Immerse: Kingdoms Full Volume - Flipbook - Page 167
2S
| 13:32–14:11
S am u el – K I N G S
155
But just then Jonadab, the son of David’s brother Shimea, arrived and
said, “No, don’t believe that all the king’s sons have been killed! It was only
Amnon! Absalom has been plotting this ever since Amnon raped his sister
Tamar. No, my lord the king, your sons aren’t all dead! It was only Amnon.”
Meanwhile Absalom escaped.
Then the watchman on the Jerusalem wall saw a great crowd coming
down the hill on the road from the west. He ran to tell the king, “I see a
crowd of people coming from the Horonaim road along the side of the hill.”
“Look!” Jonadab told the king. “There they are now! The king’s sons
are coming, just as I said.”
They soon arrived, weeping and sobbing, and the king and all his servants wept bitterly with them. And David mourned many days for his son
Amnon.
Absalom fled to his grandfather, Talmai son of Ammihud, the king of
Geshur. He stayed there in Geshur for three years. And King David, now
reconciled to Amnon’s death, longed to be reunited with his son Absalom.
Joab realized how much the king longed to see Absalom. So he sent for a
woman from Tekoa who had a reputation for great wisdom. He said to her,
“Pretend you are in mourning; wear mourning clothes and don’t put on
lotions. Act like a woman who has been mourning for the dead for a long
time. Then go to the king and tell him the story I am about to tell you.”
Then Joab told her what to say.
When the woman from Tekoa approached the king, she bowed with
her face to the ground in deep respect and cried out, “O king! Help me!”
“What’s the trouble?” the king asked.
“Alas, I am a widow!” she replied. “My husband is dead. My two sons
had a fight out in the field. And since no one was there to stop it, one of
them was killed. Now the rest of the family is demanding, ‘Let us have your
son. We will execute him for murdering his brother. He doesn’t deserve
to inherit his family’s property.’ They want to extinguish the only coal I
have left, and my husband’s name and family will disappear from the face
of the earth.”
“Leave it to me,” the king told her. “Go home, and I’ll see to it that no
one touches him.”
“Oh, thank you, my lord the king,” the woman from Tekoa replied. “If
you are criticized for helping me, let the blame fall on me and on my father’s house, and let the king and his throne be innocent.”
“If anyone objects,” the king said, “bring him to me. I can assure you he
will never harm you again!”
Then she said, “Please swear to me by the Lord your God that you won’t
let anyone take vengeance against my son. I want no more bloodshed.”