2 Samuel 14:3-13

3 Go to the king, and tell him this...." Then Joab told her exactly what to say.

4 The woman from Tekoa came to the king and immediately bowed down with her face touching the ground. "Help [me], Your Majesty," she said.

5 The king asked her, "What can I do for you?" She answered, "I'm a widow; my husband is dead.

6 I had two sons who quarreled in the field, and there was no one to separate them. One killed the other.

7 Then the entire family turned against me. They said, 'Give us the man who killed his brother so that we can kill him because he took his brother's life. We're going to destroy the one who [now] would be the heir.' In this way they wish to extinguish the [one] burning coal that is left for me. They will not let my husband's name or descendants remain on the face of the earth."

8 "Go home," the king told the woman. "I will order someone to take care of this matter."

9 The woman from Tekoa said to the king, "Let me be held responsible for the sin, Your Majesty. Let my father's family be held responsible. Your Majesty and your throne are innocent."

10 The king said, "If anyone says anything against you, bring him to me. He'll never harm you again."

11 She said, "Your Majesty, please pray to the LORD your God in order to keep an avenger from doing more harm by destroying my son." "I solemnly swear, as the LORD lives," he said, "not a hair on your son's head will fall to the ground."

12 The woman said, "Please let me say something else to you." "Speak," he said.

13 "Why have you devised something like this against God's people?" she said. "When you say this, you condemn yourself because you haven't brought back the one you banished!

2 Samuel 14:3-13 Meaning and Commentary

INTRODUCTION TO SECOND SAMUEL 14

This chapter relates that Joab, perceiving David's inclination to bring back Absalom, employed a wise woman of Tekoah to lay before him a feigned case of hers, drawn up by Joab, whereby this point was gained from the king, that murder might be dispensed with in her case, 2Sa 14:1-20; which being applied to the case of Absalom, and the king finding out that the hand of Joab was in this, sent for him, and ordered him to bring Absalom again, though as yet he would not see his face, 2Sa 14:21-24; and after some notice being taken of the beauty of Absalom's person, particularly of his head of hair, and of the number of his children, 2Sa 14:25-27; it is related, that after two full years Absalom was uneasy that he might not see the king's face, and sent for Joab, who refused to come to him, till he found means to oblige him to it, who, with the king's leave, introduced him to him, 2Sa 14:28-33.