Open English Translation 2 SAM Chapter 14

14 Now Yoav (Tseruyah’s son) realised that the king missed Abshalom, 2 so he sent for a wise woman from Tekoa and told her, “Now, please put on mourning clothes and don’t put on any make-up. Act like a woman who has been mourning for the dead for several days, 3 and go to the king and give him this message.” Then Yoav told her what to say to the king.

4 So the Tekoan woman went to the king and fell onto her knees with his face down to the ground, saying, “Your majesty, help me.”

5 “What’s the matter?” the king asked.

“Alas, I’m a widow,” she replied. “My husband has died. 6 Your female servant had two sons, and the two of them fought each other out in the countryside. There wasn’t anyone there who could stop them, and then one son struck the other and killed him. 7 Now listen, the entire clan has turned against your female servant and demanded, ‘Give us the one who killed his brother, and we’ll kill him in exchange for the life of the brother that he killed. Also, it would mean that this evil thing couldn’t be passed on.’ But that would leave me with no descendants to continue my husband’s name.”

8 “Go home,” the king told the woman, “and I’ll make a decision about what to do.”

9 But the Tekoan woman continued, “The blame,[fn] my master the king, will be on me and my extended family, but the king and his throne will be innocent.”

10 “Anyone who speaks against you,” said the king, “bring them to me, and then they won’t trouble you any more.”

11 “Please,” she insisted, “may the king ask your god Yahweh to prevent the avenger of blood from increasing the tragedy, so my son won’t be destroyed.”

“As surely as Yahweh lives,” he vowed, “not a hair from your son’s head will fall to the ground.”

12 Then the woman said, “Please, let your female servant ask my master the king a question.”

“Speak,” he replied.

13 So the woman asked, “Why have you acted like this against God’s people? When the king says that to me, isn’t he convicting himself since he hasn’t brought back his own banished son? 14 It’s certain that we’ll all die. Water that’s spilt on the ground can’t be gathered together again but God’s not like that. Rather than taking away life, he devises plans so that the one who was banished can be gathered back in. 15 The reason that I’ve come now to tell this to the king my master, is because the people have frightened me. So your servant said to herself, ‘I will speak, please, to the king. Perhaps the king will honour the request of his female servant. 16 Maybe the king will listen in order to save his female servant from the man who’s cutting me and my son together off from the inheritance given by God.’ 17 And your female servant thought, ‘Please, let the word of my master the king become my assurance, because my master the king is like God’s messenger when it comes to understanding good and evil. And may Yahweh your god be with you.’ ”[ref]

18 “Hang on,” the king told the woman. “I want you to answer this question honestly.”

“Please, let my master the king speak.” she responded.

19 “Did Yoav perhaps have anything to do with all this?” he asked.

The woman answered, “By the life of your spirit, my master the king, there’s no avoiding anything that my master the king has said. Yes, your servant Yoav—he himself commanded me, and he himself told your female servant what I should say. 20 Your servant Yoav set this up to try to remedy the situation. But my master is wise like the wisdom of one of God’s messengers to know everything that’s going on here on earth.”

21 Then the king summoned Yoav and told him, “All right then, I’ll sort this out. Now go and bring back the young man Abshalom.”

22 Yoav fell onto his knees and bowed his face to the ground, and blessed the king, then he said, “Today, your servant knows that I have found favour in your eyes, my master the king, since the king is going to do what his servant asked.” 23 Then Yoav got up and went to Geshur to get Abshalom and bring him back to Yerushalem, 24 but the king said, “He can go around to his house, but he’s to stay right away from me.” So Abshalom lived in his own house, but wasn’t allowed into the palace.

25 Now Abshalom was admired as the most handsome man in all Yisrael—from the top of his head to the bottom of his feet, you wouldn’t be able to find a blemish on his skin. 26 He had his hair cut once a year when it got too heavy on him, and when the hair was weighed using standard weights, it would be over two kilograms. 27 Abshalom had three sons and a daughter named Tamar—a very attractive woman.

28 Abshalom lived in Yerushalem for two years without ever getting to see the king, 29 so he sent a message to Yoav about getting an invitation to see the king, but Yoav wouldn’t come to him. He sent another message, but Yoav still wouldn’t come, 30 so he instructed his servants, “Listen, Yoav’s piece of land with a barley crop is nearby. Go and set fire to it.” So Abshalom’s servants burnt Yoav’s barley.[fn]

31 Then Yoav went to Abshalom’s house and demanded, “Why did your servants destroy my barley crop?”

32 “Listen, I tried to contact you,” Abshalom replied. “I asked you to come here so that I could send you to the king to ask what the point was of bringing me here from Geshur if I can’t see him—I might as well have stayed back there. So now, help me to get invited to see the king, and then if I’m considered guilty of a crime, then let him kill me.”

33 So Yoav went and informed the king, and he called for Abshalom. When he entered, he knelt and bowed his face to the ground in front of the king, and then the king kissed him.