2 Samuel 19–21

1Joab was told, “Behold, the king weeps and mourns for Absalom.”

2The victory that day was turned into mourning among all the people, for the people heard it said that day, “The king grieves for his son.”

3The people sneaked into the city that day, as people who are ashamed steal away when they flee in battle.

4The king covered his face, and the king cried with a loud voice, “My son Absalom, Absalom, my son, my son!”

5Joab came into the house to the king, and said, “Today you have shamed the faces of all your servants who today have saved your life, and the lives of your sons and of your daughters, and the lives of your wives, and the lives of your concubines;

6in that you love those who hate you and hate those who love you. For you have declared today that princes and servants are nothing to you. For today I perceive that if Absalom had lived and we had all died today, then it would have pleased you well.

7Now therefore arise, go out and speak to comfort your servants; for I swear by Yahweh, if you don’t go out, not a man will stay with you this night. That would be worse to you than all the evil that has happened to you from your youth until now.”

8Then the king arose and sat in the gate. The people were all told, “Behold, the king is sitting in the gate.” All the people came before the king. Now Israel had fled every man to his tent.

9All the people were at strife throughout all the tribes of Israel, saying, “The king delivered us out of the hand of our enemies, and he saved us out of the hand of the Philistines; and now he has fled out of the land from Absalom.

10Absalom, whom we anointed over us, is dead in battle. Now therefore why don’t you speak a word of bringing the king back?”

11King David sent to Zadok and to Abiathar the priests, saying, “Speak to the elders of Judah, saying, ‘Why are you the last to bring the king back to his house, since the speech of all Israel has come to the king, to return him to his house?

12You are my brothers. You are my bone and my flesh. Why then are you the last to bring back the king?’

13Say to Amasa, ‘Aren’t you my bone and my flesh? God do so to me, and more also, if you aren’t captain of the army before me continually instead of Joab.’”

14He bowed the heart of all the men of Judah, even as one man, so that they sent to the king, saying, “Return, you and all your servants.”

15So the king returned, and came to the Jordan. Judah came to Gilgal, to go to meet the king, to bring the king over the Jordan.

16Shimei the son of Gera, the Benjamite, who was of Bahurim, hurried and came down with the men of Judah to meet King David.

17There were a thousand men of Benjamin with him, and Ziba the servant of Saul’s house, and his fifteen sons and his twenty servants with him; and they went through the Jordan in the presence of the king.

18A ferry boat went to bring over the king’s household, and to do what he thought good. Shimei the son of Gera fell down before the king when he had come over the Jordan.

19He said to the king, “Don’t let my lord impute iniquity to me, or remember that which your servant did perversely the day that my lord the king went out of Jerusalem, that the king should take it to his heart.

20For your servant knows that I have sinned. Therefore behold, I have come today as the first of all the house of Joseph to go down to meet my lord the king.”

21But Abishai the son of Zeruiah answered, “Shouldn’t Shimei be put to death for this, because he cursed Yahweh’s anointed?”

22David said, “What have I to do with you, you sons of Zeruiah, that you should be adversaries to me today? Shall any man be put to death today in Israel? For don’t I know that I am king over Israel today?”

23The king said to Shimei, “You will not die.” The king swore to him.

24Mephibosheth the son of Saul came down to meet the king; and he had neither groomed his feet, nor trimmed his beard, nor washed his clothes, from the day the king departed until the day he came home in peace.

25When he had come to Jerusalem to meet the king, the king said to him, “Why didn’t you go with me, Mephibosheth?”

26He answered, “My lord, O king, my servant deceived me. For your servant said, ‘I will saddle a donkey for myself, that I may ride on it and go with the king,’ because your servant is lame.

27He has slandered your servant to my lord the king, but my lord the king is as an angel of God. Therefore do what is good in your eyes.

28For all my father’s house were but dead men before my lord the king; yet you set your servant among those who ate at your own table. What right therefore have I yet that I should appeal any more to the king?”

29The king said to him, “Why do you speak any more of your matters? I say, you and Ziba divide the land.”

30Mephibosheth said to the king, “Yes, let him take all, because my lord the king has come in peace to his own house.”

31Barzillai the Gileadite came down from Rogelim; and he went over the Jordan with the king to conduct him over the Jordan.

32Now Barzillai was a very aged man, even eighty years old. He had provided the king with sustenance while he stayed at Mahanaim, for he was a very great man.

33The king said to Barzillai, “Come over with me, and I will sustain you with me in Jerusalem.”

34Barzillai said to the king, “How many are the days of the years of my life, that I should go up with the king to Jerusalem?

35I am eighty years old, today. Can I discern between good and bad? Can your servant taste what I eat or what I drink? Can I hear the voice of singing men and singing women any more? Why then should your servant be a burden to my lord the king?

36Your servant will just go over the Jordan with the king. Why should the king repay me with such a reward?

37Please let your servant turn back again, that I may die in my own city, by the grave of my father and my mother. But behold, your servant Chimham; let him go over with my lord the king; and do to him what shall seem good to you.”

38The king answered, “Chimham shall go over with me, and I will do to him that which shall seem good to you. Whatever you request of me, that I will do for you.”

39All the people went over the Jordan, and the king went over. Then the king kissed Barzillai and blessed him; and he returned to his own place.

40So the king went over to Gilgal, and Chimham went over with him. All the people of Judah brought the king over, and also half the people of Israel.

41Behold, all the men of Israel came to the king, and said to the king, “Why have our brothers the men of Judah stolen you away, and brought the king and his household, over the Jordan, and all David’s men with him?”

42All the men of Judah answered the men of Israel, “Because the king is a close relative to us. Why then are you angry about this matter? Have we eaten at all at the king’s cost? Or has he given us any gift?”

43The men of Israel answered the men of Judah, and said, “We have ten parts in the king, and we have also more claim to David than you. Why then did you despise us, that our advice should not be first had in bringing back our king?” The words of the men of Judah were fiercer than the words of the men of Israel.

1There happened to be there a wicked fellow, whose name was Sheba the son of Bichri, a Benjamite; and he blew the trumpet, and said, “We have no portion in David, neither have we inheritance in the son of Jesse. Every man to his tents, Israel!”

2So all the men of Israel went up from following David, and followed Sheba the son of Bichri; but the men of Judah joined with their king, from the Jordan even to Jerusalem.

3David came to his house at Jerusalem; and the king took the ten women his concubines, whom he had left to keep the house, and put them in custody and provided them with sustenance, but didn’t go in to them. So they were shut up to the day of their death, living in widowhood.

4Then the king said to Amasa, “Call me the men of Judah together within three days, and be here present.”

5So Amasa went to call the men of Judah together, but he stayed longer than the set time which had been appointed to him.

6David said to Abishai, “Now Sheba the son of Bichri will do us more harm than Absalom did. Take your lord’s servants and pursue after him, lest he get himself fortified cities, and escape out of our sight.”

7Joab’s men went out after him with the Cherethites, the Pelethites, and all the mighty men; and they went out of Jerusalem to pursue Sheba the son of Bichri.

8When they were at the great stone which is in Gibeon, Amasa came to meet them. Joab was clothed in his apparel of war that he had put on, and on it was a sash with a sword fastened on his waist in its sheath; and as he went along it fell out.

9Joab said to Amasa, “Is it well with you, my brother?” Joab took Amasa by the beard with his right hand to kiss him.

10But Amasa took no heed to the sword that was in Joab’s hand. So he struck him with it in the body and shed out his bowels to the ground, and didn’t strike him again; and he died. Joab and Abishai his brother pursued Sheba the son of Bichri.

11One of Joab’s young men stood by him, and said, “He who favors Joab, and he who is for David, let him follow Joab!”

12Amasa lay wallowing in his blood in the middle of the highway. When the man saw that all the people stood still, he carried Amasa out of the highway into the field, and cast a garment over him when he saw that everyone who came by him stood still.

13When he was removed out of the highway, all the people went on after Joab to pursue Sheba the son of Bichri.

14He went through all the tribes of Israel to Abel, to Beth Maacah, and all the Berites. They were gathered together, and went also after him.

15They came and besieged him in Abel of Beth Maacah, and they cast up a mound against the city, and it stood against the rampart; and all the people who were with Joab battered the wall to throw it down.

16Then a wise woman cried out of the city, “Hear, hear! Please say to Joab, ‘Come near here, that I may speak with you.’”

17He came near to her; and the woman said, “Are you Joab?” He answered, “I am.” Then she said to him, “Hear the words of your servant.” He answered, “I’m listening.”

18Then she spoke, saying, “They used to say in old times, ‘They shall surely ask counsel at Abel,’ and so they settled a matter.

19I am among those who are peaceable and faithful in Israel. You seek to destroy a city and a mother in Israel. Why will you swallow up Yahweh’s inheritance?”

20Joab answered, “Far be it, far be it from me, that I should swallow up or destroy.

21The matter is not so. But a man of the hill country of Ephraim, Sheba the son of Bichri by name, has lifted up his hand against the king, even against David. Just deliver him, and I will depart from the city.” The woman said to Joab, “Behold, his head will be thrown to you over the wall.”

22Then the woman went to all the people in her wisdom. They cut off the head of Sheba the son of Bichri, and threw it out to Joab. He blew the trumpet, and they were dispersed from the city, every man to his tent. Then Joab returned to Jerusalem to the king.

23Now Joab was over all the army of Israel, Benaiah the son of Jehoiada was over the Cherethites and over the Pelethites,

24Adoram was over the men subject to forced labor, Jehoshaphat the son of Ahilud was the recorder,

25Sheva was scribe, Zadok and Abiathar were priests,

26and Ira the Jairite was chief minister to David.

1There was a famine in the days of David for three years, year after year; and David sought the face of Yahweh. Yahweh said, “It is for Saul, and for his bloody house, because he put the Gibeonites to death.”

2The king called the Gibeonites and said to them (now the Gibeonites were not of the children of Israel, but of the remnant of the Amorites, and the children of Israel had sworn to them; and Saul sought to kill them in his zeal for the children of Israel and Judah);

3and David said to the Gibeonites, “What should I do for you? And with what should I make atonement, that you may bless Yahweh’s inheritance?”

4The Gibeonites said to him, “It is no matter of silver or gold between us and Saul or his house; neither is it for us to put any man to death in Israel.” He said, “I will do for you whatever you say.”

5They said to the king, “The man who consumed us and who plotted against us, that we should be destroyed from remaining in any of the borders of Israel,

6let seven men of his sons be delivered to us, and we will hang them up to Yahweh in Gibeah of Saul, the chosen of Yahweh.” The king said, “I will give them.”

7But the king spared Mephibosheth the son of Jonathan the son of Saul, because of Yahweh’s oath that was between them, between David and Jonathan the son of Saul.

8But the king took the two sons of Rizpah the daughter of Aiah, whom she bore to Saul, Armoni and Mephibosheth; and the five sons of Merab the daughter of Saul, whom she bore to Adriel the son of Barzillai the Meholathite.

9He delivered them into the hands of the Gibeonites; and they hanged them on the mountain before Yahweh, and all seven of them fell together. They were put to death in the days of harvest, in the first days, at the beginning of barley harvest.

10Rizpah the daughter of Aiah took sackcloth and spread it for herself on the rock, from the beginning of harvest until water poured on them from the sky. She allowed neither the birds of the sky to rest on them by day, nor the animals of the field by night.

11David was told what Rizpah the daughter of Aiah, the concubine of Saul, had done.

12So David went and took the bones of Saul and the bones of Jonathan his son from the men of Jabesh Gilead, who had stolen them from the street of Beth Shan, where the Philistines had hanged them in the day that the Philistines killed Saul in Gilboa;

13and he brought up from there the bones of Saul and the bones of Jonathan his son. They also gathered the bones of those who were hanged.

14They buried the bones of Saul and Jonathan his son in the country of Benjamin in Zela, in the tomb of Kish his father; and they performed all that the king commanded. After that, God answered prayer for the land.

15The Philistines had war again with Israel; and David went down, and his servants with him, and fought against the Philistines. David grew faint;

16and Ishbibenob, who was of the sons of the giant, the weight of whose spear was three hundred shekels of bronze in weight, he being armed with a new sword, thought he would kill David.

17But Abishai the son of Zeruiah helped him, and struck the Philistine and killed him. Then the men of David swore to him, saying, “Don’t go out with us to battle any more, so that you don’t quench the lamp of Israel.”

18After this, there was again war with the Philistines at Gob. Then Sibbecai the Hushathite killed Saph, who was of the sons of the giant.

19There was again war with the Philistines at Gob, and Elhanan the son of Jaare-Oregim the Bethlehemite killed Goliath the Gittite’s brother, the staff of whose spear was like a weaver’s beam.

20There was again war at Gath, where there was a man of great stature, who had six fingers on every hand and six toes on every foot, twenty-four in number, and he also was born to the giant.

21When he defied Israel, Jonathan the son of Shimei, David’s brother, killed him.

22These four were born to the giant in Gath; and they fell by the hand of David and by the hand of his servants.