Absalom returns
14
📚Now Joab 📖, the son of Zeruiah, perceived that the king’s heart was toward Absalom. 2 📚And Joab sent to Tekoah and brought a wise woman from there, and said to her, “Please pretend to be a mourner and put on mourning clothes now, and do not anoint yourself with oil, but be like a woman who has been mourning for the dead for a long time, 3 📚and go to the king and speak like this to him” (then Joab put the words in her mouth). 4 📚And when the woman of Tekoah spoke to the king, she bowed down and prostrated herself on the ground and did obeisance, and said, “Help, O king”.
5 📚And the king said to her, “What is troubling you?”
And she answered, “I am indeed a widow woman, for my husband is dead. 6 📚And your maid servant had two sons, and the two of them fought together in the field, and there was no one to part them, and the one struck the other and killed him. 7 📚And, see, the whole family has risen up against your maid servant, and said, ‘Hand over 📖 the one who struck his brother, so that we can kill him, for the life of his brother whom he killed; and we will destroy the heir also.’ And so they would put out the burning coal that I have left, and not leave to my husband either name or survivor on the earth”.
8 📚And the king said to the woman, “Go to your house, and I will give a command concerning you”.
14:8 Once more David speaks without realizing he is involving himself. See 2 Sam 12:5-6.⚜
9 📚And the woman of Tekoah said to the king, “My lord, O king, may the guilt be on me, and on my father’s house, and may the king and his throne be innocent”.
10 And the king said, “Whoever says anything to you, bring him to me, and he will not touch you any more”.
11 📚Then she said, “Please, let the king remember the LORD your God, so that you do not allow the avengers of blood 📖 to destroy any more, so they will not destroy my son”.
And he said, “As the LORD lives, not one hair of your son will fall to the ground”.
12 📚Then the woman said, “Please let your maid servant speak one word to my lord the king”.
And he said, “Speak”.
13 📚📚And the woman said, “Why then have you thought such a thing against the people of God? For the king speaks this like someone who is at fault, because the king does not bring his banished one 📖 back home. 14 📚For we must die, and are like water spilled on the ground, which cannot be gathered up again. And God does not show favoritism, but he devises ways so that his banished ones are not exiled from him.
15 Now the reason that I have come to speak of this thing to my lord the king is because the people have made me afraid, and your maid servant said, I will now speak to the king; it may be that the king will perform the request of his maidservant. 16 📚For the king will listen and deliver his maidservant out of the hands of the man who would destroy me and my son together from God’s inheritance. 17 📚Then your maid servant said, The word of my lord the king will now be comforting, for my lord the king is like an angel of God in discerning good and bad. Therefore the LORD your God will be with you”.
14:17 Unfortunately this was not true. But she thought a little flattery might help.⚜
18 📚Then the king answered and said to the woman, “Please do not hide from me what I am going to ask you”.
And the woman said, “May my lord the king now speak”.
19 📚And the king said, “Is not the hand of Joab with you in all this?”
And the woman answered and said, “As your soul lives, my lord the king, no one can turn to the right or to the left from anything that my lord the king has spoken; for it was your servant Joab who gave me orders and put all these words in the mouth of your maid servant. 20 📚Your servant Joab has done this to change the appearance of things. And my lord is wise, with wisdom like an angel of God, to know all things that are in the earth”.
21 📚And the king said to Joab, “Look now, I will do this thing. So go bring the young man Absalom back”.
22 📚And Joab bowed down and prostrated himself on the ground, and thanked the king, and Joab said, “Today your servant knows that I have found favour in your sight, my lord, O king, because the king has fulfilled the request of his servant”.
14:22 Joab’s part in all this is mysterious – vs 2,29.⚜
23 📚So Joab arose and went to Geshur 📖 and brought Absalom to Jerusalem. 24 📚And the king said, “Let him return to his own house, but do not let him see my face”. So Absalom returned to his own house, but did not see the king’s face.
14:24 This was neither proper punishment nor proper pardon. And it resulted in further trouble.⚜
25 📚But in all Israel no one was so highly praised for his handsome appearance as Absalom. From the sole of his foot to the crown of his head there was no blemish in him. 26 📚And when he cut the hair of his head (for he cut it at the end of each year; he cut it because the hair was heavy on him), he weighed the hair of his head at two hundred shekels 📖 by the king’s weights.
27 📚And three sons were born to Absalom, and one daughter, whose name was Tamar. She was a woman of beautiful appearance.
28 So Absalom lived two full years in Jerusalem, and did not see the king’s face. 29 📚Therefore Absalom sent for Joab to send him to the king, but he would not come to him. And when he sent again the second time, he would not come. 30 📚Therefore he said to his servants, “See, Joab’s field is near mine, and he has barley there. Go and set it on fire”. And Absalom’s servants set the field on fire.
31 Then Joab arose and came to Absalom at his house, and said to him, “Why have your servants set my field on fire?”
32 📚And Absalom answered Joab, “Look, I sent word to you, saying, Come here so I can send you to the king to say, ‘Why have I come from Geshur? It would be good for me to be there still.’ Now therefore let me see the king’s face. And if I am guilty 📖 of anything, let him kill me”.
33 📚So Joab came to the king and told him. And when he called for Absalom, he came to the king, and bowed down with his face to the ground before the king, and the king kissed 📖 Absalom.