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2 Samuel 14 of 24

2 Samuel 14

A clever woman from Tekoa tells a parable to the king; Joab, behind her, has composed the script.

Summary

Joab the son of Zeruiah perceives that the king's heart is toward Absalom and sends to Tekoa and fetches a wise woman. He instructs her to pretend to be a mourner, put on mourning clothes, anoint herself with no oil, and act like one long mourning for the dead. She comes to the king and falls on her face and asks for help. She tells the king: she is indeed a widow and her husband is dead. She had two sons who strove together in the field; there was no one to part them, and one smote the other and slew him. Now the family has risen against her demanding the life of the killer, who is her only remaining son, so they would quench her coal and leave her husband's name and remnant on the earth. David says: go to thine house, I will give charge concerning thee. She persists, gets him to swear by the Lord that the avenger of blood shall destroy no more and that her son shall not perish. He swears. She then asks if he will hear one more thing. She says: the king has spoken this thing as one which is faulty, in that the king doth not fetch home again his banished. For we must needs die, and are as water spilt on the ground. God doth not take away life; he devises means that his banished be not expelled.

The woman then says outright: thy servant Joab bade me do this. David calls Joab and tells him his request is granted; go and fetch the young man Absalom. Joab falls on his face to thank the king, then goes to Geshur and brings Absalom to Jerusalem. But the king says: let him turn to his own house, not see my face. Absalom lives two years in Jerusalem without seeing the king's face. He is praised for his beauty — no blemish from sole to crown, remarkable hair which he weighs annually at four hundred shekels — and has three sons and a daughter named Tamar. Absalom sends twice for Joab and Joab does not come; he then sets Joab's barley field on fire. Joab comes to him and Absalom sends him back to the king: why did I come from Geshur? It were better for me to be there still; now therefore let me see the king's face, and if there be any iniquity in me, let him kill me. David sends for Absalom, Absalom bows himself on his face to the ground before the king, and the king kisses him.

Appears
David Absalom Joab
Themes
Political Mediation The Parable Form Reconciliation Deferred
All 24 chapters — click to jump
  1. 2 Samuel 1Chapter 1 is the hinge between 1 Samuel and 2 Samuel.
  2. 2 Samuel 2Chapter 2 opens the period of civil war that will occupy much of the first half of the book.
  3. 2 Samuel 3Chapter 3 is one of the most politically complex chapters in the book.
  4. 2 Samuel 4Chapter 4 closes the civil war with a brief, ugly episode.
  5. 2 Samuel 5Chapter 5 is the pivotal chapter of the book's first half.
  6. 2 Samuel 6Chapter 6 is one of the most dramatically charged chapters in 2 Samuel, covering two episodes that frame the ark's arrival in Jerusalem.
  7. 2 Samuel 7Chapter 7 is the theological centre of the entire David narrative and one of the most consequential passages in the Hebrew Bible for later Jewish and Christian thought.
  8. 2 Samuel 8Chapter 8 reads differently from everything around it.
  9. 2 Samuel 9Chapter 9 is the chapter the Court History uses to establish one key dimension of David's character before the crisis arrives.
  10. 2 Samuel 10Chapter 10 establishes the military context of the Bathsheba episode.
  11. 2 Samuel 11Chapter 11 is the turning point of 2 Samuel and one of the most consequential chapters in biblical narrative.
  12. 2 Samuel 12Chapter 12 contains the most famous confrontation in the book.
  13. 2 Samuel 13Chapter 13 is the first fulfilment of Nathan's sentence in chapter 12.
  14. 2 Samuel 14Chapter 14 covers the three years in which David longs for Absalom but will not recall him, and Joab's intervention to change that.
  15. 2 Samuel 15Chapter 15 is the emotional nadir of the first movement of the Absalom crisis.
  16. 2 Samuel 16Chapter 16 covers three encounters as David makes his way out of Jerusalem.
  17. 2 Samuel 17Chapter 17 is the intelligence chapter of the Absalom revolt and turns on a moment of competitive counsel.
  18. 2 Samuel 18Chapter 18 is the emotional climax of 2 Samuel.
  19. 2 Samuel 19Chapter 19 covers David's return to Jerusalem and the political settlements it requires.
  20. 2 Samuel 20Chapter 20 is the coda to the Absalom crisis.
  21. 2 Samuel 21Chapter 21 opens the appendix section of 2 Samuel — chapters 21-24 are not chronological narrative but supplementary materials: two episodes of famine and plague bracketing two poems and two hero lists.
  22. 2 Samuel 22Chapter 22 is an extended psalm, found also as Psalm 18 in the Psalter, which the editors of 2 Samuel have placed near the end of the book as David's retrospective meditation on his life.
  23. 2 Samuel 23Chapter 23 contains two distinct sections.
  24. 2 Samuel 24Chapter 24 is the second appendix episode bracketing the poems of chapters 22-23, and it closes the book on an unexpected note.
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2 Samuel 13
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2 Samuel 15
The book itself
Summary & story
What 2 Samuel is, why it matters.
Analysis
Themes
Power, consequence, grief, the dynastic promise, and the realism of the prose.
Who's who
David's court
The household of a king who has everything and gives most of it away.

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