2 Samuel 14:5

5 “What troubles you?” the king asked her. “Indeed,” she said, “I am a widow, for my husband is dead.

2 Samuel 14:5 Meaning and Commentary

2 Samuel 14:5

And the king said unto her, what aileth thee?
&c.] Or what is thy case? What is the condition, and what the circumstances, that thou art in, which require help and assistance? intimating that he was ready to grant it on knowledge thereof; however, he was ready to hear what she had to say:

and she answered, I [am] indeed a widow woman;
of a truth a widow, as the Targum; she was really one, a widow indeed, as in ( 1 Timothy 5:3 1 Timothy 5:5 ) ; not one that was separated from her husband, he being alive, or divorced from him on any account; and therefore she adds,

and mine husband is dead;
and has been a long time; this she said to move the pity and compassion of the king, who, as the supreme magistrate in God's stead, was a Father of the fatherless, and the judge of the widow.

2 Samuel 14:5 In-Context

3 Then go to the king and speak these words to him.” And Joab put the words in her mouth.

4 When the woman from Tekoa went to the king, she fell facedown in homage and said, “Help me, O king!”

5 “What troubles you?” the king asked her. “Indeed,” she said, “I am a widow, for my husband is dead.

6 And your maidservant had two sons who were fighting in the field with no one to separate them, and one struck the other and killed him.

7 Now the whole clan has risen up against your maidservant and said, ‘Hand over the one who struck down his brother, that we may put him to death for the life of the brother whom he killed. Then we will cut off the heir as well!’ So they would extinguish my one remaining ember by not preserving my husband’s name or posterity on the earth.”