2 Samuel 15 Bible study: The king goes up weeping

Watch what Absalom does, step by step. "After this, Absalom prepared a chariot and horses for himself, and fifty men to run before him" (15:1). "Absalom rose up early, and stood beside the way of the gate" (15:2), where men came "to the king for judgment" (15:2) (tap judgment). He asks each one, "What city are you from?" (15:2). He tells him, "Behold, your matters are good and right; but there is no man deputized by the king to hear you" (15:3). He says what he would do: "Oh that I were made judge in the land, that every man who has any suit or cause might come to me, and I would do him justice!" (15:4) (tap do him justice). And when a man came near to bow, "he stretched out his hand, took hold of him, and kissed him" (15:5). The chapter names the result in one line: "So Absalom stole the hearts of the men of Israel" (15:6) (tap stole). The book had said of David, "David executed justice and righteousness for all his people" (8:15). Absalom never says the king is unjust. He says there is no one to hear you, and that he would.

2 Samuel 15:26→leads toLuke 22:42

Leaving Jerusalem, David crossed "the brook Kidron" (15:23), sent the ark back and said, "behold, here I am. Let him do to me as seems good to him" (15:26), then "went up by the ascent of the Mount of Olives, and wept as he went up" (15:30). In Luke, Jesus "went, as his custom was, to the Mount of Olives" (Luke 22:39), and prayed, "Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but yours, be done" (Luke 22:42); John says he "went out with his disciples over the brook Kidron" (John 18:1). The Gospels don't cite 2 Samuel 15, so setting them side by side is a reading. Some see the same yielding in both: David leaves what happens to him with the LORD, and Jesus prays that the Father's will be done. Others read each on its own terms: David fled a son's rebellion and hoped to be brought back (15:25), while Jesus prayed about the cup set before him, and the shared places are only places.

גָּנַבganavsay ga-NAV

Brown-Driver-Briggs: "steal". Strong's: "to thieve (literally or figuratively); by implication, to deceive". "So Absalom stole the hearts of the men of Israel" (15:6): the verb with lev, heart. Genesis joins the same two words where the WEB has "Jacob deceived Laban the Syrian" (Genesis 31:20); literally, Jacob stole the heart of Laban. 2 Samuel has the verb five times in the Hebrew. Twice it is in one verse: "The people sneaked into the city that day, as people who are ashamed steal away when they flee in battle" (19:3). The men of Israel later ask why the men of Judah have "stolen you away" (19:41), and the men of Jabesh Gilead "had stolen" the bones of Saul and Jonathan (21:12).