The Wise Woman of Tekoa

Joab sends to Tekoa for "a wise woman" and puts words in her mouth. She falls before the king: "Help, O king." Her two sons fought in the field; one killed the other; the family demands the survivor, "and so they shall quench my coal which is left." "As the LORD liveth, there shall not one hair of thy son fall to the earth."

"Wherefore then hast thou thought such a thing against the people of God?… the king doth not fetch home again his banished. For we must needs die, and are as water spilt on the ground, which cannot be gathered up again; neither doth God respect any person: yet doth he devise means, that his banished be not expelled from him." "Is not the hand of Joab with thee in all this?"

Absalom returns, but "let him not see my face." "In all Israel there was none to be so much praised as Absalom for his beauty… there was no blemish in him." His hair, cut yearly, weighs two hundred shekels "after the king's weight." He has three sons and a daughter named Tamar. After two years Joab will not come to him, so Absalom sets Joab's barley on fire. Joab brings him to David; "the king kissed Absalom."

Wise women

The wise woman of Tekoa (14) and the wise woman of Abel (20) both turn kings and generals by speech; Abigail (1 Samuel 25) does the same. Their wisdom is a recognized public role.

Absalom's hair

Two hundred shekels "by the king's weight" may be about 2.3 kg on an 11.4 g shekel, though the royal standard is unknown and the figure may be an exaggeration. The hair foreshadows his death, though 18:9 actually says his head was caught.

Two Tamars

Absalom names his daughter after his sister; the library's Greek adds that she became the wife of Rehoboam son of Solomon and bore him Abijah (compare 1 Kings 15:2, where Abijah's mother is Maacah daughter of Abishalom). The Hebrew does not.