2 Samuel 13:20-29
Two years, and a sheepshearing
He tells Tamar to keep quiet and takes her into his house, and says nothing to Amnon either way. Two years later he invites the king’s sons to a feast and gives his servants one instruction.
People of the Bible
Absalom
Waited two years for justice that never came, then spent four more standing at the gate taking it for himself.
Absalom is David’s handsome son, and the account is careful to say there was no blemish in him from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head. His sister Tamar is raped by their half brother Amnon, and their father is very angry and does nothing. Absalom says nothing to Amnon, good or bad, for two years, and then kills him at a sheepshearing and runs. Brought back but not received, he sets fire to Joab’s field to get a meeting. Then he rises early and stands beside the gate and tells everyone with a case that there is no one to hear them.
Scroll down to the storyThe movements, in the order the text gives them.
The story of Absalom
- 01
- 02
2 Samuel 14:28-33
The field set on fire
Back in Jerusalem for two years without seeing the king’s face. He sends for Joab twice and is ignored, so he burns his barley, and the meeting happens.
- 03
2 Samuel 15:1-6
He stole the hearts of Israel
Chariots, horses, fifty runners, and a place beside the gate. Your claims are good, but there is no one deputed by the king to hear you. He kisses everyone who tries to bow.
- 04
2 Samuel 15:13-30
Barefoot over the Kidron
David leaves the city on foot with his head covered, weeping, and sends the ark back. The whole country weeps as they pass, and Absalom comes into Jerusalem behind him.
- 05
2 Samuel 18:9-17
Caught in the oak
His head catches in the branches and the mule goes on without him. Joab is told and does it anyway, and they throw him into a pit in the wood under a very great heap of stones.
Why it matters
The rebellion is the sentence Nathan spoke coming due, and the account says so directly. What makes it more than a political episode is that the grievance is real: a crime went unpunished in the king’s own house, and the son who exploits it is also the only person who acted on it. He dies caught by the head in an oak with his mule walking out from under him, and the father whose throne he took cannot stop saying his name.
6 songs
The music
Every song in the catalogue whose passage falls inside these chapters.
