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Day 132: David and Absalom
Chapter 14: Absalom's Return
David's son Absalom ordered the murder of his brother, the crown prince, Amnon. Since the time of Noah, the penalty for murder was death (Gen 9:6), and under the Law of the Sinai Covenant, the collaborative testimony of at least two witnesses was necessary for a death penalty conviction (Num 35:30; Dt 17:6). In the case of Amnon's murder, there was no problem finding witnesses since the assassination took place at a banquet in the presence of all the royal princes. However, Absalom could have felt he was justified in acting as his sister's kinsman/blood redeemer (Go'el Haddam), a family member who takes on the responsibility for seeking justice for a close relative. Under the Law, a rapist who violated a betrothed woman or committed incest with a sister was to be condemned to death. The people may have thought Absalom's killing of Amnon was honorable and justified in the role of a Go'el Haddam (Num 35:19) since they apparently did not hold the crime against him, as we shall see later in the narrative.After murdering his brother, Absalom, who is now the next in line as Israel's crown prince, escaped to his grandfather's Aramaean kingdom of Geshur that was northeast of the Galilee.
2 Samuel 14:1-3 ~ Joab's Plan to Arrange for Absalom's Return
Tekoa is a town that is about ten miles south of Jerusalem and about five miles south of Bethlehem. It is the home of one of David's commanders, Ira son of Ikkesh (2 Sam 23:26; 1 Chr 27:9), and will become the home of the 8th century BC prophet Amos (Amos 1:1).
Following the Prophet Nathan's example (2 Sam 12:1-7), Joab (David's nephew and army commander) uses an imaginary judicial case to set before David to get the king to reconcile with Absalom and to bring him back from exile. He uses a "wise woman," an expression that probably refers to a woman who is skilled in rhetoric (as in 2 Sam 20:16). The key word in this narrative is the Hebrew verb "speak" that is used nine times (verses 3, 10, 12 twice, 13, 15 twice, 18 and 19) in the Hebrew text and which demonstrates that the entire episode involves manipulation through the use of language. Notice that Joab gave the woman the outline, but she brilliantly improvises in her responses to David's comments to move forward the plan.
Wise Woman of Tekoa before David (Caspar Luiken)
2 Samuel 14:4-11 ~ The Woman from Tekoa and David's Verdict
It was the king's duty to be available to hear judicial cases that were referred to him by Israelites seeking justice. He had the power to overturn decisions made by lower, local courts, and he could grant royal pardons even in death penalty cases. The woman approaches the king with reverence, dressed as a widow in mourning, and says: "Help [rescue/save], my lord king!" It is a formulaic plea used by petitioners for royal justice and is the same appeal made to God the Great King (see Ps 3:7; 20:9; 54:1; 69:1; 106:47; 109:31; 118:25, etc.). We use the same formula when we call out to Yahweh, "Hosanna in the highest."
Joab is attempting to make a case for Absalom by using the fictitious story of a widow whose one son was killed by the other; however, there are a number of differences between the murder of Amnon by Absalom and the scenario in the woman's story.
Question: What are the differences that should be taken into account in the woman's case as opposed to what happen in Amnon's murder ordered by his brother Absalom?
Answer:
| Amnon's Murder | The Woman's Story |
| Amnon was killed in front of many witnesses. | In the woman's story, the brothers were alone in a field with no witnesses and so the death penalty cannot be applied.* |
| The obvious motive was revenge. The murder was premeditated homicide. | No motive is known. The death could have been a result of self-defense and therefore could be judged as manslaughter. |
| Absalom is one of many brothers. | The woman's surviving son is the only heir. |
| David's kingdom is not threatened by the absence/punishment of Absalom. | The woman will lose her ancestral lands if her surviving son is put to death. |
Question: The fictitious story that Joab told the woman to use is very similar to what other story of the murder of one brother by another from the Book of Genesis and what was the outcome of God's justice in that case? See Gen 4:8-16.
Answer: It is similar to the murder of Abel by his brother Cain that took place out in the field. In God's judgment, Cain is banished but not sentenced to death, and is he is given a sign to protect him from blood vengeance.
David would not have missed the comparison and the woman's subtle point is: if God, the Divine King, can pardon a man who killed his brother and protect him from blood vengeance then David who is Israel's king can also pardon her "son" to protect him from blood vengeance.
Of course the flaw in her comparison is that the death penalty wasn't established for homicide at that time. God commanded the death penalty for intentional murder after the Flood in Genesis 9:5-6 and the penalty is repeated in the Law of the Sinai Covenant: Anyone who by violence causes a death must be put to death. If, however, he has not planned to do it but it comes from God by his hand, he can take refuge in a place which I shall appoint for you. But should any person dare to kill another with deliberate planning, you will take that person even from my altar to be put to death (Ex 20:12-14; also see Lev 24:17; Num 35:16-34).
It is only in the case of unintentional homicide that the perpetrator is to be protected from the kinsman blood avenger.
According to the woman, her son needs to be protected from the Go'el Haddam, the kinsman in her clan who has taken on the responsibility for seeking justice for the murdered man but whose real motive is to inherit her ancestral lands since there is no other heir. Unlike our laws in the United States in which only the state takes the responsibility for seeking justice in a homicide, under the Law of the Sinai Covenant the family was very much involved. However, the Law of the Covenant took into account that sometimes a Go'el Haddam might not wait for a trial and attempted to avenge a death himself and in those cases six cities of refuge were established in which an accused person could seek asylum until his case could be brought to trial.
The woman's point is that her son needs to be protected because she cannot get a fair trial for her one remaining son whose death "will extinguish the ember still left to me" and will be the end of her family line. Her kinsmen in her village are covetous of his inheritance which will revert to them since she had no other son to inherit her ancestral lands. She says the motive of the Go'el Haddam for killing her son is not justice for the dead brother but greed.
The woman mentions the Go'el Haddam who is seeking justice for her murdered son. In ancient Israelite society, under the Law of the Sinai Covenant, there were well defined legal obligations assumed by the next of kin, called the Go'el Haddam, the kinsman/blood redeemer.
Question: What were the responsibilities of a Go'el Haddam? See Lev 25:23-34; Num 27:8-11; 35:9-21; Dt 25:5-10.
Answer: Those responsibilities included:
- Redemption of ancestral lands (Lev 25:23-34; Num 27:8-11).
- Levirate marriage to a brother/kinsman's childless widow (Dt 25:5-10).
- Justice for the wrongful death of a kinsman/kinswoman (Num 35:9-21).
The Go'el, as the family protector, was also responsible for preventing the alienation of the family's ancestral lands that were deeded to the clan/family as God's representatives/tenants in the Promised Land (Lev 25:23-25; Rt 4:3ff).
In marrying the childless widow of a kinsman whose lands might pass out of the family to another heir, any children from the union were considered the deceased's children and heirs of his lands that remained within the family/clan.This is the problem presented by the woman. The Go'el in her clan is not acting in her interests but his own. If her only son is killed, since there is apparently no widow, the lands would pass to the Go'el and she will lose her ancestral lands. A woman could only inherit ancestral lands if her father had no sons and if she married within the tribe or clan (Lev 27:1-11; Num 36:6-9).
The assurance David gave in verse 10 is still not enough for the woman because he only mentioned the threat and did not mention her son.
Question: What does she ask David to do in verse 11?
Answer: The woman wants to extract an explicit declaration from David that he will protect the life of her son. She asks David to bind himself to saving her son by swearing an oath in God's name, which he does.
With David's oath in the Divine Name to protect the life of the fictional son, she now has what she wants and is prepared to shut the fictional trap by linking her story to David and his son Absalom, just like Nathan with the parable of the poor man's ewe in chapter 12.
2 Samuel 14:12-18 ~ The Woman's Second Petition
Now the woman releases the rhetorical trap by asking David why gave her this verdict that her son deserves to live and yet is prepared to condemn the son who is his heir with the right to inherit the throne and whose banishment is not in the interest of Israel. The key concept is "inheritance." The woman knows she is on dangerous ground and is proceeding carefully; notice that she does not mention Absalom's name.
She then speaks about human destiny. The split water is an image of human mortality and is an effective counter point to her earlier image of the death of her son as extinguishing "the ember" still left to her (verse 7). Her point that nothing more can be done for David's dead son and that "God does not raise up a corpse" is reminiscent of David's statement about the death of his son with Bathsheba in 12:23. She urges David not to wait but to bring back his living son. She implies that God will not want to punish the father who brings back his banished son even though blood guilt remains unavenged.
Having risked the subject of the king's son, the woman now retreats back to fictitious story.
There is a double meaning to her words concerning the king's power restore the peace. She seems to be talking about peace within her clan but she is really speaking about peace in Israel being restored through resolving Absalom's exile. Finally, she resorts to flattery by comparing David's wisdom to the Angel of God. The "Angel of God" is God Himself in visible form in which He appears to men on earth (as in Scripture passages like Gen 16:7; 21:17; 31:11; Ex 14:19). She is according David the gift of divine wisdom.
2 Samuel 14:18-24 ~ David Becomes Aware of Joab's Plan
David rightly guesses that a village woman would have no motive of her own for undertaking such a rouse and immediately suspects his nephew Joab. The woman admits the plan was Joab's but for all the king has spoken, she says, using the verb "to speak" a ninth time, David, "with the wisdom of the Angel of God," has committed himself by his own speech to protecting his fratricidal son and he cannot now permit himself to continue his son's banishment. She flatters David but the irony is that David will demonstrate a lack of wisdom in bringing Absalom back and making him the crown prince and David's heir.
The woman's fictitious judicial case gives David what he needs to justify allowing himself to bring Absalom back from exile. However, he will resist full reconciliation and it will lead to greater troubles for David's family.
2 Samuel 14:25-33 ~ Absalom Obtains His Pardon
Notice the connection between David's oath to the woman from Tekoa in 14:11 concerning the royal pardon for her fictitious son: "As Yahweh lives," he said, "not one of your son's hairs shall fall to the ground!" and the mention of David's son's luxurious hair in verse 25 which was cut in some kind of public ceremony annually. A full head of hair was considered a sign of health and beauty. Absalom's beauty was one of the reasons David loved him and found it hard to discipline him. Absalom's beauty will also be part of the reason he "stole the hearts of the people of Israel" (2 Sam 15:6). However, Absalom was denied real reconciliation with his father for two years. During that time he lived with his family in Jerusalem; he had three sons and a daughter he named after his sister.
Absalom tried to enlist Joab's support to bring about a full reconciliation with his father which would mean David would acknowledge him as his heir, but Joab evidently felt he had done his part and did not want to push his luck by interceding at court on Absalom's behalf if David was not prepared to receive him. Absalom burnt Joab's fields to get his attention. It is another example of manipulation in the game of power and it demonstrates that Absalom is willing to use violence to achieve his objectives.
Absalom knows he has killed Amnon, but he sees it as something other than guilt because he did it to avenge the defilement of his sister which was a crime David left unpunished.
Absalom has submitted himself to the king his father and his father as king has pardoned him and welcomed him back into the family which also implied that Absalom is now recognized as David's heir and the future king. As we shall see the reconciliation is only on David's part. Absalom has other plans.
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A Daily Defense
DAY 132 Church Teaching on Divorce
CHALLENGE: “The Catholic Church is too uptight about divorce. People ought to be able to freely divorce and remarry if they choose.”
DEFENSE: The Church’s teaching on divorce is humane, just, and rooted in the teaching of Jesus.
The Church’s teaching is humane, for it recognizes that there can be legitimate reasons to obtain a divorce under civil (secular) law: “If civil divorce remains the only possible way of ensuring certain legal rights, the care of the children, or the protection of inheritance, it can be tolerated and does not constitute a moral offense” (CCC 2383). Thus nobody is required to live in an intolerable or unsafe situation, such as with a physically or emotionally abusive spouse.
The Church’s teaching is just, for it recognizes that the spouses have made a serious commitment to each other in marriage. There must be grave reason to justify civil divorce, because divorce “introduces disorder into the family and into society. This disorder brings grave harm to the deserted spouse, to children traumatized by the separation of their parents and often torn between them, and because of its contagious effect which makes it truly a plague on society” (CCC 2385).
The Church’s teaching is rooted in the teaching of Jesus, who took a strong stand against the permissive attitude toward divorce in the ancient world. Stressing that marriage was instituted by God, so that husband and wife are joined together in a divine institution, Jesus famously stated: “What therefore God has joined together, let not man put asunder” (Matt. 19:6).
He also warned that—because they are united together in this way—they are not free to marry other people if they do divorce: “Whoever divorces his wife and marries another, commits adultery against her; and if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery” (Mark 10:11–12; cf. Luke 16:18).
This same teaching is reflected in the writings of Paul, who specifically tells his readers that the teaching comes from “the Lord”—i.e., the Lord Jesus (cf. 1 Cor. 1:2–3). He writes: “To the married I give charge, not I but the Lord, that the wife should not separate from her husband (but if she does, let her remain single or else be reconciled to her husband)—and that the husband should not divorce his wife” (1 Cor. 7:10–11).
Jimmy Akin, A Daily Defense: 365 Days (Plus One) to Becoming a Better Apologist
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