2 Samuel 14
14
Absalom Returns to Jerusalem
1Now Joab the son of Zeruiah # 2Sa 2:18 recognized that the king’s mind was on Absalom. # 2Sa 13:39 2So Joab sent a request to Tekoa # 2Ch 11:6; Am 1:1 and brought from there a wise woman. He instructed her, “Act as if you are observing mourning rites. Put on mourning garments, and do not anoint yourself with oil, but act like a woman who has been mourning over the dead like this for many days. 3Then come to the king and speak to him in this manner.” Thus Joab put the words in her mouth. # Ex 4:15; 2Sa 14:19
4As the Tekoan woman spoke to the king, she fell on her face toward the ground and bowed low. # 1Sa 25:23; 2Sa 1:2 Then she said, “Help me, O king.”
5The king said to her, “What troubles you?”
She responded, “Alas, I am a widow, and my husband is dead. 6Furthermore, your servant had two sons. The two of them were fighting in the field, but there was no one to separate them. One struck the other and killed him. 7Now the entire family has risen up against your maidservant, and they said, ‘Deliver him who struck his brother, so that we may kill him for the life of his brother whom he killed, # Nu 35:19 and we will destroy the heir also.’ # Mt 21:38 So they will extinguish my remaining ember, and leave 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 Tekoan woman responded to the king, “May guilt rest upon me # 1Sa 25:24 and the house of my father, my lord the king, and may the king and his throne # 1Ki 2:33 be blameless.”
10The king said, “Whoever speaks to you, bring him to me, and he will not cause you harm again.”
11Then she said, “May the king remember the Lord your God so that the avenger of blood # Nu 35:19 will not continue to destroy, lest they exterminate my son.”
He said, “As the Lord lives, not one hair of your son will fall to the ground.” # 1Sa 14:45
12Then the woman said, “Allow your servant to speak a word to my lord the king.”
So he said, “Speak.”
13The woman said, “Why have you planned like this against the people of God? # 2Sa 12:7 The king’s speaking this word is like a self-conviction, for the king has not brought back his own banished one. # 2Sa 13:37–38 14We will surely die and are like water spilled on the ground, which cannot be gathered up again. Yet God does not take away a life; He devises plans so that His banished ones will not be cast out from Him. # Nu 35:15, 25
15“So now I have come to speak to my lord the king about this matter because the people have made me afraid. So, I thought, ‘I will speak to the king. Perhaps the king will perform the request of his servant. 16For the king may accept my request to deliver his servant from the hand of the man who would destroy me and my son from the inheritance of God.’ # 1Sa 26:19
17“So, your servant thought, ‘May the word of my lord the king provide rest. For like the angel of God, # 1Sa 29:9; 2Sa 19:27 my lord the king discerns good from evil. May the Lord your God be with you.’ ”
18Then the king answered the woman, “Please do not conceal from me anything that I ask you.”
The woman said, “May my lord the king please speak.”
19The king said, “Is the hand of Joab with you in all of this?” # 2Sa 14:3
The woman answered and said, “As your soul lives, # 1Sa 1:26 my lord the king, there is no turning right or left from anything that you spoke, my lord the king, for your servant Joab is the very one who commanded me and placed all of these words in my mouth. 20In order to change this situation, your servant Joab did this thing, but my lord is wise, as with the wisdom of the angel of God, so as to discern everything happening in the land.”
21Then the king said to Joab, “Behold now, I grant this; go, bring back the young man Absalom.” # 2Sa 14:11
22Then Joab fell with his face to ground and bowed low and blessed the king. Joab said, “Today your servant knows that I have found favor in your eyes, my lord the king, since the king has granted the request of his servant.”
23Then Joab arose and went to Geshur, and he brought Absalom to Jerusalem. 24The king said, “Let him turn to his own house. He shall not come into my presence.” So Absalom turned to his house and did not come into the king’s presence.
David Forgives Absalom
25In all of Israel, there was no man as handsome as Absalom. From the sole of his foot to the top of his head, # Dt 28:35; Job 2:7 there was not a blemish on him. 26When he cut the hair of his head (and at the end of every year he cut it, for it was heavy on him), # 2Sa 18:9; Eze 44:20 he weighed the hair from his head at two hundred shekels, # 14:26 About 5 pounds, or 2.3 kilograms. according to the king’s standard.
27There were born to Absalom three sons # 2Sa 18:18 and one daughter whose name was Tamar. # 2Sa 13:1 She was a beautiful woman.
28Absalom lived in Jerusalem for two full years without coming into the king’s presence. 29Then Absalom sent a message to Joab, requesting that he send him to the king, but he was not willing to come to him. So he sent a second message, but still he was not willing to come. 30Then he said to his servants, “See, Joab’s field is next to mine, and he has barley there. Go, set it on fire.” # Jdg 15:4–5 So the servants of Absalom set the field on fire.
31Then Joab arose, came to Absalom at his house, and said to him, “Why have your servants set my plot of land on fire?”
32Absalom said to Joab, “Behold, I sent a message to you, saying: Come, so that I may send you to the king, asking, ‘Why have I come from Geshur? It would be better for me to be there still.’ Now, let me go before the king, and if there is still guilt with me, may he put me to death.” # 1Sa 20:8; Pr 28:13
33So Joab came and reported this to him. Then he summoned Absalom. So he came to the king, bowed low to him, his face on the ground before the king; then the king kissed Absalom. # Ge 33:4; Lk 15:20
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2 Samuel 14: MEV
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The Holy Bible, Modern English Version
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