2
ND
SAMUEL
Week 22, chapter 14

I cannot begin to tell you the challenge I feel in presenting to you the deep matters present in
2
nd
Samuel 14. We’ll only be able to delve down so far without getting so bogged down that
the time spent will outweigh the benefits. Further the life lessons are such that I’m afraid there
is a great deal of discomfort for us to bear in our examination of these Holy Scriptures today,
and much change is called for in our attitudes and worship if we take to heart what we read
and are willing to put aside our insistence that as followers of Messiah Yeshua our own hearts
are currently superior for the determination of justice and mercy as compared to God’s
commandments as given in ancient days.

Amnon, David’s firstborn, was dead. In retribution for the rape of his sister Tamar, Avishalom
had plotted for 2 full years since the dastardly incident to kill his half-brother. The moment had
arrived at the annual sheep-shearing occasion in Ba’al-Hatzor when work gave way to
partying, and drunkenness dulled the senses sufficiently to briefly drop one’s guard.

Avishalom, not wanting to dirty his own hands, followed the blueprint of his father David. He
commanded his closest most loyal servants to assassinate Amnon much like David had
commanded Joab to see to the death of Uriyah, Bathsheba’s husband. The Lord had
promised David that despite the heavenly and eternal forgiveness (given to him by grace) for
David’s heinous sins, the remainder of his days he would suffer as one who is cursed-on-
earth, with violence and death being the epitaph of his household now and on into the
indefinite future.

I want to remind us all that such is a similar kind of forgiveness that we receive when we trust
Christ as our salvation. Eternal rest and security in the Lord’s presence is indeed afforded us;
but in no ways are we held harmless from the earthly consequences of our trespasses against
man and God. We are liable for punishments and miseries on account of our rebellious
behavior until we breathe our last; only then will we be released from the inevitable effects of
our inability to overcome our evil inclinations.
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Listen to St. Paul describe this condition for us.

READ ROMANS 7:14 - end


No doubt a measure of divine mercy is regularly given to those who confess and contritely
repent or none of us would remain alive and useful to the Kingdom. And with no doubt we who
trust are given a greater power, in the form of the Holy Spirit, to overcome sin in our lives and
avoid it. But even so, who among us does not have our regrets (almost daily), see and
experience the results of our sin play out in the lives of our children (and it grieves us), and
wonder in hindsight what our lives might have been if only we would have exercised that new
nature and allowed the old to be truly dead to us, and thus followed our Lord and King in true
obedience. I also have no doubt that David was tormented night and day with such thoughts as
he witnessed deception and destruction inside of his own family, knowing with certainty that it
would continue on and on for several more generations. And there was nothing he could do
about it.

Despite the fact that it was Avishalom’s servants who had assassinated Amnon, Avishalom
also bore blood-guilt in the Lord’s eyes for this crime. Even in secular Western law codes, the
chief conspirator to commit murder is held as responsible for the death as is the one who
physically carried it out. Thus Avishalom high-tailed it to his grandfather in Geshur once he
knew that Amnon was dead, unwilling to face his father or even the unlikely event of civil
justice. We need to be clear that although commentators and even a Bible character in this
story of 2
nd
Samuel chapter 14 refer to David “banishing” Avishalom, in fact that is a
mischaracterization. Avishalom had banished himself; he was not chased out of Israel. He was
nothing more than a criminal on the run who had fled to avoid prosecution (although one
wonders if anything whatsoever would have happened to him since David did nothing to
Amnon for raping Tamar, apparently not even confronting Amnon with so little as a verbal
lashing).

We’re going to re-read chapter 14, but we’re going to begin at chapter 13 verse 38 because
this verse rightfully belongs as the first verse of chapter 14, not as the final one of chapter 13. I
remind you that the original scrolls were not divided into chapters and verses; this was the
work of Jewish and Christian scholars centuries after even the New Testament was canonized.
Sometimes the points of division are not well done, and thus we can accidentally disjoint one
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chapter from another and miss some crucial timing.


RE-READ 2
ND
SAMUAL CHAPTER 13:38 TO 14 end


Avishalom remained with his mother’s side of the family in Geshur for 3 years and during that
time David was struggling to overcome the tragic loss of his firstborn son. Losing any child was
a terrible thing but losing a firstborn was catastrophic because of the high status given to the
firstborn both by custom and by the Torah. However it seems as though after about 3 years
David was finally healed over the loss of Amnon.

The opening verse of chapter 14 (as our Bibles have it) says something to the effect that Joab
noticed that David’s mind (or heart) was always towards Avishalom (it is speaking about that 3
year timeframe). Our CJB’s say that the king missed Avishalom (as a sort of dynamic
translation) to get across the idea that David was sorely lonely for his banished son. This is a
bad translation and let’s rectify it right here. What it says is that that king’s lev was al-
Avishalom. Lev means heart; but when used in this way heart means “mind” or conscious
thoughts. Since Christian scholars and the Church has since time immemorial completely
misconstrued the intent of the word lev (heart) as meaning something like “soul” or as deeply
and sincerely felt emotion then one can understand why these same translators would
automatically assume that David was feeling a great longing to see Absalom. But in fact the
meaning is not about emotion, and it is neither negative nor positive in and of itself; rather it is
the word al that tells us the nature of David’s conscious thoughts about Absalom. Al can be
translated as “on” or “over”, but it is more usually used to mean “against”. Therefore it is that
David’s heart was against Absalom.

As Alfred Edersheim points out, certainly if the King’s heart was in favor of Avishalom he
wouldn’t have left him sitting in Geshur for 3 years, and then after sending for him refused to
see or speak with him for 2 more years. Rather it is that David wanted nothing to do with
Absalom and Joab rightly perceived this and (with some motive in mind) decided to see if he
couldn’t remedy the situation. But what might have been Yo’av’s motivation for getting David
to relent and bring back Avishalom? There has been much speculation about this, but I think
that we have to recall Joab’s character and actions to come to a reasonable conclusion.

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First, since David was getting old and frail, and since Joab was a full generation younger than
David, Joab would have rightly been concerned with who David’s successor might be. Yo’av
was a very powerful man; as chief commander of Israel’s formidable military by default he was
also 2
nd
in command over all Israel. However, he could be replaced by the king anytime the
king felt like it (even though thoughtful political consideration would be given to such a drastic
move). It was common that when a new king ascended to the throne that he would hand pick
those who were most loyal to him to be his royal court. And the most important position was
general of the military. Recall that when David ascended to the throne of Judah, and then in a
few years managed to also become king over the northern tribes of Israel (those who had been
under King Saul), that Saul’s former general was Abner. David negotiated with Abner in order
to unite the northern and southern Israelite tribes and when Joab determined that his job as
David’s chief general was in danger of either be given to (or being shared by) Abner, Joab
murdered Abner. So Joab was going to manipulate matters to ensure his own continuing
position with the next King of Israel no matter who that might be.

Second, Avishalom had popular sympathy with the people of Israel. The people saw him as a
hero of sorts who had been provoked into justifiably killing Amnon due to the terrible outrage
that Amnon had committed upon Absalom’s sister. Not only that but as the final verses of this
chapter tell us, Avishalom carried with him all the attributes that tended to attract the interest of
the multitudes. He was the most handsome man in all Israel; dashing, courageous, and
admirably willing to accept the consequences (no matter how unfair) of killing his father’s
firstborn in order to uphold his own family’s honor. No doubt with Amnon gone, Avishalom
seemed like the sure bet to succeed David and so Joab needed to hitch his wagon to this likely
winner and support him.

Thus Joab had formed a sort of informal bond with Absalom and the longer he and David
remained estranged, the more likely someone else might rise up the ladder to be next in line as
king. And this hypothetical prince in waiting might no be so willing to ally with Joab. Thus
Joab’s best move was to facilitate reconciliation between father and son. So to facilitate this,
the clever Yo’av goes to a woman in the town of Tekoa, located about 10 miles south of
Jerusalem. The village eventually became famous as the Prophet Amos’ hometown. Here this
woman is a called a chakam ishshah (a wise woman). This is not an official office; she is not
a prophetess or a sorceress or anything that is to be seen as religiously oriented or divinely
appointed. Rather she is simply known as being smart, quick witted, and able to persuade,
manipulate and to think on her feet. This is a person who is not easily rattled and not above
doing something that is not entirely up-and-up if it is to her advantage. She remains
unidentified as she is seen as but a minor character.

Joab recruits her (no doubt with some kind of unstated reward) to go to David with a heart
rending story about her two make-believe sons; the idea was to trap David into having to take
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the step of bringing Absalom back or looking terribly hypocritical. So she is asked to look like a
woman in mourning; sackcloth for clothing, unwashed, ashes smeared upon the garment and
herself, and no anointing oil on her skin that was the basic cosmetic for even poor women of
that era. Yo’av went so far as to tell her exactly what to say.

No doubt it was Joab who personally arranged for this small-town woman to see the king; after
all there were layers of bureaucracy between the common folks and the king (one couldn’t just
show up at the City of David and receive an audience). David must have had questions from
the beginning as to why in Joab’s eyes this woman’s problems were so extraordinarily
important that it warranted the King’s personal intervention.

She appears before the throne, looking forlorn and distressed, throws herself on the floor and
says, “Help!” David gives her permission to state her problem and she proceeds to
convincingly regurgitate the words Joab had given to her. The story is that she is a widow and
not long ago her two sons were out in the field when for some unknown reason one killed the
other. There were no witnesses. But now the extended family is demanding justice that the
surviving son (who is the murderer) be handed over to the family go’el hadam (the blood
avenger) who will surely kill him in retribution. But if this happens then this widow will have no
sons and this will also mean that her deceased husband will have “neither name nor survivor
anywhere on this earth”.

Let’s examine her story to understand what all of this meant to a person from that time. First,
as a widow, her only hope of personal survival was from male family members. Since she had
sons, then according to custom and to the Laws of Moses they were responsible to see to their
mother’s care for the rest of her life. However if her sons died, then unless her husband’s
brother married her in a Levirate marriage, she would be destitute and possibly not live very
long. None of this is explained, of course, but that is how Hebrew society operated and so it
didn’t need to be said as it was common knowledge.

Second, she says she is concerned about her husband’s name continuing on and for that to
happen a son needs to remain alive. The issue here is the following: in this era there was no
concept of dying and going to heaven. In fact the Hebrew way of thinking was rather par-for-
the-course with the other Middle Eastern societies’ concept of death and afterlife. You died,
you were buried, and if the gods willed it then your essence lived on in a netherworld. In many
cultures (including the Hebrew culture at least for a time) that meant that you’d need food and
drink so the surviving family was responsible to occasionally bring food and drink to the grave
sight and literally pour it down a hole, or to bring into a tomb and leave it.
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Another aspect of the dead person’s essence living on was that part of that essence continued
on in their children (usually sons). Thus if a man died childless (due to a barren wife), or if a
man had children but they all died, then his life essence was literally terminated. His spiritual
afterlife came to an end. Even more, there was a mysterious power seen in the speaking of a
person’s name, so if a man had no sons to carry on his blood line and his name, then his
name would not be spoken out loud any more and so the family line ended and that was seen
as both a horror and a tragedy (something only the most wicked should ever suffer).

Third was the issue of civil justice. The surviving son was a murderer. That one murders a
family member does not change the need for justice. And the Torah is clear that a murderer is
to have his life taken for his crime. Even more, the family of the victim is to exact justice by
themselves killing the murderer and the person who is the designated family go’el hadam
(blood avenger) especially bears this duty. This too is a Torah command so there was no
wrong in it. But on the other hand if proper justice was carried out in this case then a) the
widow would become destitute, and b) her deceased husband’s spiritual life essence would be
snuffed out.

Like other aspects of this story that the author used to make a point, this was designed so that
the ancient listener would hear the echoes of a well-worn tale that was a staple around the
campfire: the story of Cain and Abel. They too were out in a field where there were no
witnesses and no one to intervene. Cain unjustly killed his brother Abel. Cain is not executed
but is banished from the land with a mark on his head warning others not to think that they can
take justice on him. Thus the idea was to draw a similarity between the Amnon/Absalom
situation, the widow’s 2 sons, and Cain and Abel.

Now from David’s viewpoint how was he to weigh this case? This was very difficult; what
mattered more: to allow well defined Torah justice to take place such that this widow would
indeed lose her sole remaining son to the blood avenger? Or did this woman’s well being
mean that blood vengeance should be blocked for her sake? After all, executing the one son
would not bring back the other. The woman begged and insisted that before she left his
presence David make a vow that her surviving son would not be killed; and the magnanimous
King of Israel pronounced a royal edict (invoking Yehoveh’s holy name) that no one should
even speak to her of the matter any longer. The son should live and the blood avengers should
end their hunt for him. Case closed.

But notice something ironic; David essentially pronounces sentence upon his own son without
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realizing he had done so. David says to the widow, “Not one of your son’s hairs will fall to the
ground”. Yet it won’t be terribly long before Avishalom, the one who is being compared to this
surviving son, will be caught by his lavish hair in a tree and killed. Was David right (as the
Rabbi’s tend to say) to offer that widow mercy for her son?

Before she insists on David’s vow (which he freely gave) she makes this interesting statement:
“My lord, let the guilt be on me and my father’s family, let the king and his throne be guiltless”.
And to this David says that such is not necessary, the surviving son is hereby pardoned. Here
is where the immense value of learning God’s Word beginning at Genesis 1, taking the Torah
and the Law at face value, and acknowledging its validity and worth even for the modern
Believer helps us to understand what is happening here, and helps us to extract a great lesson
that we must apply to our lives and society.

The Torah demands blood for blood. The Law of Moses gives no choice but that a person who
murders is to be executed. The circumstance simply doesn’t matter.

(Exo 21:12-17 CJB)
12
"Whoever attacks a person and causes his death must be put to death.

13
If it was not premeditated but an act of God, then I will designate for you a place to
which he can flee.

14
But if someone willfully kills another after deliberate planning, you are to take him
even from my altar and put him to death.

15
"Whoever attacks his father or mother must be put to death.

16
"Whoever kidnaps someone must be put to death, regardless of whether he has
already sold him or the person is found still in his possession.

17
"Whoever curses his father or mother must be put to death.

I don’t have the time to go into all the nuances of manslaying, but you can go back to our
study of the Torah to review it. However understand that not all killing is murder. Accidental
killing is not murder. Killing an enemy in battle is not murder. Killing in self defense is not
murder. But let’s go one step further and also look at the book of Numbers on the subject.
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(Num 35:14-21 CJB)
14
You are to give three cities east of the Yarden and three cities in the land of Kena'an;
they will be cities of refuge.

15
These six cities will serve as refuge for the people of Isra'el, as well as for the
foreigner and resident alien with them; so that anyone who kills someone by mistake
may flee there.

16
"'However, if he hits him with an iron implement and thus causes his death, he is a
murderer; the murderer must be put to death.

17
Or if he hits him with a stone in his hand big enough to kill someone, and he dies, he
is a murderer; the murderer must be put to death.

18
Or if he hits him with a wood utensil in his hand capable of killing someone, and he
dies, he is a murderer; the murderer must be put to death.

19
The next-of-kin avenger is to put the murderer to death himself- upon meeting him,
he is to put him to death.

20
Likewise, if he shoves him out of hatred; or intentionally throws something at him,
causing his death;

21
or out of hostility strikes him with his hand, so that he dies; then the one who struck
him must be put to death; he is a murderer; and the next-of-kin avenger is to put the
murderer to death upon meeting him.

Just as in any modern secular society, there are varying degrees of homicide: some justifiable
and some not. Even in secular society there are also varying degrees of justifiable homicide
and varying degrees of unjustifiable homicide and so each has a different kind of remedy. And
thus in some cases no penalty is called for, in other cases a monetary penalty is ordered, in
still others jail time might be in order, and in the worst instances either life in prison or the
death penalty is handed down. Therefore the Torah allows sanctuary cities where a killer can
go to be safe, provided his was not an act of hostile intentional killing; rather it was a kind of
killing where the offense was not intended nor could the result of his act have been reasonably
expected to cause death of another.

So what about the case brought before David? Well in the case that the wise woman is
bringing before the king, it clearly sounds like Numbers 35:21 where one person strikes the
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other in hostility with his hand, and the other dies. The Law says that he is a murderer and the
go’el hadam is to put him to death. It is NOT an option, it is a command.

Let me remind you that the case the woman is bringing to the King is not real; it is concocted
by Joab as a means to manipulate and trap David into allowing Avishalom to return to the royal
court. But David thinks that it’s real and he rules based on the facts as presented. (I am going
into depth on this because I want us to come to the realization that how we tend to look at such
a case, how the Rabbis tend to look at it and even how some Judges and much of the Church
looks at it, often runs completely counter to Holy Scripture. And this is something that has
become harmful to our relationship with God and it has brought ruin upon our society and
communities and families). And David says that essentially his sympathy for the plight of the
widow outweighs the need of God’s justice for the murderer. The woman doesn’t try to hide
that fact that one son intentionally murdered the other. There were no extenuating
circumstances presented; this was not an accident. The only possible extenuating
circumstance could have been something like the surviving son saying that while he indeed
killed his brother, that it was not out of hostility but rather self-defense or that although he
struck him with his fist it was not intended to cause death. And since there were no witnesses,
then his word would have to be taken for it. But that is not the case here. The woman seems to
substantiate that this was a confessed case of unjustifiable homicide, that indeed there was
blood-guilt (and she was willing to take on that guilt herself if her son were spared), and what
she was looking for was a royal pardon for admitted wrong doing.

Scriptures tell us that there is NO atonement for murder within the Law. That is, there is no
animal sacrifice that can substitute the life of an innocent animal for the life of the criminal
(notice that David didn’t sacrifice after he had Uriyah killed and confessed this to God). The
only payment that God will accept as legitimate is the life of the murderer. Further, blood-guilt
is laid upon the entire local society when a murder is committed. The only way for the local
society to relieve itself of this blood-guilt is to follow through with God’s Law and execute the
criminal. If the society refuses to do such a thing, then that society bears the blood-guilt right
along with the criminal. Why is society equally guilty? Because God demands proportionate
justice (a life for a life) and if the society refuses to do so, then such disobedience will bear the
penalty.

The widow woman is completely aware of this and thus offers to David that SHE and her
father’s family offer to bear this blood-guilt instead of David (as the representative of civil
justice for Israel). In other words, she fully understands that God’s law is that the only route
offered by Yehoveh in response to this intentional murder is the execution of the criminal.
Mercy is NOT allowed because life is so important to God.

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David takes the bait and says that essentially his view of mercy is such that he pardons the
son. David is wrong. He has no right to do such a thing. The Bible offers no exceptions. And
folks we have no right (no divine authorization) to do anything (even in our modern times since
the advent of Christ) but to execute a justly convicted murderer OR we collectively bear the
blood-guilt and our society bears the blood-guilt. Life in prison is no substitute. And certainly
we have no right to pardon anyone unless they were wrongly convicted.

But as we discussed last week, because a large segment of Christianity says that God’s sole
remaining attribute is love, and then the resulting logic says that perfect love wouldn’t demand
the life of anyone, including that of a killer. Besides execution is really nothing but human
revenge, and revenge and love certainly are at opposite ends of the spectrum. Therefore we
must not execute murderers but rather we must forgive them.

Judaism on the other hand, due to its overriding belief in humanitarianism, also says that
execution is wrong. In fact the Rabbis find an amazing way out for King David. Despite what
the Law of Moses clearly says, the Rabbis say that David was justified for siding with the
widow woman but for reasons that might surprise you. Let me quote for you from the Rubin
edition of the Artscroll Commentary on the book of Samuel.

“Since they (the 2 sons) were in an isolated place (the two quarreled in the field) there
were no witnesses to warn the murderer of the penalty, and according to Torah law, any
crime committed without such a warning cannot be punished. The woman meant to
intimate that Absalom, who was not warned before his crime, was not culpable.
Although the king has the prerogative to impose punishment even in such a case, in
order to protect society from wanton criminality, he does so at his discretion and has
the right to let the law take its course, if he feels that that course is better.”

Understand that what is meant here by “Torah Law” is rabbinical rulings on the Torah not any
stated Law of Moses. Their rationale is that despite the mother of these boys readily
confessing that this was an undeniably hostile murder, since there was no one there to WARN
the surviving son that he shouldn’t kill his brother, there should be no penalty. And since this is
to be compared to Avishalom (there was no one to warn him that ordering Amnon’s death is
wrong), then he committed no crime. So since David is supposed to be utterly sinless in the
thinking of Judaism, then here we have this mind boggling twisting of logic and Torah to make
it that if a criminal is not specifically WARNED that he is about to commit a crime (no matter
how obvious), then it cannot be considered a crime, even if murder occurs. And since that is
the case, then David was perfectly right to pardon the act of murder by the surviving son, and
he was right to take no action against Absalom for murdering his brother and thus (once again)
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David is without fault.


Modern secular society has simply decided that as human beings we just don’t have the
human right to execute a criminal no matter what he did. That as advanced intellectual beings,
our inherent goodness dictates that since the execution of the criminal can’t bring the victim or
victims back to life, then it is pointless to kill the criminal and thus extinguish yet another
human life. Recall how within the past year that the UK released the Lockerbie bomber (who
blew up an airliner killing almost 300 people) after just a few years in prison. The reasoning?
He was sick with cancer and so human mercy says it would be inhumane for this man to die in
jail and besides it wouldn’t bring back a single life. Thus he was freed and sent back to his
own society where he now lives as a hero. And to secular minds, this is justice.

Folks, one of the reasons that our community, State, Nation, and the world in general is in a
death spiral of confusion, immorality and violence is because we live under God’s curse of
blood-guilt. The entire earth is soaked with the blood of murder victims, while their killers are
intentionally allowed to live. God’s required justice and remedy for this goes wanting because
we see our human justice as better than His divine justice. Not executing a killer violates one of
God’s most important and fundamental laws and because we are so in love with love and
convinced that our hearts are the best judge; and because so many Christians have decided
that God’s Laws and justice are a thing of the past; and because Judaism thinks that
humanitarianism is God’s intent for men on earth , and because secular humanists believe
that there is no higher authority than our own inherent goodness, morality and enlightened
intellect, then we will continue on this destructive path until Messiah comes again to put a stop
to it.

Let me be clear: for the true Believer in Messiah Yeshua, the curse of eternal separation from
God is lifted because His Son paid our ransom. But that has changed nothing as regards the
carrying out of His Laws on earth. Spiritual pardon is not earthly pardon. Eternal life does not
cancel physical death. Love does not annul justice. Our refusal to rid the world of wickedness
(using the Torah Law as the standard), simply allows more and greater wickedness to multiply
and thrive.

David was wrong. He committed yet another terrible sin, which of course would lead to more
death and violence within his family, and it would push the nation of Israel towards sliding
down a slippery slope into God’s wrath. We’ll continue with chapter 14 next time.
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