2 Samuel 14:1–11(ESV)

Now Joab the son of Zeruiah knew that the king’s heart went out to Absalom. And Joab sent to Tekoa and brought from there a wise woman and said to her, “Pretend to be a mourner and put on mourning garments. Do not anoint yourself with oil, but behave like a woman who has been mourning many days for the dead. Go to the king and speak thus to him.” So Joab put the words in her mouth.

When the woman of Tekoa came to the king, she fell on her face to the ground and paid homage and said, “Save me, O king.” And the king said to her, “What is your trouble?” She answered, “Alas, I am a widow; my husband is dead. And your servant had two sons, and they quarreled with one another in the field. There was no one to separate them, and one struck the other and killed him. And now the whole clan has risen against your servant, and they say, ‘Give up the man who struck his brother, that we may put him to death for the life of his brother whom he killed.’ And so they would destroy the heir also. Thus they would quench my coal that is left and leave to my husband neither name nor remnant on the face of the earth.”

Then the king said to the woman, “Go to your house, and I will give orders concerning you.” And the woman of Tekoa said to the king, “On me be the guilt, my lord the king, and on my father’s house; let the king and his throne be guiltless.” The king said, “If anyone says anything to you, bring him to me, and he shall never touch you again.” Then she said, “Please let the king invoke the LORD your God, that the avenger of blood kill no more, and my son be not destroyed.” He said, “As the LORD lives, not one hair of your son shall fall to the ground.”

David and his sons are Amnon’s closest relatives. David (or maybe a son) is supposed to be the avenger of blood for Amnon’s murder. Everyone expects Absalom to be put death in accordance with Mosaic law.

But David doesn’t want that. He loves Absalom, plus he’s sick and tired of all the family drama. He knows that the curse of Nathan’s prophesy is permanent, but he wants to avoid contributing to it.

Joab doesn’t want Absalom to die either. So he devises a plan to convince David to stand up to the peer pressure to be the avenger of blood. Joab invents a story designed to make David declare an exception to the Mosaic law on murder. Thus, by analogy, David will see the grounds for pardoning Absalom.

Joab sends a woman to David with a tale of woe in which her relatives want to follow the Mosaic law and kill her son, to avenge his killing of her other son. However, if they do, she will be completely bereft.

It works. David declares that he’ll protect her remaining son, in defiance of the mob that wants to kill him.

This ruse is so similar to how Nathan confronted David that one has to wonder if that incident has become common knowledge. Of course, it has now because it’s in the Bible, but might David have not kept it under his hat during his lifetime? Might David have wanted others to know about it—as an object lesson?

Well, he wrote Psalm 51. So, he definitely wasn’t covering it up. It sure seems that Joab knew about it.

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These weekday DEEPs are written by Mike Slay. Saturdays' are written by Matt Richardson. Click here to subscribe: https://www.ailbe.org/resources/community

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Except as indicated, Scripture taken from the New King James Version. © Copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved. ESV stands for the English Standard Version. © Copyright 2001 by Crossway. Used by permission. All rights reserved. NIV stands for The Holy Bible, New International Version®. © Copyright 1973 by International Bible Society. Used by permission. All rights reserved. KJV stands for the King James Version.