Lyrics · 2 Samuel
O Absalom
2 Samuel 13-19
Lyrics
About this song
About this song
This song belongs to the 2 Samuel collection. 8 recordings are available to play here, with the complete lyrics below.
- Bible book
- 2 Samuel
- Collection
- 2 Samuel
- Musical styles
- Acoustic, World Music, Alternative Pop, Rock, Country & Americana, Alternative Rock
Named in this songAbsalomDavidJoab
About the passage
2 Samuel 13: Tamar speaks, and the royal house fails to answer
The announced sword enters David's own household through Amnon's desire for Tamar. Jonadab turns that desire into a plan using feigned sickness, and David unknowingly sends Tamar into the situation. The account gives unusual space to her work, her reasoned refusal, and her attempt to stop what Amnon intends. He refuses to listen, rapes her, then refuses to listen again when she protests being cast out. Her torn royal garment, ashes, and crying keep her suffering visible after he bolts the door. Absalom houses her and hates Amnon; David becomes very angry, but the chapter records no royal judgment against his firstborn. Two years later Absalom engineers Amnon's presence at a sheep-shearing feast and orders his servants to kill him. The first report falsely tells David all his sons are dead, multiplying the grief before the surviving princes return. Absalom flees to Geshur for three years. The chapter ends with David longing toward him while Tamar's last stated condition remains desolation.
Study 2 Samuel 13 in depth2 Samuel 14: A return arranged without a reckoning
Joab sees where David's heart has turned and recruits a wise woman from Tekoah to present a carefully constructed case involving a widow, one dead son, and one surviving son threatened by the family avenger. David gives increasingly strong assurances until she applies his own mercy to the banished Absalom. The resemblance is persuasive rather than exact, and David eventually recognizes Joab's hand behind it. He permits Absalom to return to Jerusalem but refuses to see him, creating a settlement that restores geography without restoring relationship. The chapter then pauses over Absalom's celebrated beauty, his heavy hair, and his children before returning to the unresolved exclusion. After two full years Absalom summons Joab twice without success, so he burns Joab's barley field and immediately gets the meeting he wanted. He demands either access to the king or judgment. Joab carries the message, David receives Absalom, and the king kisses him. The gesture restores access, but no confession, charge, or spoken reckoning over Amnon or Tamar is recorded.
Study 2 Samuel 14 in depth2 Samuel 15: Hearts won at the gate, a king driven toward the wilderness
Absalom does not seize Jerusalem first; he works on Israel's imagination at the gate. He gives every petitioner the same flattering verdict, laments the justice they supposedly cannot reach, and turns personal warmth into political capital until the book says he has "stole the hearts" of Israel. David answers the resulting revolt by leaving Jerusalem rather than making the city absorb the first blow. The flight strips kingship down to loyalties that cannot be staged. Ittai, the recent foreign arrival, refuses permission to leave. David sends the ark back instead of carrying it as proof that God must restore him. He then prays that Ahithophel's counsel be defeated, and Hushai appears at the summit as a practical answer taking human form. By the time Absalom enters Jerusalem, David's crown is absent from the city, but his network of faithfulness is already inside it.
Study 2 Samuel 15 in depth