Study Desk

Ahimaaz insisted, "I don't care what happens; please let me take the news also." "Why do you want to do it, my son?" Joab asked. "You will get no reward for it."

Then the Ethiopian slave arrived and said to the king, "I have good news for Your Majesty! Today the Lord has given you victory over all who rebelled against you!"

Joab was told that King David was weeping and mourning for Absalom.

And so the joy of victory was turned into sadness for all of David's troops that day, because they heard that the king was mourning for his son.

All of my father's family deserved to be put to death by Your Majesty, but you gave me the right to eat at your table. I have no right to ask for any more favors from Your Majesty."

"Let Ziba have it all," Mephibosheth answered. "It's enough for me that Your Majesty has come home safely."

Then let me go back home and die near my parents' grave. Here is my son Chimham, who will serve you; take him with you, Your Majesty, and do for him as you think best."

The king answered, "I will take him with me and do for him whatever you want. And I will do for you anything you ask."

The men of Judah answered, "We did it because the king is one of us. So why should this make you angry? He hasn't paid for our food nor has he given us anything."

When David arrived at his palace in Jerusalem, he took the ten concubines he had left to take care of the palace, and put them under guard. He provided for their needs, but did not have intercourse with them. They were kept confined for the rest of their lives, living like widows.

When they reached the large rock at Gibeon, Amasa met them. Joab was dressed for battle, with a sword in its sheath fastened to his belt. As he came forward, the sword fell out.

One of Joab's men stood by Amasa's body and called out, "Everyone who is for Joab and David follow Joab!"

Then she went to the people of the city with her plan, and they cut off Sheba's head and threw it over the wall to Joab. He blew the trumpet as a signal for his men to leave the city, and they went back home. And Joab returned to Jerusalem to the king.

During David's reign there was a severe famine which lasted for three full years. So David consulted the Lord about it, and the Lord said, "Saul and his family are guilty of murder; he put the people of Gibeon to death."

(The people of Gibeon were not Israelites; they were a small group of Amorites whom the Israelites had promised to protect, but Saul had tried to destroy them because of his zeal for the people of Israel and Judah.)

So David summoned the people of Gibeon and said to them, "What can I do for you? I want to make up for the wrong that was done to you, so that you will bless the Lord 's people."

They answered, "Our quarrel with Saul and his family can't be settled with silver or gold, nor do we want to kill any Israelite." "What, then, do you think I should do for you?" David asked.

Then Saul's concubine Rizpah, the daughter of Aiah, used sackcloth to make a shelter for herself on the rock where the corpses were, and she stayed there from the beginning of harvest until the autumn rains came. During the day she would keep the birds away from the corpses, and at night she would protect them from wild animals.

Then they buried the bones of Saul and Jonathan in the grave of Saul's father Kish, in Zela in the territory of Benjamin, doing all that the king had commanded. And after that, God answered their prayers for the country.

The danger of death was around me, and the grave set its trap for me.