2 Samuel 20–21

Chapter 20

¹Now there happened to be there a worthless fellow, whose name was Sheba, the son of Bichri, a Benjaminite; and he blew the trumpet, and said,

“We have no portion in David,

and we have no inheritance in the son of Jesse;

every man to his tents, O Israel!”

²So all the men of Israel withdrew from David, and followed Sheba the son of Bichri; but the men of Judah followed their king steadfastly from the Jordan to Jerusalem.

³And David came to his house at Jerusalem; and the king took the ten concubines whom he had left to care for the house, and put them in a house under guard, and provided for them, but did not go in to them. So they were shut up until the day of their death, living as if in widowhood.

⁴Then the king said to Amasa, “Call the men of Judah together to me within three days, and be here yourself.” ⁵So Amasa went to summon Judah; but he delayed beyond the set time which had been appointed him. ⁶And David said to Abishai, “Now Sheba the son of Bichri will do us more harm than Absalom; take your lord’s servants and pursue him, lest he get himself fortified cities, and cause us trouble.” ^h7And there went out after Abishai, Joabⁱ and the Cherethites and the Pelethites, and all the mighty men; they went out from Jerusalem to pursue Sheba the son of Bichri. ⁸When they were at the great stone which is in Gibeon, Amasa came to meet them. Now Joab was wearing a soldier’s garment, and over it was a girdle with a sword in its sheath fastened upon his loins, and as he went forward it fell out. ⁹And Joab said to Amasa, “Is it well with you, my brother?” And Joab took Amasa by the beard with his right hand to kiss him. ¹⁰But Amasa did not observe the sword which was in Joab’s hand; so Joab struck him with it in the body, and shed his bowels to the ground, without striking a second blow; and he died.

Then Joab and Abishai his brother pursued Sheba the son of Bichri. ¹¹And one of Joab’s men took his stand by Amasa, and said, “Whoever favors Joab, and whoever is for David, let him follow Joab.” ¹²And Amasa lay wallowing in his blood in the highway. And any one who came by, seeing him, stopped;^j and when the man saw that all the people stopped, he carried Amasa out of the highway into the field, and threw a garment over him. ¹³When he was taken out of the highway, all the people went on after Joab to pursue Sheba the son of Bichri.

¹⁴And Sheba passed through all the tribes of Israel to Abel of Beth-maacah; and all the Bichrites^l assembled, and followed him in. ¹⁵And all the men who were with Joab came and besieged him in Abel of Beth-maacah; they cast up a mound against the city, and it stood against the rampart; and they were battering the wall, to throw it down. ¹⁶Then a wise woman called from the city, “Hear! Hear! Tell Joab, ‘Come here, that I may speak to you.’ ” ¹⁷And he came near her; and the woman said, “Are you Joab?” He answered, “I am.” Then she said to him, “Listen to the words of your maidservant.” And he answered, “I am listening.” ¹⁸Then she said, “They were wont to say in old time, ‘Let them but ask counsel at Abel’; and so they settled a matter. ¹⁹I am one of those who are peaceable and faithful in Israel; you seek to destroy a city which is a mother in Israel; why will you swallow up the heritage of the Lord?” ²⁰Joab answered, “Far be it from me, far be it, that I should swallow up or destroy! ²¹That is not true. But a man of the hill country of Ephraim, called Sheba the son of Bichri, has lifted up his hand against King David; give up him alone, and I will withdraw from the city.” And the woman said to Joab, “Behold, his head shall be thrown to you over the wall.” ²²Then the woman went to all the people in her wisdom. And they cut off the head of Sheba the son of Bichri, and threw it out to Joab. So he blew the trumpet, and they dispersed from the city, every man to his home. And Joab returned to Jerusalem to the king.

²³Now Joab was in command of all the army of Israel; and Benaiah the son of Jehoiada was in command of the Cherethites and the Pelethites; ²⁴and Adoram was in charge of the forced labor; and Jehoshaphat the son of Ahilud was the recorder; ²⁵and Sheva was secretary; and Zadok and Abiathar were priests; ²⁶and Ira the Jairite was also David’s priest.

Chapter 21

¹Now there was a famine in the days of David for three years, year after year; and David sought the face of the Lord. And the Lord said, “There is bloodguilt on Saul and on his house, because he put the Gibeonites to death.” ²So the king called the Gibeonites. Now the Gibeonites were not of the people of Israel, but of the remnant of the Amorites; although the people of Israel had sworn to spare them, Saul had sought to slay them in his zeal for the people of Israel and Judah. ³And David said to the Gibeonites, “What shall I do for you? And how shall I make expiation, that you may bless the heritage of the Lord?” ⁴The Gibeonites said to him, “It is not a matter of silver or gold between us and Saul or his house; neither is it for us to put any man to death in Israel.” And he said, “What do you say that I shall do for you?” ⁵They said to the king, “The man who consumed us and planned to destroy us, so that we should have no place in all the territory of Israel, ⁶let seven of his sons be given to us, so that we may hang them up before the Lord at Gibeon on the mountain of the Lord.” And the king said, “I will give them.”

⁷But the king spared Mephibosheth, the son of Saul’s son Jonathan, because of the oath of the Lord which was between them, between David and Jonathan the son of Saul. ⁸The king took the two sons of Rizpah the daughter of Aiah, whom she bore to Saul, Armoni and Mephibosheth; and the five sons of Merab^o the daughter of Saul, whom she bore to Adri-el the son of Barzillai the Meholathite; ⁹and he gave them into the hands of the Gibeonites, and they hanged them on the mountain before the Lord, and the seven of them perished together. They were put to death in the first days of harvest, at the beginning of barley harvest.

¹⁰Then Rizpah the daughter of Aiah took sackcloth, and spread it for herself on the rock, from the beginning of harvest until rain fell upon them from the heavens; and she did not allow the birds of the air to come upon them by day, or the beasts of the field by night. ¹¹When David was told what Rizpah the daughter of Aiah, the concubine of Saul, had done, ¹²David went and took the bones of Saul and the bones of his son Jonathan from the men of Jabesh-gilead, who had stolen them from the public square of Beth-shan, where the Philistines had hanged them, on the day the Philistines killed Saul on Gilboa; ¹³and he brought up from there the bones of Saul and the bones of his son Jonathan; and they gathered the bones of those who were hanged. ¹⁴And they buried the bones of Saul and his son Jonathan in the land of Benjamin in Zela, in the tomb of Kish his father; and they did all that the king commanded. And after that God heeded supplications for the land.

¹⁵The Philistines had war again with Israel, and David went down together with his servants, and they fought against the Philistines; and David grew weary. ¹⁶And Ishbi-benob, one of the descendants of the giants, whose spear weighed three hundred shekels of bronze, and who was girded with a new sword, thought to kill David. ¹⁷But Abishai the son of Zeruiah came to his aid, and attacked the Philistine and killed him. Then David’s men adjured him, “You shall no more go out with us to battle, lest you quench the lamp of Israel.”

¹⁸After this there was again war with the Philistines at Gob; then Sibbecai the Hushathite slew Saph, who was one of the descendants of the giants. ¹⁹And there was again war with the Philistines at Gob; and Elhanan the son of Jaareoregim, the Bethlehemite, slew Goliath the Gittite, the shaft of whose spear was like a weaver’s beam. ²⁰And there was again war at Gath, where there was a man of great stature, who had six fingers on each hand, and six toes on each foot, twenty-four in number; and he also was descended from the giants. ²¹And when he taunted Israel, Jonathan the son of Shime-i, David’s brother, slew him. ²²These four were descended from the giants in Gath; and they fell by the hand of David and by the hand of his servants.