Study Desk

He said, "When the child was still alive, I fasted and I wept because I thought, ‘Who knows? Yahweh may have mercy on me that the child will live.'

He sent word by the hand of Nathan the prophet, so he called him Jedidiah because of Yahweh.

And Amnon was so frustrated that he felt ill because of Tamar his sister, because she was a virgin, and it was too difficult in Amnon's eyes to do anything with her.

She said to him, "No, because this evil in sending me away is greater than the other you have done to me." But he was not willing to listen to her.

Then Jonadab the son of Shimeah, the brother of David, responded and said, "My lord should not think that all the young men, the sons of the king, are dead, because only Amnon is dead. Absalom was talking about it, as it was being determined from the day he raped Tamar his sister.

Now I have come to speak this word to my lord the king, because the people made me afraid, and your servant thought, ‘I will speak to the king, perhaps the king will grant the request of his servant.

When he shaved his head, it would happen every year, which he did because it was heavy on him, he would shave it off and weigh the hair of his head: two hundred shekels by the king's weight.

The king said, "What do we have in common, sons of Zeruiah? If he curses because Yahweh has said to him ‘Curse David,' who can say, "Why have you done this?"

(Now Absalom had taken and set up for himself in his lifetime a stone pillar that is in the valley of the king, because he said, "I have no son in order to remember my name," and he called the stone pillar by his name. It is called the monument of Absalom until this day).

Joab said to him, "You will not be a man bringing good news this day! You may bring good news on another day, but today you will not be bringing good news because the king's son is dead."

so the victory turned to mourning on that day for all the army, because they had heard that day, "The king is grieving over his son."

The army came secretly into the city on that day because the army was disgraced when they fled in the battle,

and because the king had covered his face and cried with a loud voice, "My son, Absalom, Absalom, my son, my son."

Then it happened that all the people were disputing among all the tribes of Israel, saying, "The king delivered us from the hand of our enemies, and he saved us from the hand of the Philistines, but now he has fled from the land because of Absalom.

Then Abishai the son of Zeruiah responded and said, "Because of this, should not Shimei be put to death, for he cursed the anointed one of Yahweh?"

Then all the men of Judah answered the men of Israel, "Because the king is my close relative! Why are you this angry over this matter? Have we by any means eaten anything from the king? Did we take by any means anything that was not ours?"

Now Amasa was wallowing in the blood in the middle of the highway; when the man saw that all the people stood there, he turned Amasa over from the highway into the field, and he threw a garment over him because he had seen that all who had come by him had stopped.

There was a famine in the days of David for three years, year after year. And David inquired of Yahweh, and Yahweh said, "The bloodguilt is on Saul and on his household, because he killed the Gibeonites."

But the king spared Mephibosheth the son of Jonathan, the son of Saul, because of the sworn oath of Yahweh which was between them, between David and Jonathan the son of Saul.

The earth heaved and shook, the foundations of heaven trembled and heaved because he was angry.