2 Samuel 18:22-32

22 Ahimaaz insisted, "I don't care what happens; please let me take the news also." "Why do you want to do it, my son?" Joab asked. "You will get no reward for it."

23 "Whatever happens," Ahimaaz said again, "I want to go." "Then go," Joab said. So Ahimaaz ran off down the road through the Jordan Valley, and soon he passed the slave.

24 David was sitting in the space between the inner and outer gates of the city. The lookout went up to the top of the wall and stood on the roof of the gateway; he looked out and saw a man running alone.

25 He called down and told the king, and the king said, "If he is alone, he is bringing good news." The runner kept coming closer.

26 Then the lookout saw another man running alone, and he called down to the gatekeeper, "Look! There's another man running!" The king answered, "This one also is bringing good news."

27 The lookout said, "I can see that the first man runs like Ahimaaz." "He's a good man," the king said, "and he is bringing good news."

28 Ahimaaz called out a greeting to the king, threw himself down to the ground before him, and said, "Praise the Lord your God, who has given you victory over the men who rebelled against Your Majesty!"

29 "Is the young man Absalom all right?" the king asked. Ahimaaz answered, "Sir, when your officer Joab sent me, I saw a great commotion, but I couldn't tell what it was."

30 "Stand over there," the king told him; and he went over and stood there.

31 Then the Ethiopian slave arrived and said to the king, "I have good news for Your Majesty! Today the Lord has given you victory over all who rebelled against you!"

32 "Is the young man Absalom all right?" the king asked. The slave answered, "I wish that what has happened to him would happen to all your enemies, sir, and to all who rebel against you."

2 Samuel 18:22-32 Meaning and Commentary

INTRODUCTION TO SECOND SAMUEL 18

In this chapter is an account of David's review of his army, preparing it for battle with Absalom, and those with him, 2Sa 18:1-5; and of the defeat and flight of the rebels, 2Sa 18:6-8; and of the death of Absalom, and the manner of it, and of his burial, 2Sa 18:9-18; and of the news of it brought to David by different persons, 2Sa 18:19-32; and of his great grief and sorrow on that account, 2Sa 18:33.

Footnotes

• [a]. [Hebrew] Cushite: [Cush is the ancient name of the extensive territory south of the First Cataract of the Nile River. This region was called Ethiopia in Graeco-Roman times, and included within its borders most of modern Sudan and some of present-day Ethiopia (Abyssinia).]