent

  d Gk Compare 2.6: Heb lacks may the LORD show

  e Gk: Heb Are you a seer or Do you see?

  f Cn: Heb lacks and Abiathar

  15.1–12 Now that he is back at court, Absalom uses his position to ingratiate himself with the people of Israel. Eventually he claims the throne at Hebron.

  15.1 Absalom’s chariot and horses, and fifty men to run ahead of him are a flamboyant way of claiming the kingship, as 1 Kings 1.5 shows.

  15.6 Stole the hearts of the people. It is not so much that Absalom won their affection as that he beguiled them; cf. Gen 31.20, where the same expression is translated “deceived.”

  15.7–8 Absalom must go to Hebron, he says, because he promised to worship the LORD in Hebron, i.e., the God of Israel in his local Hebronite manifestation, so that the vow cannot be fulfilled by worshiping the Lord in Jerusalem. For Absalom’s term in exile at Geshur in Aram, see 13.38.

  15.10 Absalom chooses Hebron as the site from which to launch his rebellion; it was his birthplace (see 3.3) and the traditional capital of Judah.

  15.12 Ahithophel was a Judahite; his home-town of Giloh was in the hill country of Judah (see Josh 15.51), but the modern location is unknown.

  15.13–31 The news of Absalom’s successful rebellion forces David to abandon the city.

  15.16 Ten concubines looks ahead to 16.21–22.

  15.18 The soldiers who remain loyal to David are those in his personal retinue who have been with him since his days as a fugitive from Saul’s justice and a mercenary in the Philistine army. Cherethites, Pelethites. See notes on 1 Sam 30.14; 2 Sam 8.18. David won their loyalty and that of the six hundred Gittites when he lived in Ziklag and served the king of the Philistine city of Gath (see 1 Sam 27; 29–30).

  15.19–21 Cf. the language of Ruth 1.8–17. Ittai, who is probably the commander of David’s Gittite forces, will command a third of David’s troops in the battle against Absalom’s army (see 18.2).

  15.23 David leaves Jerusalem by crossing the Wadi Kidron, the valley separating the City of David from the Mount of Olives to the east; the Kidron was regarded as the boundary of the city in the time of David (cf. 1 Kings 2.37).

  15.24 For Abiathar and Zadok, David’s two chief priests, see note on 8.17. Mention of the Levites, the official priestly tribe, may be a secondary addition (cf. 1 Sam 6.15).

  15.25 The place where it stays. The underlying Hebrew suggests a tent shrine (see 6.17; 7.6) in contrast to the anachronistic house of the LORD in 12.20.

  15.28 David’s plan is to camp at the fords of the wilderness, i.e., on the west bank of the Jordan, until he receives information from Zadok (see 15.27–29; 17.16).

  15.31 David’s wish for a way to subvert the counsel of Ahithophel (see v. 12) will be fulfilled in 17.5–14 through the efforts of the man David will meet at the top of the mountain.

  15.32–37 David meets Hushai and asks him to counteract Ahithophel’s counsel at Absalom’s court.

  15.32 We know of no place where God was worshiped atop the Mount of Olives except the so-called Mount of Destruction (see 2 Kings 23.13), which was probably farther south than the place where David meets Hushai. Hushai, perhaps the same man identified in 1 Kings 4.16 as the father of Baana, one of Solomon’s twelve supply officers; but Baana has responsibility for Asher, whereas the Archite clan was Benjaminite and inhabited the region southwest of Bethel (Josh 16.2).

  15.37 David’s friend. In a list of civic officials in 1 Chr 27.33 Hushai is called “the king’s friend,” probably an official title that meant something like “privy counselor,” as parallels in Egyptian administrative language suggest.

  2 SAMUEL 16

  David’s Adversaries

  1When David had passed a little beyond the summit, Ziba the servant of Mephiboshetha met him, with a couple of donkeys saddled, carrying two hundred loaves of bread, one hundred bunches of raisins, one hundred of summer fruits, and one skin of wine. 2The king said to Ziba, “Why have you brought these?” Ziba answered, “The donkeys are for the king’s household to ride, the bread and summer fruit for the young men to eat, and the wine is for those to drink who faint in the wilderness.” 3The king said, “And where is your master’s son?” Ziba said to the king, “He remains in Jerusalem; for he said, ‘Today the house of Israel will give me back my grandfather’s kingdom.’” 4Then the king said to Ziba, “All that belonged to Mephiboshethb is now yours.” Ziba said, “I do obeisance; let me find favor in your sight, my lord the king.”

  Shimei Curses David

  5When King David came to Bahurim, a man of the family of the house of Saul came out whose name was Shimei son of Gera; he came out cursing. 6He threw stones at David and at all the servants of King David; now all the people and all the warriors were on his right and on his left. 7Shimei shouted while he cursed, “Out! Out! Murderer! Scoundrel! 8The LORD has avenged on all of you the blood of the house of Saul, in whose place you have reigned; and the LORD has given the kingdom into the hand of your son Absalom. See, disaster has overtaken you; for you are a man of blood.” />
  9Then Abishai son of Zeruiah said to the king, “Why should this dead dog curse my lord the king? Let me go over and take off his head.” 10But the king said, “What have I to do with you, you sons of Zeruiah? If he is cursing because the LORD has said to him, ‘Curse David,’ who then shall say, ‘Why have you done so?’” 11David said to Abishai and to all his servants, “My own son seeks my life; how much more now may this Benjaminite! Let him alone, and let him curse; for the LORD has bidden him. 12It may be that the LORD will look on my distress,c and the LORD will repay me with good for this cursing of me today.” 13So David and his men went on the road, while Shimei went along on the hillside opposite him and cursed as he went, throwing stones and flinging dust at him. 14The king and all the people who were with him arrived weary at the Jordan;d and there he refreshed himself.

  The Counsel of Ahithophel

  15Now Absalom and all the Israelitese came to Jerusalem; Ahithophel was with him. 16When Hushai the Archite, David’s friend, came to Absalom, Hushai said to Absalom, “Long live the king! Long live the king!” 17Absalom said to Hushai, “Is this your loyalty to your friend? Why did you not go with your friend?” 18Hushai said to Absalom, “No; but the one whom the LORD and this people and all the Israelites have chosen, his I will be, and with him I will remain. 19Moreover, whom should I serve? Should it not be his son? Just as I have served your father, so I will serve you.”

  20Then Absalom said to Ahithophel, “Give us your counsel; what shall we do?” 21Ahithophel said to Absalom, “Go in to your father’s concubines, the ones he has left to look after the house; and all Israel will hear that you have made yourself odious to your father, and the hands of all who are with you will be strengthened.” 22So they pitched a tent for Absalom upon the roof; and Absalom went in to his father’s concubines in the sight of all Israel. 23Now in those days the counsel that Ahithophel gave was as if one consulted the oraclef of God; so all the counsel of Ahithophel was esteemed, both by David and by Absalom.