David’s Return and Sheba’s Revolt

Now the Hebrews who had been with Absalom and had withdrawn from the battle, when they had all returned home, sent messengers to every city to remind them of the benefits David had given them, and of the freedom he had won for them by delivering them from many great wars. They complained that, although they had driven him out of his kingdom and committed it to another ruler, and that other ruler whom they had set up was now dead, they were not now begging David to lay aside his anger against them and become their friend, and to take up the care of their affairs as he used to, and take the kingdom again. This was often reported to David. Even so, David sent to Zadok and Abiathar the high priests, telling them to speak to the rulers of the tribe of Judah as follows: that it would be a disgrace to them to let the other tribes choose David for their king before their own tribe did, “and this when you are his kin and of the same common blood.” He also ordered them to say the same to Amasa, the commander of their forces: that although he was David’s sister’s son, he had not persuaded the people to restore the kingdom to David; and that he might expect from him not only reconciliation, for that was already granted, but also the supreme command of the army which Absalom had given him. So the high priests, after talking with the rulers of the tribe and saying what the king had ordered, persuaded Amasa to take up the king’s cause. He persuaded that tribe to send ambassadors to him at once, begging him to return to his own kingdom; and all the Israelites did the same, persuaded in the same way by Amasa.

When the ambassadors came to him, he came to Jerusalem; and the tribe of Judah was the first to come and meet the king at the Jordan River. Shimei, the son of Gera, came with a thousand men he brought with him from the tribe of Benjamin; and Ziba, Saul’s freedman, came with his sons, fifteen in number, and his twenty servants. All these, together with the tribe of Judah, laid a bridge over the river, so that the king and those with him could cross it easily. As soon as he reached the Jordan, the tribe of Judah greeted him. As the king stepped onto the bridge, Shimei threw himself down before him, took hold of his feet and begged him to forgive him his offense and not to be too harsh with him, nor to think fit to make him the first example of severity under his restored authority, but to consider that he had repented of his failure in duty and had taken care to be the first of all to come to him. While he was pleading with the king and moving him to pity, Abishai, Joab’s brother, said, “Shall this man not die for this, that he cursed the king whom God appointed to reign over us?” But David turned to him and said, “Will you never stop, you sons of Zeruiah? Please do not stir up new troubles and strife among us, now that the old ones are over. For I want you to know that this day I begin my reign, and so I swear to remit their punishment to all offenders, and not to deal severely with anyone who has done wrong. Take courage, Shimei, and do not be at all afraid of being put to death.” So Shimei bowed down before him and went on ahead of him. [a]

Mephibosheth too, Saul’s grandson, met David, dressed in a filthy garment, with his hair thick and uncared for. For after David had fled, he was in such grief that he had not cut his hair or washed his clothes, condemning himself to these hardships because of the change in the king’s fortunes. He had been unjustly slandered to the king by Ziba, his steward. When he had greeted the king and bowed down before him, the king began to ask him why he had not gone out of Jerusalem with him and kept him company during his flight. He replied that this wrong was Ziba’s doing: when Ziba was ordered to get things ready for him to go out with the king, he took no care of it, but treated him no better than a slave. “And indeed, if my feet had been sound and strong, I would not have deserted you, for then I could have used them in my flight. But this is not the only injury Ziba has done me in my duty to you, my lord and master; he has slandered me besides, and told lies about me of his own making. But I know your mind will not admit such slanders; it is just, it wants the truth to prevail, and it loves God. For when you were in the greatest danger of suffering at my grandfather’s hands, and when on that account our whole family might justly have been destroyed, you were moderate and merciful, and forgot all those injuries just when, had you remembered them, you had the power to punish us for them. Instead you have counted me your friend and seated me every day at your own table, and I have lacked nothing that one of your own most honored relatives could have expected.” When he had said this, David decided neither to punish Mephibosheth nor to condemn Ziba for having lied about his master. He told Mephibosheth that, as he had given all his estate to Ziba because he had not come with him, so he promised to forgive him; and he ordered that half of his estate be restored to him. At this Mephibosheth said, “No, let Ziba take it all; it is enough for me that you have recovered your kingdom.” [c]

David asked Barzillai the Gileadite, that great and good man, who had made generous provision for him at Mahanaim and had escorted him as far as the Jordan, to come with him to Jerusalem; for he promised to treat him with every kind of honor in his old age, and to look after him as a father and provide for him. But Barzillai was so eager to live at home that he begged him to excuse him from attending on him. He said he was too old to enjoy pleasures, since he was eighty years old and was therefore preparing for his death and burial. So he asked David to grant him this request and let him go; for because of his age he had no taste for his food or his drink, and his ears were too closed up to hear the sound of pipes or the melody of the other musical instruments that all who live with kings delight in. When he begged this so earnestly, the king said, “I let you go; but you will give me your son Chimham, and I will bestow every kind of good thing on him.” So Barzillai left his son with him, bowed down before the king, wished him a prosperous end to all his affairs as he would wish them, and then returned home. And David came to Gilgal, with half of all the people already around him, and the tribe of Judah. [e]

Then the leading men of the country came to him at Gilgal with a great crowd and complained of the tribe of Judah, that they had come to him privately, when they all ought to have gone to meet him together and with one and the same purpose. But the rulers of the tribe of Judah asked them not to be displeased if they had been forestalled by them. They said, “We are David’s kin, and for that reason we took the more care of him and loved him, and so came to him first.” Yet by coming early, they said, they had not received any gifts from him that might give those who came last any cause for resentment. When the rulers of the tribe of Judah had said this, the rulers of the other tribes were not satisfied, but went on to say, “Brothers, we cannot help wondering at you when you call the king your kinsman alone; for the one who has received from God power over all of us in common ought to be counted a kinsman to us all. That is why the whole people have eleven parts in him, and you only one. We are also older than you; so you have not acted justly in coming to the king in this private and secret way.” [g]

While these rulers were disputing with one another, a wicked man who took pleasure in stirring up revolt (his name was Sheba, the son of Bichri, of the tribe of Benjamin) stood up in the middle of the crowd, shouted aloud and said to them, “We have no part in David, nor inheritance in the son of Jesse.” When he had said these words, he blew a trumpet and declared war on the king; and they all left David and followed him. Only the tribe of Judah stayed with him and settled him in his royal palace at Jerusalem. As for his concubines, with whom his son Absalom had lain, he moved them to another house and ordered those in charge of them to make plentiful provision for them; but he never went near them again. [h]

He also appointed Amasa commander of his forces and gave him the same high office Joab had held before. He ordered him to gather out of the tribe of Judah as large an army as he could and come to him within three days, so that he could hand over his entire army to him and send him to fight against the son of Bichri. While Amasa was away and was slow in gathering the army, and so had not yet returned, on the third day the king said to Joab, “We must not delay in this business of Sheba, in case he gathers a large army around him and becomes the cause of greater harm, and damages our affairs more than Absalom himself did. So do not wait any longer, but take the forces you have at hand, and the body of six hundred men, and your brother Abishai with you, and pursue our enemy, and try to fight him wherever you can overtake him. Hurry to get ahead of him, in case he seizes some fortified cities and costs us great labor and pains before we take him.”

So Joab resolved to make no delay. Taking his brother and the six hundred men with him, and ordering the rest of the army that was at Jerusalem to follow him, he marched with great speed against Sheba. When he reached Gibeon, a village about five miles from Jerusalem, Amasa came with a great army and met Joab. Joab had a sword at his belt and his breastplate on. As Amasa came near to greet him, he took particular care that his sword should fall out as if by itself. So he picked it up from the ground, and as he approached Amasa, who was then close to him, as though he meant to kiss him, he took hold of Amasa’s beard with his other hand and struck him in the belly when he did not expect it, and killed him. Joab did this wicked and utterly profane deed to a good young man, his own kinsman, who had done him no wrong; and he did it out of jealousy, because Amasa would gain the chief command of the army and be equal in rank with himself around the king. It was for the same reason that he had killed Abner. But in that former wicked deed, the death of his brother Asahel, which he seemed to be avenging, gave him a decent pretext and made that crime a pardonable one; in this murder of Amasa there was no such cover for it. [i]

When Joab had killed this general, he went on in pursuit of Sheba, leaving a man with the dead body who was ordered to proclaim aloud to the army that Amasa had been justly killed and deservedly punished, and to say, “If you are for the king, follow Joab his general, and Abishai, Joab’s brother.” But because the body lay on the road, and the whole crowd came running to it and, as crowds will, stood around it, staring and pitying him, the man who guarded it moved it from there, carried it to a place far from the road, laid it there and covered it with his cloak. When this was done, all the people followed Joab. As he pursued Sheba through the whole country of Israel, someone told him that Sheba was in a strong city called Abel-beth-maacah. So Joab went there, surrounded it with his army and threw up a bank around it, and ordered his soldiers to undermine the walls and bring them down; and since the people in the city would not let him in, he was very angry with them.

There was a woman of little standing, yet both wise and intelligent, who, seeing her native city in the last extremity, went up on the wall and through the armed men called for Joab. When he came to her, she began, “God appointed kings and generals of armies to cut off the enemies of the Hebrews and give them peace from those enemies; but you are trying to overthrow and empty a mother city of the Israelites that has committed no offense.” He replied, “May God continue to be merciful to me! I am inclined to avoid killing a single one of the people, much less would I destroy such a city as this. If they will hand over to me Sheba, the son of Bichri, who has rebelled against the king, I will give up the siege and withdraw the army from the place.” As soon as the woman heard what Joab said, she asked him to break off the siege for a little while, for he would have his enemy’s head thrown out to him shortly. So she went down to the citizens and said to them, “Will you be so wicked as to perish miserably with your children and wives for the sake of a worthless fellow whom nobody even knows? And will you have him for your king instead of David, who has been so great a benefactor to you, and set your one city against such a mighty and strong army?” So she won them over, and they cut off Sheba’s head and threw it into Joab’s camp. When this was done, the king’s general sounded the retreat and raised the siege. When he had come to Jerusalem, he was again appointed general of all the people. The king also made Benaiah captain of the guards and of the six hundred men. He put Adoram over the tribute, and Jehoshaphat son of Ahilud over the records. He made Shusha the scribe, and appointed Zadok and Abiathar priests. [l]