2 Samuel 14: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

Joab sees that David longs for Absalom, who has been in exile since killing his brother Amnon, and sends a wise woman from Tekoa to David with an invented story about one son who killed the other. When David promises to protect her surviving son, she turns the case back on him for not bringing home his own banished son, and David admits Joab is behind it. David tells Joab to bring Absalom back, but orders that Absalom may not see his face. After two years Absalom sets Joab's barley field on fire to force a meeting, and Joab gets him an audience, where the king kisses him.

Claim by Claim

1. 14:1
   • Joab was the son of Zeruiah.
   • Joab perceived that the king's heart was set on Absalom.
2. 14:2
   • Joab sent to Tekoa.
   • Joab had a wise woman brought from Tekoa.
   • Joab told the woman to pretend to be a mourner.
   • Joab told the woman to put on mourning clothes.
   • Joab told the woman not to anoint herself with oil.
   • Joab told the woman to act like a woman who had mourned many days for someone dead.
3. 14:3
   • Joab told the woman to go to the king and speak to him in the manner he described.
   • Joab put the words in the woman's mouth.
4. 14:4
   • The woman of Tekoa spoke to the king.
   • She fell on her face to the ground.
   • She prostrated herself.
   • She said, Help, O king.
5. 14:5
   • The king asked her what was troubling her.
   • She said she was a widow.
   • She said her husband was dead.
6. 14:6
   • The woman said her maidservant self had two sons.
   • The two sons fought each other in the field.
   • There was no one to separate them.
   • One son struck the other.
   • The one who struck killed the other.
7. 14:7
   • The woman said the whole clan had risen against her.
   • The clan demanded that she hand over the one who struck his brother.
   • The clan said they would put him to death for the life of the brother he killed.
   • The clan said they would destroy the heir as well.
   • The woman said they would quench the one remaining ember she had left.
   • The woman said this would leave her husband neither name nor remnant on the face of the earth.
8. 14:8
   • The king told the woman to go to her house.
   • The king said he would give orders concerning her.
9. 14:9
   • The woman of Tekoa spoke to the king.
   • She said the guilt should be on her and on her father's house.
   • She said the king and his throne should be guiltless.
10. 14:10
    • The king said that whoever spoke to her should be brought to him.
    • The king said that person would not touch her again.
11. 14:11
    • The woman asked the king to remember the LORD his God.
    • She asked this so that the avenger of blood would not destroy further.
    • She asked this so that her son would not be destroyed.
    • The king swore by the life of the LORD.
    • The king said not one hair of her son would fall to the ground.
12. 14:12
    • The woman asked to speak one word to her lord the king.
    • The king told her to speak.
13. 14:13
    • The woman asked why the king had devised such a thing against the people of God.
    • The woman said that in speaking this the king convicts himself as guilty.
    • The woman said the king does not bring back his own banished one.
14. 14:14
    • We must surely die.
    • We are like water poured out on the ground.
    • Water poured on the ground cannot be gathered up again.
    • God does not lift up a life, which may mean either that God does not spare a life or that God shows no partiality.
    • God devises plans so that the banished one is not cast out from him.
15. 14:15
    • The woman said she had come to speak this matter to her lord the king because the people made her afraid.
    • The woman said she had told herself she would speak to the king.
    • The woman said perhaps the king would perform the request of his maidservant.
16. 14:16
    • The woman said the king would hear.
    • The woman said the king would deliver his maidservant from the hand of the man who would destroy her and her son together.
    • The woman said that man would cut them off from the inheritance of God.
17. 14:17
    • The woman said she had asked that the word of her lord the king would bring rest.
    • The woman said her lord the king is like an angel of God in discerning good and bad.
    • The woman asked that the LORD his God be with him.
18. 14:18
    • The king answered the woman.
    • The king told her not to hide from him the thing he would ask her.
    • The woman told her lord the king to speak.
19. 14:19
    • The king asked whether the hand of Joab was with her in all this.
    • The woman answered by the life of the king's soul.
    • The woman said no one can turn to the right hand or to the left from anything her lord the king has spoken.
    • The woman said Joab the king's servant had commanded her.
    • The woman said Joab had put all these words in her mouth.
20. 14:20
    • The woman said Joab did this in order to change the appearance of the matter.
    • The woman said her lord is wise according to the wisdom of an angel of God.
    • The woman said her lord knows everything that is in the land.
21. 14:21
    • The king spoke to Joab.
    • The king said he had done this thing.
    • The king told Joab to go and bring back the young man Absalom.
22. 14:22
    • Joab fell on his face to the ground.
    • Joab prostrated himself.
    • Joab blessed the king.
    • Joab said that today his servant knew he had found favor in the king's sight.
    • Joab said the king had fulfilled the request of his servant.
23. 14:23
    • Joab arose.
    • Joab went to Geshur.
    • Joab brought Absalom to Jerusalem.
24. 14:24
    • The king said Absalom should turn to his own house.
    • The king said Absalom should not see his face.
    • Absalom returned to his own house.
    • Absalom did not see the king's face.
25. 14:25
    • In all Israel there was no man as handsome and praised as Absalom.
    • From the sole of his foot to the crown of his head there was no blemish in him.
26. 14:26
    • Absalom cut the hair of his head.
    • He cut it at the end of every 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 weight.
27. 14:27
    • Three sons were born to Absalom.
    • One daughter was born to Absalom.
    • The daughter's name was Tamar.
    • Tamar was a woman of beautiful appearance.
28. 14:28
    • Absalom lived in Jerusalem two full years.
    • Absalom did not see the king's face.
29. 14:29
    • Absalom sent for Joab in order to send Joab to the king.
    • Joab would not come to him.
    • Absalom sent a second time.
    • Joab would not come.
30. 14:30
    • Absalom spoke to his servants.
    • Absalom said Joab's field was next to his own.
    • Absalom said Joab had barley in that field.
    • Absalom told his servants to go and set the field on fire.
    • Absalom's servants set the field on fire.
31. 14:31
    • Joab arose.
    • Joab came to Absalom at his house.
    • Joab asked why Absalom's servants had set his field on fire.
32. 14:32
    • Absalom answered Joab.
    • Absalom said he had sent for Joab to come there.
    • Absalom said he wanted to send Joab to the king with a message.
    • The message asked why Absalom had come from Geshur.
    • Absalom said it would have been better for him to still be there.
    • Absalom asked to see the king's face.
    • Absalom said that if there was iniquity in him, the king should kill him.
33. 14:33
    • Joab came to the king.
    • Joab told the king.
    • The king called for Absalom.
    • Absalom came to the king.
    • Absalom bowed on his face to the ground before the king.
    • The king kissed Absalom.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

14:1

Joab was David's nephew (Zeruiah was David's sister) and the commander of his army. The Absalom in question is David's son, who had killed his half-brother Amnon for raping their sister Tamar and had then fled the country three years earlier.

14:2

Tekoa was a town about ten miles south of Jerusalem, on the edge of the Judean wilderness. Rubbing the skin and hair with olive oil was ordinary daily grooming; going without it, together with coarse mourning clothes, was the recognized public sign that someone was in grief. Mourning normally ran a set period, so a woman still mourning after a long time signaled a household that had never recovered.

14:3

A wise woman was someone people trusted to speak well and give good advice. People also rubbed olive oil on their skin, like lotion. Sad people stopped doing it, so everyone could tell they were mourning.

14:4

The king was the final court of appeal, and ordinary people could petition him in person for a ruling. The woman's approach follows that standard procedure, which is why David hears her out as a legal case.

14:5

In the King James text the woman calls herself "thine handmaid" rather than "I". Speaking of yourself in the third person as the king's servant was the normal polite way to address a king, not a statement that she actually worked in his household.

14:6

Her detail that no one was there matters legally. With no witnesses, no one could say whether this was planned murder or a fight that got out of hand, and Israelite law treated those very differently: a man who killed without intending to could flee to a designated city of refuge and be protected from execution.

14:7

Under the custom of blood vengeance, the dead man's relatives had both the right and the duty to put his killer to death. Here the family is also demanding the surviving son's death as "the heir," which would let his share of the land pass to them. A "coal" is the ember banked overnight so the fire could be relit in the morning, a common image for the one surviving member who can keep a family alive. Without a male heir the husband's name and his family's land would both be lost.

14:9

Shielding a killer could leave unavenged blood, bloodguilt, resting on whoever protected him. The woman is offering to carry that guilt herself so that it does not fall on the king or on his royal line.

14:10

In 1611 English "saith ought unto thee" means says anything to you, and "touch thee" means harm you.

14:11

The "avenger of blood" was a formal office, not a mob: the nearest male relative of a murdered person, legally responsible for executing the killer. Israelite law distinguished deliberate murder from an unplanned killing and provided cities of refuge for the second case, but the family in her story is pressing for death regardless. "As surely as the LORD lives" was the strongest binding oath a person could swear.

14:13

This is the trap springing. Having got a royal ruling in her invented case, the woman now points out that the king has judged himself: he has protected her son from the avengers while leaving his own son in exile.

14:14

The middle clause is obscure in the Hebrew and translators divide over it. The King James takes it as "God shows no partiality"; others take it as "God does not take away a life." Both readings are defensible from the text as it stands.

14:16

Each Israelite family held an allotted portion of land, understood as given by God and meant to stay in the family permanently. To be cut off from it was to lose not just property but a place among the people.

14:17

An "angel of God" is literally a messenger of God, a figure who carries out God's decisions. Comparing a king to one was standard court flattery for exceptional judgment, not a claim about his nature.

14:19

"As surely as you live" swears by the king's own life, the strongest oath available short of swearing by God. "Turn to the right or the left" is an idiom for dodging or evading what has been said.

14:20

King James "to fetch about this form of speech" means to bring the situation around by telling it as a story. Joab's whole method was to get David to pass judgment on his own case without realizing that was what he was doing.

14:21

Absalom is a grown man with children of his own by this point. "Young man" marks him as the king's son and a junior figure at court rather than describing his age.

14:23

Geshur was a small Aramean kingdom east of the Sea of Galilee. Absalom's mother Maacah was the daughter of its king, so when he fled he went to his grandfather, safely outside David's reach.

14:24

Access to the king's presence was the mark of standing at court. Absalom is back in the capital but formally shut out, legally home, socially still in exile.

14:25

"From the sole of his foot even to the crown of his head" is a set phrase meaning the whole body, head to toe. "No blemish" is the vocabulary normally used of an unmarked animal; applied to a man it means physically flawless. Public admiration on this scale was political capital for a king's son.

14:26

Thick hair was admired as a sign of vigor and standing, and weighing the cuttings was a boast about it. Two hundred shekels "by the royal standard", an official palace weight, comes to roughly five pounds, a little over two kilograms, though the exact value of that standard is not known.

14:27

Absalom names his daughter after his sister Tamar, whose rape by Amnon set off the whole quarrel. The three sons are not named here, and a later verse (2 Samuel 18:18) has Absalom saying he has no son to carry his name, which suggests they died young.

14:30

Barley ripened around April and May. Burning a neighbor's standing grain destroyed a year's income and was a serious offense, an act calculated to force Joab to respond in person, which is exactly what happens.

14:32

Absalom is demanding either full restoration or execution, with nothing in between. "If there be any iniquity in me" means if I am guilty of a crime. His argument is that half measures are incoherent: either he deserves to die for killing Amnon or he deserves to be received back as the king's son.

14:33

A kiss given by a superior was a formal, public gesture of acceptance. It marks Absalom's official restoration to the court, not merely a private show of affection.