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2 Samuel 20 of 24

2 Samuel 20

Before David has returned fully to Jerusalem, another man blows a trumpet and declares a new rebellion.

Summary

There happens to be there a man of Belial, Sheba the son of Bichri a Benjaminite. He blows a trumpet and says: we have no part in David, neither have we inheritance in the son of Jesse; every man to his tents, O Israel. All the men of Israel go up from after David following Sheba; but the men of Judah cleave unto their king. David comes to his house at Jerusalem and takes the ten concubines he had left to keep the house and puts them in ward, feeding them but not going in unto them. They live in widowhood. He says to Amasa: assemble me the men of Judah within three days, and be thou here present. Amasa goes but tarries longer than the appointed time. David says to Abishai: now shall Sheba do us more harm than did Absalom; take thy lord's servants and pursue after him. Joab's men, the Cherethites and Pelethites, go out after Abishai and pursue Sheba. They come to the great stone of Gibeon. Amasa comes there also. Joab is girded with a sword in his hand; it falls out as he approaches Amasa. He takes Amasa by the beard with his right hand to kiss him and drives the sword into his belly, so that his bowels pour out to the ground. He dies.

Joab leads the pursuit north. One of Joab's men cries as they pass a certain man standing by the slain Amasa: he that favoureth Joab and he that is for David, let him follow Joab. He moves the body off the road and throws a garment over it; all the people go on after Joab to pursue Sheba. They come to Abel Beth-maacah and besiege the city, raising a ramp against it. A wise woman calls out from the wall: hear, hear! She says to Joab: we are peaceable and faithful in Israel; seek you to destroy a mother in Israel? Joab answers that he seeks only Sheba the son of Bichri who has lifted up his hand against the king David; deliver him, and he will depart from the city. The woman says: his head shall be thrown to thee over the wall. She speaks to all the people in her wisdom; they cut off Sheba's head and throw it to Joab. He blows the trumpet; the men scatter from the city. Joab returns to Jerusalem. The chapter closes with the restored administrative list: Joab over the host, Benaiah over the Cherethites and Pelethites, Adoram over the tribute, Jehoshaphat the recorder, Sheva the scribe, Zadok and Abiathar the priests, Ira the Jairite a chief ruler about David.

Appears
David Joab
Themes
Rebellion Tribal Division The Wise Woman
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 19
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2 Samuel 21
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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