2 Samuel 14–15

Absalom Returns to Jerusalem

¹⁴Now Joab son of Zeruiah perceived that the king’s mind was on Absalom.^{* 2}Joab sent to Tekoa and brought from there a wise woman. He said to her, “Pretend to be a mourner; put on mourning garments, and do not anoint yourself with oil, but behave like a woman who has been mourning many days for the dead.^{* 3}Go to the king and speak to him as follows.” And Joab put the words into her mouth.^*

⁴When the woman of Tekoa came^g to the king, she fell on her face to the ground and did obeisance and said, “Help, O king!”^{* 5}The king asked her, “What is your trouble?” She answered, “Alas, I am a widow; my husband is dead.^{* 6}Your servant had two sons, and they fought with one another in the field; there was no one to part them, and one struck the other and killed him. ⁷Now the whole family has risen against your servant. They say, ‘Give up the man who struck his brother, so that we may kill him for the life of his brother whom he murdered, even if we destroy the heir as well.’ Thus they would quench my one remaining ember and leave to my husband neither name nor remnant on the face of the earth.”^*

⁸Then the king said to the woman, “Go to your house, and I will give orders concerning you.” ⁹The woman of Tekoa said to the king, “On me be the guilt, my lord the king, and on my father’s house; let the king and his throne be guiltless.”^{* 10}The king said, “If anyone says anything to you, bring him to me, and he shall never touch you again.” ¹¹Then she said, “Please, may the king keep the Lord your God in mind, so that the avenger of blood may kill no more and my son not be destroyed.” He said, “As the Lord lives, not one hair of your son shall fall to the ground.”^*

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.^{* 14}We 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.^{h* 15}Now 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.^{* 20}In 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.^{* 24}The 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.^{* 26}When 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.^{* 27}There 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.^{* 29}Then 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!”^{* 33}Then 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.^*

Absalom Usurps the Throne

¹⁵After this Absalom provided for himself a chariot and horses and fifty men to run ahead of him.^{* 2}Absalom 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,”^{* 3}Absalom would say, “See, your claims are good and right, but there is no one deputed by the king to hear you.” ⁴Absalom would also say, “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.”^{* 5}Whenever 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 fourⁱ years Absalom said to the king, “Please let me go to Hebron and pay the vow that I have made to the Lord.^{* 8}For 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 serve the Lord in Hebron.”^{j* 9}The 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 innocence, knowing nothing of the matter.^{* 12}While Absalom was offering the sacrifices, he sent for^k 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.”^{* 14}Then 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.”^{* 15}The 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.^{* 17}The king left, followed by all the people, and they stopped at the last house. ¹⁸All his officials passed by him, 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.^{* 20}You 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 show^l steadfast love and faithfulness to you.”^{* 21}But 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.”^{* 22}David 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.^{* 25}Then 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.^{* 26}But if he says, ‘I take no pleasure in you,’ here I am, let him do to me what seems good to him.”^{* 27}The king also said to the priest Zadok, “Look,^m go back to the city in peace, you and Abiathar,ⁿ with your two sons, Ahimaaz your son and Jonathan son of Abiathar.^{* 28}See, I will wait at the fords of the wilderness until word comes from you to inform me.”^{* 29}So 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.^{* 31}David was told that Ahithophel was among…