absalom Summary and Overview

father of peace; i.e., "peaceful" David's son by Maacah (2 Sam. 3:3; compare 1 Kings 1:6). He was noted for his personal beauty and for the extra-ordinary profusion of the hair of his head (2 Sam. 14:25,26). The first public act of his life was the blood-revenge he executed against Amnon, David's eldest son, who had basely wronged Absalom's sister Tamar. This revenge was executed at the time of the festivities connected with a great sheep-shearing at Baal-hazor. David's other sons fled from the place in horror, and brought the tidings of the death of Amnon to Jerusalem. Alarmed for the consequences of the act, Absalom fled to his grandfather at Geshur, and there abode for three years (2 Sam. 3:3; 13:23-38). David mourned his absent son, now branded with the guilt of fratricide. As the result of a stratagem carried out by a woman of Tekoah, Joab received David's sanction to invite Absalom back to Jerusalem. He returned accordingly, but two years elapsed before his father admitted him into his presence (2 Sam. 14:28). Absalom was now probably the oldest surviving son of David, and as he was of royal descent by his mother as well as by his father, he began to aspire to the throne. His pretensions were favoured by the people. By many arts he gained their affection; and after his return from Geshur (2 Sam. 15:7; marg., R.V.) he went up to Hebron, the old capital of Judah, along with a great body of the people, and there proclaimed himself king. The revolt was so successful that David found it necessary to quit Jerusalem and flee to Mahanaim, beyond Jordan; where upon Absalom returned to Jerusalem and took possession of the throne without opposition. Ahithophel, who had been David's chief counsellor, deserted him and joined Absalom, whose chief counsellor he now became. Hushai also joined Absalom, but only for the purpose of trying to counteract the counsels of Ahithophel, and so to advantage David's cause. He was so far successful that by his advice, which was preferred to that of Ahithophel, Absalom delayed to march an army against his father, who thus gained time to prepare for the defence. Absalom at length marched out against his father, whose army, under the command of Joab, he encountered on the borders of the forest of Ephraim. Twenty thousand of Absalom's army were slain in that fatal battle, and the rest fled. Absalom fled on a swift mule; but his long flowing hair, or more probably his head, was caught in the bough of an oak, and there he was left suspended till Joab came up and pierced him through with three darts. His body was then taken down and cast into a pit dug in the forest, and a heap of stones was raised over his grave. When the tidings of the result of that battle were brought to David, as he sat impatiently at the gate of Mahanaim, and he was told that Absalom had been slain, he gave way to the bitter lamentation: "O my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom! would God I had died for thee, O Absalom, my son, my son!" (2 Sam. 18:33. Compare Ex. 32:32; Rom. 9:3). Absalom's three sons (2 Sam. 14:27; compare 18:18) had all died before him, so that he left only a daughter, Tamar, who became the grandmother of Abijah.

(father of peace),third son of David by Maachah, daughter of Tamai king of Geshur, a Syrian district adjoining the northeast frontier of the Holy Land. (Born B.C. 1050.) Absalom had a sister, Tamar, who was violated by her half-brother Amnon. The natural avenger of such an outrage would be Tamar's full brother Absalom. He brooded over the wrong for two years, and then invited all the princes to a sheep-shearing feast at his estate in Baalhazor, on the borders of Ephraim and Benjamin. Here he ordered his servants to murder Amnon, and then fled for safety to his grandfather's court at Geshur, where he remained for three years. At the end of that time he was brought back by an artifice of Joab. David, however, would not see Absalom for two more years; but at length Joab brought about a reconciliation. Absalom now began at once to prepare for rebellion. He tried to supplant his father by courting popularity, standing in the gate, conversing with every suitor, and lamenting the difficulty which he would find in getting a hearing. He also maintained a splendid retinue, #2Sa 15:1| and was admired for his personal beauty. It is probable too that the great tribe of Judah had taken some offence at David's government. Absalom raised the standard of revolt at Hebron, the old capital of Judah, now supplanted by Jerusalem. The revolt was at first completely successful; David fled from his capital over the Jordan to Mahanaim in Gilead, and Absalom occupied Jerusalem. At last, after being solemnly anointed king at Jerusalem, #2Sa 19:10| Absalom crossed the Jordan to attack his father, who by this time had rallied round him a considerable force. A decisive battle was fought in Gilead, in the wood of Ephraim. Here Absalom's forces were totally defeated, and as he himself was escaping his long hair was entangled in the branches of a terebinth, where he was left hanging while the mule on which he was riding ran away from under him. He was dispatched by Joab in spite of the prohibition of David, who, loving him to the last, had desired that his life might be spared. He was buried in a great pit in the forest, and the conquerors threw stones over his grave, an old proof of bitter hostility. #Jos 7:26|

AB'SALOM (father of peace) was the third son of David by Maacah, daughter of Talmai, king of Geshur. 2 Sam 3:3. He was remarkable for his beauty, and for his hair, which is said to have weighed 200 shekels when cut off every year. But if the royal shekel equal the sacred shekel, this would make 6 pounds, which is incredible. The difficulty is not removed by reducing the value of the shekel one-half or one-third. 19 The simplest explanation is that by the error of a copyist the 200 was written for 20, the difference between the figures being very slight in Hebrew notation. Absalom's fair sister, called Tamar, having been violated by Amnon, his half-brother, he meditated revenge, since he was her natural avenger; and after brooding over the outrage for two years, he at last took Amnon's life at a feast to which he had invited him, and then at once fled to Talmai, his maternal grandfather, at Geshur, where he stayed three years. Joab, in order to secure Absalom's return and restoration to his father's favor, employed a woman of Tekoa to appear before David and feign a case similar to the situation of Absalom, and having obtained his decision, to apply the principle to the real case. After a favorable decision was obtained in the feigned case, the woman began to plead for Absalom's return. The king suspected Joab's concern in the plot, and the woman confessed that it was wholly planned by him. David, however, directed Joab to go to Geshur and bring Absalom back to Jerusalem, but would not receive him into favor nor admit him to his presence, nor did he see his face for two years more. Wearied with his banishment, Absalom often attempted to obtain an interview with Joab, but for some cause Joab was not disposed to go to him. To compel him to come, Absalom resorted to a singular expedient; he directed his servants to set fire to Joab's fields. Joab immediately came to Absalom, was persuaded to plead with the king in his behalf, succeeded in his effort, and Absalom was received into full favor. Absalom then showed the object of his ambition was to obtain his father's throne. He was jealous of the favor his father gave to Solomon, Bath-sheba's son, for, since he was the oldest living son of David, he was by birth the rightful heir to the kingdom. To this end he lived in great pomp, procured chariots and horsemen and other appendages of royalty, and stood in the public places courting the favor of the people by the meanest arts, persuading them that their rights were not regarded by the government, and that it would be for their interest to elevate him to power, that equal justice might be administered to all. By these and other means Absalom stole the hearts of the men of Israel. In pursuing his traitorous design, and with a pretended regard to filial duty, he asked his father's permission to go to Hebron and pay a vow which he said he had made. The unsuspicious king consented, and Absalom immediately sent men throughout Israel, who were, at a given signal, to proclaim him king in Hebron. He also took two hundred men with him from Jerusalem, though they did not know his plan, and then sent for Ahithophel, who was David's counsellor, that he might have his advice and assistance. Absalom's party increased rapidly, and intelligence of the conspiracy was communicated to the king, and so alarmed him that he fled from the city. At length David persuaded Hushai to go to Absalom, who had now come back to Jerusalem with his party, and become his servant, and when opportunity occurred to give such counsel as should defeat Ahithophel's plans and bring confusion and discomfiture upon Absalom. By a train of providential interpositions Absalom's ruin was hastened. Before David's men went out to battle with the revolted party, he gave them special charge respecting Absalom, and commanded them to deal gently with him for his father's sake. The two parties met in the wood of Ephraim, and the battle was bloody. Absalom rode upon a mule, and in passing under the thick boughs of an oak he was caught by his head in the fork or angle of two branches, and the mule passed onward, leaving him suspended in the air. Joab, one of David's chief captains, being informed of it, took three darts and thrust them through the heart of Absalom while he was yet alive in the midst of the oak; and they took his body and cast it into a pit in the wood, and covered it with stones.

("father of peace".) Third son of David, by Maachah, daughter of Talmai, king of Geshur, a Syrian region N.E. of Israel, near lake Merom. Polygamy bore its fatal fruits in engendering jealousies among the families by different wives, each with a separate, establishment (2 Samuel 13:8; 2 Samuel 14:24), and in fostering David's own lust, which broke forth in the sad adultery with Bathsheba. Absalom, the fruit of David's polygamy, was made the divine instrument of David's punishment. Amnon, the half brother, violated Tamar, Absalom's whole sister. David, though very wroth, would not punish Amnon, because he was his firstborn by Ahinoam the Jezreelitess. As Simeon and Levi avenged on Hamor their sister Dinah's violation, so Absalom after two years' dark, silent hatred, took vengeance on Amnon at a sheepshearing feast at Baal Hazor to which he invited all the king's sons (2 Samuel 13). Then he fled to his father-in-law at Geshur for three years. Joab perceiving how the king took to heart Absalom's exile suborned a woman of Tekoa, by an imaginary case, to extort from the king (whose justice would not allow his love for Absalom to let him escape some penalty for Amnon's murder) the admission of the general principle that, in special cases where the life taken could not be recalled, means for restoring the loved and living banished one should be devised; just as God, considering the brevity of man's life, weak and irrecoverable when gone, "as water spilt on the ground, does not take a (sinner's) soul away" (so the Hebrew text of 2 Samuel 14:14 for "neither doth God respect any person"), but deviseth means that His banished be not (for ever) expelled from Him." David yielded, but would not see Absalom, though living at Jerusalem, for two more years. Impatient of delay in his ambitious schemes, he sent for Joab, and, not being heeded, he burnt Joab's grain (as Samson did to the Philistines, Judges 15:4), which drove Joab to intercede with David for Absalom's admission to his presence. possibly he feared the succession of Bathsheba's son to the throne, to which he had the title, being alone of royal descent by his mother's side, also the oldest surviving son (Amnon being slain, and Chileab or Daniel dead, as his name does not occur after 2 Samuel 3:3). Nathan's mission from Jehovah to David, announcing that the Lord loved the child, and that his name therefore was to be Jedidiah, "beloved of the Lord," implied Jehovah's choice of Solomon as successor to David (2 Samuel 12:24-25). This excited Absalom's fears. At all events, directly after receiving the king's kiss of reconciliation, he began popularity hunting, to the disparagement of his father, whose moral hold on the people had been weakened by his sin with Bathsheba, and who probably as years advanced attended personally to judicial ministrations less than is the usual policy of oriental kings. Absalom intercepted suitors, lamenting that there was no judge appointed to help them to their rights such as he would be. His beauty too, as in Saul's case (1 Samuel 9:2), and his princely retinue, attracted many (2 Samuel 14:25-26, where probably some error of number has crept in: though doubtless 200 shekels after the king's weight is much less weight of hair than ordinary shekels would be; 2 Samuel 15:1-6). Judah, from jealousy of Israel, with whom they had been merged by David, seems to have been too ready to be seduced from loyalty. Accordingly, Absalom chose Hebron, Judah's old capital, as the head quarters of the revolt. He repaired thither after four (so we ought to read instead of "forty," 2 Samuel 15:7) years, under the hypocritical pretense of a vow like that of pious Jacob (compare 2 Samuel 15:8 with Genesis 28:20-21); David alludes to the hypocrisy of the rebels in Psalm 4:5. Amasa, son of Abigail, David's sister, and Jether, an Ishmaelite, owing to David's neglect of him, and preference of his other sister Zeruiah's sons (probably because of his Ishmaelite fatherhood), was tempted to join the rebellion, and Ahithophel of Giloh also, because of his granddaughter Bathsheba's wrong (2 Samuel 11:8; 2 Samuel 23:34). Both were of Judah; Amasa became Absalom's general, Ahithophel his counselor. This David felt most keenly (Psalm 69:12; Psalm 55:12-14; Psalm 55:20; Psalm 41:9). By Ahithophel's abominable counsel, Absalom lay with his father's concubines, at once committing his party to an irreconcilable war, and him to the claim to the throne (according to oriental ideas: so Adonijah, 1 Kings 2:13, etc.), and fulfilling God's threatened retribution of David's adultery in kind (2 Samuel 12:11-12). Hushai, David's friend, defeated treachery by treachery. Ahithophel, like his anti-type Judas, baffled, went and hanged himself. Absalom, though well pleased at the counsel of "smiting the king only" and at once, was easily drawn aside by fear of his father's bravery, and by indecision and vanity; all which Hushai acted on in his counsel to summon all Israel, and that Absalom should command in person. He waited to have himself anointed king first (2 Samuel 19:10). He lost the opportunity of attacking his father that night, while weak handed. The battle in Gilead in the wood of Ephraim (called from Ephraim's defeat, Judges 12:4) resulted in the defeat of his cumbrous undisciplined host. His locks, on which he prided himself (Judges 14:25-26), were the means of his destruction, for they kept him suspended from a terebinth tree until Joab pierced him; and David, whom the unnatural son would have gladly smitten, but who charged Joab, Abishai, and Ittai, his three generals, to spare the youth for his sake, mourned pathetically for his death: "O Absalom, my son, would God I had died for thee; my son, my son!" His grave was a pit, over which the insulting conquerors heaped stones, as over Achan and the king of Ai (Joshua 7:26; Joshua 8:29). After losing his three sons (2 Samuel 14:27; compare Psalm 21:10), he had erected in the king's dale (Genesis 14:17) a pillar to commemorate his name; a sad contrast to this was his dishonored grave. The so-called tomb of Absalom, in the valley of Jehoshaphat outside Jerusalem, betrays its modern origin by Ionic columns; and besides could not have outlasted the various sieges and conquests to which the city has been exposed. David seems to have been a fond but weak father; and Absalom's and Amnon's course showed the evil effects of such indulgence (1 Kings 1:6). Absalom's fair daughter Tamar married Uriel, by whom she had Michaiah or Maachah, wife of Rehoboam and mother of (See ABIJAH.