2 Samuel 14 · WEB
Joab Schemes to Restore Absalom to Jerusalem
Listen — WEB narration 0:00 / 0:00 Narration: World English Bible (David Williams), public domain — AudioTreasure.
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Now Joab the son of Zeruiah perceived that the king's heart was toward Absalom.
2Joab sent to Tekoa and brought a wise woman from there and said to her, "Please act like a mourner and put on mourning clothing. Don't anoint yourself with oil, but be as a woman who has mourned a long time for the dead.
3Go in to the king and speak to him like this." Joab put the words in her mouth.
4When the woman of Tekoa spoke to the king, she fell on her face to the ground and showed respect and said, "Help, O king!"
5The king said to her, "What ails you?" She answered, "Truly I am a widow woman, and my husband is dead.
6Your servant had two sons, and the two of them fought together in the field, and there was no one to part them, but the one struck the other and killed him.
7Behold, the whole family has risen up against your servant, and they say, 'Deliver him who struck his brother, that we may kill him for the life of his brother whom he killed, and so destroy the heir also.' So they will quench my coal which is left, and will leave to my husband neither name nor remainder on the face of the earth."
8The king said to the woman, "Go to your house and I will give orders concerning you."
9The woman of Tekoa said to the king, "My lord, O king, let the iniquity be on me and on my father's house; and let the king and his throne be guiltless."
10The king said, "Whoever says anything to you, bring him to me, and he shall not touch you any more."
11Then she said, "Please let the king remember Yahweh your God, that the avenger of blood destroy not any more, lest they destroy my son." He said, "As Yahweh lives, not one hair of your son shall fall to the earth."
12Then the woman said, "Please let your servant speak a word to my lord the king." He said, "Say on."
13The woman said, "Why then have you planned such a thing against the people of God? For in speaking this word the king is as one who is guilty, in that the king does not bring home again his banished one.
14For we will surely die, and are like water spilled on the ground, which can't be gathered up again. God does not take away life, but devises means, so that he who is banished isn't cast out from him.
15Now I have come to speak this word to my lord the king, because the people have made me afraid. Your servant said, 'I will now speak to the king; perhaps the king will perform the request of his servant.
16For the king will hear, to deliver his servant out of the hand of the man who would destroy me and my son together out of the inheritance of God.'
17Then your servant said, 'Please let the word of my lord the king be comfortable; for as an angel of God, so is my lord the king, to hear good and bad. May Yahweh your God be with you.'"
18Then the king answered and said to the woman, "Please don't hide anything from me that I ask you." The woman said, "Let my lord the king now speak."
19The king said, "Is the hand of Joab with you in all this?" The woman answered, "As your soul lives, my lord the king, one can't turn to the right hand or to the left from anything that my lord the king has spoken. For your servant Joab commanded me, and he put all these words in the mouth of your servant.
20To change the face of things, your servant Joab has done this thing. My lord is wise, according to the wisdom of an angel of God, to know all things that are in the earth."
21The king said to Joab, "Behold now, I have granted this thing. Therefore go and bring the young man Absalom back."
22Joab fell to the ground on his face and showed respect, and blessed the king; and Joab said, "Today your servant knows that I have found favor in your sight, my lord, O king, in that the king has done the request of his servant."
23So Joab arose and went to Geshur and brought Absalom to Jerusalem.
24The king said, "Let him return to his own house, but don't let him see my face." So Absalom returned to his own house and didn't see the king's face.
25Now in all Israel there was no one so much praised for his beauty as Absalom. From the sole of his foot even to the crown of his head there was no defect in him.
26When he cut the hair of his head (now it was at every year's end that he cut it; because it was heavy on him, therefore he cut it), he weighed the hair of his head at two hundred shekels, according to the king's weight.
27Absalom had three sons born to him, and one daughter whose name was Tamar, who was a beautiful woman.
28Absalom lived two full years in Jerusalem, and didn't see the king's face.
29Then Absalom sent for Joab, to send him to the king; but he would not come to him. He sent again a second time, but he would not come.
30Therefore he said to his servants, "Behold, Joab's field is near mine, and he has barley there. Go and set it on fire." Absalom's servants set the field on fire.
31Then Joab arose and came to Absalom to his house and said to him, "Why have your servants set my field on fire?"
32Absalom answered Joab, "Behold, I sent for you, saying, 'Come here, that I may send you to the king, to say, "Why have I come from Geshur? It would be better for me to still be there." ' Now therefore let me see the king's face; and if there is iniquity in me, let him kill me."
33So Joab came to the king and told him; and when he had called for Absalom, he came to the king and bowed himself on his face to the ground before the king. Then the king kissed Absalom.
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Summary
Joab, perceiving David's longing for Absalom, employs a wise woman from Tekoa to tell David a parable about a widow with two sons — designed to move David to recall Absalom. The scheme works, but David only allows Absalom to return to Jerusalem under a kind of house arrest — no access to the king. After two more years of estrangement, Absalom forces Joab's hand by burning his barley field, ultimately obtaining a full reconciliation with a royal kiss. The chapter also paints a vivid picture of Absalom's exceptional beauty — which will become a political asset in the coming rebellion.
Themes
- Manipulation and indirect communication in dysfunctional family dynamics
- The danger of unresolved estrangement and half-measures of reconciliation
- Absalom's beauty as a harbinger of political seduction and danger
- A father's love unable to translate into decisive action
Key verses
- 2 Sam 14:14 — “We will surely die, and are like water spilled on the ground, which can't be gathered up again. God does not take away life, but devises means, so that he who is banished isn't cast out from him.”
- 2 Sam 14:25 — “In all Israel there was no one so much praised for his beauty as Absalom. From the sole of his foot even to the crown of his head there was no defect in him.”
- 2 Sam 14:33 — “He came to the king and bowed himself on his face to the ground before the king. Then the king kissed Absalom.”
Context & background
Tekoa (v. 2) was a small town about 10 miles south of Jerusalem (modern Jerusalem, Israel), in the Judean hills of the West Bank — later the hometown of the prophet Amos. Geshur, where Absalom had been for three years, was the kingdom of his maternal grandfather Talmai on the northeastern shore of the Sea of Galilee in the modern Golan Heights area, currently disputed between Israel and Syria. The detail about Absalom's hair — two hundred shekels (roughly 5 pounds) — is both a boast of his physical vitality and a dark foreshadowing: his hair will catch in an oak tree and be the instrument of his death (ch. 18). Joab's intervention throughout this chapter shows his ongoing role as an unofficial power broker in David's court.
Cross-references
- 2 Sam 13:37-39 — The estrangement from Absalom that this chapter resolves
- 2 Sam 15:1-6 — Absalom's political scheming begins immediately after this reconciliation
- 2 Sam 18:9 — Absalom's hair catches in an oak — the irony of his great beauty becoming his doom
- Eph 4:26-27 — "Don't let the sun go down on your anger, and don't give the devil a foothold" — the danger of prolonged estrangement
- Luke 15:20 — The father running to kiss the returning son — the contrast with David's slow, half-hearted reconciliation