2 Samuel 19:1-43
19 Later it was reported to Joʹab: “Look! The king is weeping, and he carries on mourning over Abʹsa·lom.”+
2 So the salvation on that day came to be an occasion of mourning on the part of all the people, because the people heard say on that day: “The king has felt hurt over his son.”
3 And the people began to steal away on that day to come into the city,+ just as the people would steal away when they felt disgraced because they fled in the battle.
4 And the king himself covered up his face, and the king continued crying out with a loud voice: “My son Abʹsa·lom! Abʹsa·lom my son, my son!”+
5 Finally Joʹab came in to the king at the house and said: “You have today put to shame the face of all your servants, the ones providing escape for your soul today+ and for the soul of your sons+ and your daughters+ and the soul of your wives+ and the soul of your concubines,+
6 by loving those hating you and by hating those loving you; for you have reported today that chiefs and servants are nothing to you, because I well know today that if only Abʹsa·lom were alive and all of us others were today dead, why, in that case it would be right in your eyes.
7 And now rise up, go out and speak straight to the heart+ of your servants, because, by Jehovah, I do swear that, in case you are not going out, not a man will lodge with you tonight;+ and this will certainly be worse for you than all the injury that has come upon you from your youth until now.”
8 Accordingly the king rose up and seated himself in the gate,+ and to all the people they made the report, saying: “There is the king sitting in the gate.” And all the people began to come before the king.
As for Israel, they had fled each one to his home.*+
9 And all the people came to be involved in dispute in all the tribes of Israel, saying: “It was the king that delivered us out of the palm of our enemies,+ and he it was that provided escape for us out of the palm of the Phi·lisʹtines; and now he has run away out of the land from Abʹsa·lom.+
10 As for Abʹsa·lom, whom we anointed over us,+ he has died in the battle.+ So now why are YOU doing nothing to bring the king back?”+
11 As for King David, he sent to Zaʹdok+ and A·biʹa·thar+ the priests, saying: “SPEAK to the older men of Judah,+ saying, ‘Why should YOU become the last ones to bring the king back to his house, when the word of all Israel itself has come to the king at his house?
12 My brothers YOU are; my bone and my flesh YOU are.+ So why should YOU become the last ones to bring the king back?’
13 And to A·maʹsa YOU should say,+ ‘Are you not my bone and my flesh? So may God do to me and so may he add to it+ if you will not become the army chief before me always instead of Joʹab.’”+
14 And he proceeded to bend the heart of all the men of Judah as one man,+ so that they sent word to the king: “Come back, you and all your servants.”
15 And the king began to go back and got to come as far as the Jordan. As for Judah, they came to Gilʹgal+ to go and meet the king, to conduct the king across the Jordan.
16 Then Shimʹe·i+ the son of Geʹra+ the Benʹja·min·ite, who was from Ba·huʹrim,+ hurried and went down with the men of Judah to meet King David.
17 And there were with him a thousand men from Benjamin. (And also Ziʹba+ the attendant of the house of Saul and his fifteen sons+ and twenty servants of his were with him, and they made it successfully* to the Jordan before the king.
18 And he* crossed the ford+ to conduct the household of the king across and to do what was good in his eyes.) As for Shimʹe·i the son of Geʹra, he fell down before the king when he was about to cross the Jordan.+
19 He now said to the king: “Do not let my lord attribute error to me, and do not remember the wrong that your servant did+ on the day that my lord the king went out* of Jerusalem, so that the king should lay it to his heart.+
20 For your servant well knows that I am the one that sinned; and so here I have today come the first of all the house of Joseph+ to go down to meet my lord the king.”
21 At once A·bishʹai+ the son of Ze·ruʹiah+ answered and said: “In return for this should not Shimʹe·i be put to death, in that he called evil down upon the anointed* of Jehovah?”+
22 But David said: “What do I have to do with YOU men,*+ you sons of Ze·ruʹiah, that YOU should become today a resister*+ of me? Will anyone today be put to death in Israel?+ For do I not well know that today I am king over Israel?”
23 Then the king said to Shimʹe·i: “You will not die.” And the king went on to swear to him.+
24 As for Me·phibʹo·sheth+ the grandson of Saul,* he came down to meet the king; and he had not attended to his feet+ nor had he attended to his mustache+ nor had he washed his garments from the day that the king went away until the day that he came in peace.
25 And it came about that, when he came to Jerusalem to meet the king, then the king said to him: “Why did you not go with me, Me·phibʹo·sheth?”
26 To this he said: “My lord the king, it was my servant+ that tricked me. For your servant had said, ‘Let me saddle the female ass for me that I may ride upon it and go with* the king,’ for your servant is lame.+
27 So he slandered+ your servant to my lord the king. But my lord the king is as an angel+ of the [true] God, and so do what is good in your eyes.
28 For all the household of my father would have become nothing but doomed to death* to my lord the king, and yet you placed your servant among those eating at your table.+ So what do I still have as a just claim even for crying+ out further to the king?”
29 However, the king said to him: “Why do you yet keep speaking your words? I do say, You and Ziʹba should share in the field.”+
30 At this Me·phibʹo·sheth said to the king: “Let him even take the whole,+ now that my lord the king has come in peace to his house.”
31 And Bar·zilʹlai+ the Gilʹe·ad·ite himself came down from Ro·geʹlim that he might pass on to the Jordan with the king so as to escort him to the Jordan.
32 And Bar·zilʹlai was very old, being eighty years of age;+ and he himself supplied the king with food while he was dwelling in Ma·ha·naʹim,+ for he was a very great+ man.
33 So the king said to Bar·zilʹlai: “You yourself cross over with me, and I shall certainly supply you with food with me in Jerusalem.”+
34 But Bar·zilʹlai said to the king: “What are the days of the years of my life like, that I should go up with the king to Jerusalem?
35 I am eighty years old today.+ Could I discern between good and bad, or could your servant taste what I ate and what I drank,+ or could I listen+ anymore to the voice of male and female singers?+ So why should your servant become a burden+ anymore to my lord the king?
36 For it is just a little way that your servant could bring the king along to the Jordan, and why should the king repay me with this reward?+
37 Let your servant return, please, and let me die+ in my city close by the burial place of my father and my mother.+ But here is your servant Chimʹham.+ Let him cross over with my lord the king; and you do to him what is good in your eyes.”
38 Accordingly the king said: “With me Chimʹham will go across, and I myself shall do to him what is good in your eyes; and all that you may choose [to lay] upon me I shall do for you.”
39 All the people now began to cross the Jordan, and the king himself crossed; but the king kissed+ Bar·zilʹlai and blessed+ him, after which he returned to his place.
40 When the king went across to Gilʹgal,+ Chimʹham himself crossed with him, and also all the people of Judah, and also half the people of Israel, that they might bring the king across.
41 And, look! all the men of Israel were coming to the king, and they proceeded to say to the king: “Why did+ our brothers the men of Judah steal you that they might bring the king and his household and all the men of David with him over the Jordan?”+
42 At this all the men of Judah answered the men of Israel: “Because the king is closely related to us;*+ and why is it that you have become angry over this thing? Have we eaten at all at the king’s expense, or has a gift been carried to us?”
43 However, the men of Israel answered the men of Judah and said: “We* have ten parts in the king,+ so that even in David we are more than you.* Why, then, have you treated us* with contempt, and why did not our* matter become first+ for us to bring our king back?” But the word of the men of Judah was more severe than the word of the men of Israel.
Footnotes
^ Lit., “tents.”
^ Or, “they sped down.”
^ Possibly, “they.”
^ Lit., “[he] went out of.” Heb., ya·tsaʼʹ. Three dots appear over this word to indicate that ya·tsaʼʹtha, “[you] went out of,” is to be substituted in accord with another recension of the Heb. text and in harmony with the preceding expression tiz·korʹ, “[you] remember.” See App 2A.
^ “Anointed of.” Heb., meshiʹach; Gr., khri·stonʹ; Syr., lam·shi·cheh; Lat., chriʹsto.
^ “A resister.” Heb., lesa·tanʹ; Syr., sa·ta·naʼ; Lat., saʹtan.
^ Lit., “What [is there] to me and to you men?” A Heb. idiom; a repellent question indicating objection to the action proposed by Abishai. See App 7B.
^ “The son of the son of Saul,” LXXB; Sy, “the son of Jonathan the son of Saul”; MVg, “the son of Saul.”
^ “With,” MLXXSyVg; about 60 Heb. mss, “to.”
^ Lit., “nothing but men of death.”
^ Lit., “me,” in a collective sense.
^ Lit., “I,” in a collective sense.
^ “I have ten parts in the king, and I am the firstborn rather than you, and so in David I am above you,” LXX.
^ Lit., “me.”
^ Lit., “my.”
