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Absalom’s Rebellion in the Kidron Valley
2 Samuel 15–19:9
King David’s disgruntled son Absalom raises an army against his father
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Where Are We?
We are standing in the Kidron Valley, which separates the Mount of Olives to the east from the City of David and the Temple Mount to the west. This valley, which was thirty to sixty feet deeper in biblical times, was an important element in the natural defense system of the City of David, which can be seen on the spur south of the Temple Mount. During the rainy season water flows through the Kidron and eventually makes its way to the Dead Sea, beyond the Mount of Olives to the east. When David fled Jerusalem in fear of his son Absalom and his army, he came down barefoot through this valley and up the slope of the Mount of Olives on his way to the desert.
Setting the Scene
Although a popular Jewish legend associates the monument known as Absalom’s Pillar with David’s rebellious son, Absalom, this tomb was actually built about one thousand years after Absalom and King David lived in Jerusalem. The Kidron Valley and the slopes of the Mount of Olives have been used as burial grounds since the time of King Solomon. (Some of the first temple period tombs can still be seen carved out of the rock beneath the lower level of houses in Silwan, the Arab village on the eastern side of the valley, across from the City of David.) Outside the city walls yet close enough to visit, this area went on to become the necropolis of ancient Jerusalem. During the late Second Temple period (165 BCE–70 CE) several elaborate tombs were built in this section of the Kidron Valley, including the one attributed to Absalom. We don’t know who was actually buried here, but he was probably a wealthy man. In the tomb’s architecture he incorporated both Hellenistic and Egyptian elements popular at the time, but in keeping with Jewish tradition there are no graven images in the stonework. The grave, the square lower part, is carved out of the hillside’s natural rock, while the upside-down funnel on the top is the monument. This style reflected the popular Hellenistic notion that body and soul should be memorialized separately.
Despite the tomb’s late date, its stubborn association with Absalom assured that no other tombs would be dug in the vicinity, for who would choose to be linked to a rebellious son in the world to come?
In the fifteenth century a fascinating male-bonding tradition developed here. Jewish and Muslim fathers would bring their sons to Absalom’s Pillar and pelt the monument with stones while the fathers admonished their progeny not to follow in the treacherous footsteps of the rebellious son.
The Context
This story is the tragic denouement of a series of extremely disturbing incidents in King David’s household. The eldest son, Amnon, brutally raped and humiliated his half sister Tamar, the daughter of a different mother, the Geshurite princess Maacah. Although David was furious over what happened, he evidently took no action, either to punish Amnon or to compensate Tamar. Absalom, her brother, took Tamar into his house and seethed for two years following the rape, no doubt deeply hurt by his father David’s inability or refusal to dispense justice. Finally, Absalom took revenge and murdered Amnon. He then fled to the safety of his grandparents in the northeastern kingdom of Geshur (2 Sam. 13).
Fig. 13. Absalom’s Pillar in the Kidron Valley, Jerusalem
Absalom may very well have been received as a hero in Geshur. We can imagine he was warmly welcomed by King Talmai, who no doubt applauded his grandson’s bravery in defending the honor of his Geshurite family. Absalom remained in the cozy embrace of his grandparents for three years (2 Sam. 13:38), during which time he married and had children (2 Sam. 14:27). Yet Absalom would have been unwise to burn the bridges to Jerusalem behind him. With Amnon dead and Chileab, the son next in line, absent from the narrative, Absalom was set to inherit the throne.
More importantly, Absalom was probably expecting a showdown with his father. He had murdered his brother, and it was inconceivable to him that David wouldn’t come after him. Demanding his day in court, Absalom desperately wanted a chance to state his case. He probably spent hours in front of the mirror, rehearsing what he would say to his father when he finally stood before him, face-to-face.
But David never came. For three years the runaway, rebellious son marked time, waiting for a sign that his father cared about him, missed him, was angry with him, but there was only silence. This silence served to deepen Absalom’s anger and resentment toward his father.
Meantime, back in Jerusalem, “King David mourned over his son a long time. . . . And [King David] was pining away for Absalom, for [the king] had gotten over Amnon’s death” (2 Sam. 13:37, 39). David had come to terms with Amnon’s death and sought reconciliation with Absalom, whom he appears to have forgiven. However, David was torn and could not bring himself to initiate contact. Joab, David’s army commander and close confidant, recognized the king’s anguish. To help resolve the dilemma he sent a woman to request the king’s mediation in resolving a fictional dispute involving her two sons, one of whom had killed the other. By cleverly compelling David to rule that the murdering son must not be harmed by those who wished to avenge his brother’s blood, Joab successfully convinced David that his son’s predicament was no different (2 Sam. 14:1–21).
Consequently David gave his permission for Absalom to return home, but at the same time he gave him an icy welcome. David refused to see him, and Joab, his principle ally, largely ignored him as well. Absalom languished in the capital for two years (2 Sam. 14:28), until finally, in frustration and desperation, he set fire to Joab’s crops to attract his attention, demanding he arrange a face-off (2 Sam. 14:30). After murdering his half brother Amnon, all in all Absalom waited for seven years until he was summoned by his father to a tête-à-tête, yet no meaningful conversation is recorded at their reunion. There was no screaming and yelling, no exchange of accusations, no trial, and no catharsis. Just a cold, formal, kiss-on-the-cheek (2 Sam. 14:33). Absalom probably realized that the father who had been absent for him all these years would never fulfill his hopes and expectations. Bitterly disappointed, he probably lost respect for David. Absalom was a rebellion waiting to happen.
Me and My Dad
The biblical text invites us into the most intimate chambers of the lauded King David. In striking contrast to official accounts of other ancient rulers, the Bible doesn’t attempt to portray King David as a perfect, irreproachable savior sent as a gift from God to his people. Instead, the foibles and shortcomings of this very mortal ruler are nakedly exposed. In the story of Absalom’s revolt we observe David under the microscope as parent and king, and the slide isn’t pretty.
According to the biblical account David had nineteen sons (1 Chron. 3:1–9). Only one daughter is mentioned by name, but the law of averages leads us to believe that he sired a similar number of girls. The text pointedly mentions that this list does not include the children of his concubines, of which he was in possession of at least ten, as we learn in the Absalom story. If we allot them a minimum of two children each, we can calculate that David was the father of around sixty children.
We can fairly assume that David was not a hands-on kind of dad. He had a kingdom to run, an army to command, and many subjects seeking his rulings and advice. David’s children were no doubt important to him, but it is unlikely that he told them bedtime stories and played games with them—there were servants for that. It’s doubtful whether David knew his children well or was familiar with the day-to-day goings on in their lives. He was so oblivious to the true nature of his children’s personalities that he unwittingly sent his daughter Tamar into the hands of her brother Amnon, her rapist, and Amnon into the hands of his brother Absalom, his murderer.
Father, Where Art Thou?
So, why didn’t he go to him? Why was David the father unable to reach out to his son?
Could he be one of those emotionally stunted men incapable of revealing his feelings for fear of being perceived as weak? Not David. His public relations efforts notwithstanding, the biblical text is replete with examples of David’s outward and uninhibited expression of emotions. He danced wildly when the ark was brought up to Jerusalem (2 Sam. 6:5, 14–15). He comforted Bathsheba over the death of their infant son (2 Sam. 12:24). He wept openly when he parted from Jonathan (1 Sam. 20:41), when he and his men discovered the devastation at Ziklag (1 Sam. 30:1–4), when he received news of the death of Saul and his sons (2 Sam. 1:11–12), and over Abner son of Ner’s grave (2 Sam. 3:32). David was a lover, a warrior, an outlaw, an extortionist, an adulterer, and a murderer—but he wasn’t a cold fish.
Perhaps he managed to delude himself that Absalom was safe in Geshur. If his son returned to Jerusalem, David might have to try and convict him of murder in the first degree, a crime punishable by death. However, the wise woman of Tekoa cleverly dispatched by Joab successfully undermined that excuse by posing a similar dilemma, albeit fictional, concerning fratricide. David, unaware that it was a ruse, ruled that the murdering brother was not to be harmed, a precedent that thereby exonerated his own son. In the wake of this clever manipulation, David reluctantly agreed to allow Absalom to return home to Jerusalem but stipulated immediately that he would not see him. What prevented David from reconciling with Absalom?
It would be fair to assume that at this point in the narrative David was in a ravaged emotional state. His infant son with Bathsheba was dead, his daughter Tamar had been brutally raped by her brother Amnon, and Amnon had been murdered by his brother Absalom. Awash in sorrow, guilt, self-loathing, and remorse, David was a broken vessel. He was probably emotionally incapable of reconciling with Absalom because he would have to admit he had failed yet again as a father. Unable to face this raw truth, David chose instead to avoid it by completely distancing himself from his son, subsequently widening the painful gap between them. He never initiated contact, denying Absalom an opportunity to address the terrible events that had transpired. Absalom was deeply hurt by his father’s cold shoulder. His heart was out on his sleeve as he stood by the city gate and greeted people on their way to see the king. “If only I were appointed judge in the land and everyone with a legal dispute came before me, I would see that he got his rights”(2 Sam. 15:4).
The sneering Absalom doesn’t always invite sympathy. He vandalizes property to get attention, he undermines his father’s authority in public, and he probably preens and prances around so everyone in the kingdom can admire his perfect complexion and unparalleled good looks. So what if he’s a hunk—who can feel sorry for a guy who weighs his own hair (2 Sam. 14:26)?
However, Absalom had a legitimate case against his father, and evidently he wasn’t the only one disappointed in David’s leadership. There seems to have been a groundswell of reinforcement for Absalom. How else can we explain why “the people supported Absalom in increasing numbers” (2 Sam. 15:12)? This distress appears to be widespread, as later we will learn of another attempted coup on David by a Benjaminite named Sheba son of Bichri. Although the narrative refers to him as a scoundrel, it goes on to note that “all the men of Israel left David and followed Sheba son of Bichri” (2 Sam. 20:1–2). If so many of David’s subjects defected to a questionable leader, they must have had a significant ax to grind. Absalom, backed by many disgruntled men and David’s best advisor (2 Sam. 15:12), was able to raise an army and march on Jerusalem. A bloodbath appeared imminent.
It is hard to read the account of David’s flight from Jerusalem without wincing at the king’s vulnerability. With a brood of helpless women and children behind him, David escaped from the city, abandoning his weeping subjects along the road as he made his way over the Kidron brook and up the Mount of Olives. His crown and regal bearing were hastily forgotten in the palace, and he was barefoot, his face partially hidden by a scarf. Himself in tears, he was cursed and pelted with stones and dirt by the ranting Shimei, a member of Saul’s family, who no longer feared David’s authority (2 Sam. 16:5–14). Meanwhile back in Jerusalem, in a symbolic move understood by all, his son was publicly laying claim to the kingdom by bedding David’s ten concubines in a tent on the roof of the palace while everyone watched.
Amid these painful circumstances many a parent would be mumbling @#$&*$#*!!, cursing the rebellious child and the day he was born. Yet David never expressed any animosity toward Absalom and did not hold him accountable for his humiliation. He was almost fatalistic, acknowledging his own powerlessness in the face of God’s will and urging his allies to save themselves. Even when David managed to turn the situation around, reorganizing his men to go on the offensive against Absalom’s soldiers, he specifically commanded them to “deal gently with my boy Absalom, for my sake” (2 Sam. 18:5).
There are those who say, “We get the children we deserve.” Implicit in David’s treatment of Absalom was the recognition that he himself was to blame for his son’s errant behavior. Absalom was a child crying out for attention, but by the time his father listened to him it was too late. David fell apart when he heard Absalom had been killed. Devastated, he completely forgot the enormous sacrifice his men had made for him and turned the victory party into a funereal sob fest. The kingdom and David’s power over it had been saved, but they were no longer of any value to him when compared to what he had lost—an honest and meaningful relationship with his son.
Postscript: The Punishment of Rebellious Sons
If your kids are giving you a hard time too, check out Deuteronomy 21:18–21 for the biblical solution to problem children:
If the rebellious son was indeed condemned to death, his sentence had to be published everywhere, and the stoning had to take place in Jerusalem during a pilgrimage festival for maximum exposure (Tosefta Sanhedrin 11:7). The execution was not to punish him for his evil deeds but to prevent him from ruining his parents and living a life of robbery and murder (Sanhedrin 72a; TJ, Sanhedrin 8:7).
Pretty harsh, huh? Relax—no need to call in the welfare authorities. There is no recorded execution of this law, ever. In fact, the rabbinic sages interpreted it so restrictively that it was virtually impossible to implement. They determined that the “son” had to be thirteen years old but with no pubic hair (which would categorize him as a man) (Sanhedrin 8:1), a period usually lasting no longer than three months by the majority opinion (Sanhedrin 69a; Yad, Mamrim 7:6). They also drew up minimum quantities for the food and drink consumed in gluttony, amounts that no thirteen-year-old son could afford unless he stole the money (Sanhedrin 8:3, 71a; Yad, Mamrim 7:2). Either parent could withdraw the complaint at any time (Sif. Deuteronomy 218; Sanhedrin 88b; TJ, Sanhedrin 8:6; Yad, Mamrim 7:8). If the son escaped before sentencing and his hair had grown, he had to be released (Sanhedrin 71b; Yad, Mamrim 7:9).
If the law was unlikely to be carried out, what was its purpose? First of all, it limited the authority of the head of the household, who was forced to bring an unruly child before the elders instead of devising his own punishment. More importantly, it was there in writing as a warning that desperate parents could use to educate their poorly behaved children.
In times ancient and modern, parenting has never been easy.