Joab wants to orchestrate a reconciliation between King David and his son Absalom who fled the region after killing his half-brother Amnon. Absalom has been living with his maternal grandfather, the king of Geshur, for three years. During those three years he has had no contact with his father.
In yesterday's text we were told that Joab had a wise woman brought from Tekoa to aid him in his endeavor to reunite David and Absalom. Tekoa lay about ten miles south of Jerusalem, far enough away that when the woman presents her fictitious legal case to David, he will not know the story isn't true. If Joab had selected a woman from the area of Jerusalem to help him, David would have known that no such local case existed.
I am not sure what the author means by calling her a "wise woman". It's possible she was a prophetess, for coincidentally the prophet Amos (of the book of Amos) was from Tekoa. Or it may be that this woman, who we will learn is a widow, is a well-respected elder in her community. Whoever she is, she comes to Jerusalem at Joab's bidding to help him mend the rift between David and Absalom. As we were informed yesterday, Joab then gives her the words she is to say to the king.
"When the woman from Tekoa went to the king, she fell with her face to the ground to pay him honor, and she said, 'Help me, Your Majesty!' The king asked her, 'What is troubling you?' She said, 'I am a widow. I your servant had two sons. They got into a fight with each other in the field, and no one was there to separate them. One struck the other and killed him.'" (2 Samuel 14:4-6) The woman's words lend credence to the theory that she is an older woman, or at least old enough that her story about having two grown sons is believable to David. I don't know whether David immediately recognizes the similarities between this woman's plight and his own, but even if he isn't aware of this on the surface, I believe his heart goes out to her. He too has lost a son to murder---murder at the hands of another son. In a sense he has lost two sons; one is deceased and the other ran far away in fear that he would be put to death for his capital crime.
In the woman's story she is in danger of losing two sons as well. One is already deceased and she says that her townspeople want the other one put to death for his crime. "Now the whole clan has risen up against your servant; they say, 'Hand over the one who struck his brother down, so that we may put him to death for the life of his brother whom he killed; then we will get rid of the heir as well.' They would put out the only burning coal I have left, leaving my husband neither name nor descendant on the face of the earth." (2 Samuel 14:7) If her story had been true, her clan had the right to insist upon the law being followed. In a capital case where there is no doubt whatsoever about the accused person's guilt (the killing was witnessed by two or more people or the accused person admitted to the crime), capital punishment was to be carried out by the closest kinsman of the murdered man. This closest kinsman was known as "the avenger of blood" in Numbers 35. The woman is asking David to make an exception for her. She is asking him to take pity on her and, in mercy, to spare her son the death penalty in what is clearly a death penalty case.
David feels pity for her. A widow with no sons in her day could easily end up destitute. He's afraid of what will happen to her as she gets older and unable to make any sort of living for herself. He feels sad at the thought of her dead husband's family line dying out, for her sons in this story have not yet produced any offspring. As a man for whom the continuation of his family line is imperative, he's deeply troubled that the execution of her surviving son means a branch of a family tree of Israel will be cut off forever. "The king said to the woman, 'Go home, and I will issue an order on your behalf.'" (2 Samuel 14:8) He is willing to make an exception for her, though he has a duty to uphold the law; if her story were true he would actually be derelict in his duty. But he feels there are extenuating circumstances at work here. He thinks he will be doing more harm than good by enforcing the law. He likely feels he has a lot in common with her. He too has lost a son at the hands of another son. He too would not want to see his guilty son put to death. He too understands that young men can do rash things in the heat of anger or under the influence of festering bitterness or in the grip of jealousy and rivalry.
The wise woman now elicits an oath from David, an oath she plans to use when she turns this story around on him in tomorrow's passage. She will then ask him why, if he was willing to bend the law for a young man he has never met, he is not willing to make an exception for his own son. "But the woman from Tekoa said to him, 'Let my lord the king pardon me and my family, and let the king and his throne be without guilt.' The king replied, 'If anyone says anything to you, bring them to me, and they will not bother you again.' She said, 'Then let the king invoke the Lord his God to prevent the avenger of blood from adding to the destruction, so that my son will not be destroyed.' 'As surely as the Lord lives,' he said, 'not one hair of your son's head will fall to the ground.'" (2 Samuel 14:9-11)
Join us tomorrow as the wise woman employs the same method as the prophet Nathan who presented a fictitious case to David regarding a cruel man and, when David became outraged, said, "You are the man!"
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