Study Desk

Otherwise, if I had dealt treacherously against his life (and there is nothing hidden from the king), then you yourself would have stood aloof."

Then Joab said, "I will not wait around here before you." So he took three spears in his hand and thrust them through the heart of Absalom while he was yet alive in the midst of the oak.

And they took Absalom and cast him into a deep pit in the forest and set over him a very great heap of stones. And all Israel fled, each to his tent.

Now Absalom in his lifetime had taken and set up for himself a pillar which is in the King's Valley, for he had said, "I have no son to preserve my name." So he named the pillar after his own name, and it is called Absalom's Monument to this day.

Then Ahimaaz the son of Zadok said, "Please let me run and proclaim the good news to the king that Yahweh has judged to save him from the hand of his enemies."

Now David was sitting between the two gates; and the watchman went up to the roof of the gate by the wall, and raised his eyes and looked, and behold, a man running by himself.

And the watchman called and told the king. And the king said, "If he is by himself there is good news in his mouth." And he came nearer and nearer.

And Ahimaaz called and said to the king, "Peace!" And he prostrated himself before the king with his face to the ground. And he said, "Blessed is Yahweh your God, who has delivered up the men who lifted their hands against my lord the king."

And the salvation that day was turned to mourning for all the people, for the people heard it said that day, "The king is grieved for his son."

But as for the king, he wrapped his face up. Then the king cried out with a loud voice, "O my son Absalom, O Absalom, my son, my son!"

So the king arose and sat in the gate. And they told all the people, saying, "Behold, the king is sitting in the gate." Then all the people came before the king. Now Israel had fled, each to his tent.

Now King David had sent to Zadok and Abiathar the priests, saying, "Speak to the elders of Judah, saying, ‘Why are you the last to have the king return to his house, while the word of all Israel has come to the king, even to his house?

Now there were one thousand men of Benjamin with him, with Ziba the young man of the house of Saul, and his fifteen sons and his twenty servants with him; and they rushed to the Jordan before the king.

Then they kept passing over the ford to cause the king's household to pass over, and to do what was good in his sight. And Shimei the son of Gera fell down before the king as he was about to pass over the Jordan.

Now Mephibosheth the son of Saul had come down to meet the king; and he had not done anything for his feet, nor done anything for his mustache, nor washed his clothes, from the day the king departed until the day he came home in peace.

And Mephibosheth said to the king, "Let him even take it all, since my lord the king has come in peace to his own house."

Then all the people passed over the Jordan and the king passed over too. The king then kissed Barzillai and blessed him, and he returned to his place.

And behold, all the men of Israel came to the king and said to the king, "Why had our brothers the men of Judah stolen you away, and caused the king and his household and all David's men with him to pass over the Jordan?"

Now a vile fellow happened to be there whose name was Sheba, the son of Bichri, a Benjamite; and he blew the trumpet and said,"We have no portion in David,Nor do we have inheritance in the son of Jesse;Every man to his tents, O Israel!"

Then David came to his house at Jerusalem, and the king took the ten women, the concubines whom he had left to keep the house, and placed them under guard and provided them with sustenance, but did not go in to them. So they were shut up until the day of their death, living as widows.