Study Desk

So the Lord sent Nathan to David. When he arrived, he said to him:

On the seventh day the baby died. But David’s servants were afraid to tell him the baby was dead. They said, “Look, while the baby was alive, we spoke to him, and he wouldn’t listen to us. So how can we tell him the baby is dead? He may do something desperate.”

When David saw that his servants were whispering to each other, he guessed that the baby was dead. So he asked his servants, “Is the baby dead?”

Then David got up from the ground. He washed, anointed himself, changed his clothes, went to the Lord’s house, and worshiped. Then he went home and requested something to eat. So they served him food, and he ate.

So David assembled all the troops and went to Rabbah; he fought against it and captured it.

and he asked Amnon, “Why are you, the king’s son, so miserable every morning? Won’t you tell me?”

Jonadab said to him, “Lie down on your bed and pretend you’re sick. When your father comes to see you, say to him, ‘Please let my sister Tamar come and give me something to eat. Let her prepare a meal in my presence so I can watch and eat from her hand.’”

So Amnon lay down and pretended to be sick. When the king came to see him, Amnon said to him, “Please let my sister Tamar come and make a couple of cakes in my presence so I can eat from her hand.”

“Bring the meal to the bedroom,” Amnon told Tamar, “so I can eat from your hand.” Tamar took the cakes she had made and went to her brother Amnon’s bedroom.

So Amnon hated Tamar with such intensity that the hatred he hated her with was greater than the love he had loved her with. “Get out of here!” he said.

Her brother Absalom said to her: “Has your brother Amnon been with you? Be quiet for now, my sister. He is your brother. Don’t take this thing to heart.” So Tamar lived as a desolate woman in the house of her brother Absalom.

But Absalom urged him, so he sent Amnon and all the king’s sons.

So Absalom’s young men did to Amnon just as Absalom had commanded. Then all the rest of the king’s sons got up, and each fled on his mule.

So now, my lord the king, don’t take seriously the report that says all the king’s sons are dead. Only Amnon is dead.”

So Joab sent someone to Tekoa to bring a wise woman from there. He told her, “Pretend to be in mourning: dress in mourning clothes and don’t put on any oil. Act like a woman who has been mourning for the dead for a long time.

Now the whole clan has risen up against your servant and said, ‘Hand over the one who killed his brother so we may put him to death for the life of the brother he murdered. We will eliminate the heir!’ They would extinguish my one remaining ember by not preserving my husband’s name or posterity on earth.”

She replied, “Please, may the king invoke the Lord your God, so that the avenger of blood will not increase the loss, and they will not eliminate my son!”

We will certainly die and be like water poured out on the ground, which can’t be recovered. But God would not take away a life; he would devise plans so that the one banished from him does not remain banished.

So Joab got up, went to Geshur, and brought Absalom to Jerusalem.

However, the king added, “He may return to his house, but he may not see my face.” So Absalom returned to his house, but he did not see the king.