Tanakh, Bible & Qu'ran: The Pillars of Three Faiths. Various Authors

the king is as an angel of God; do therefore what is good in thine eyes. ²⁹For all my father's house were deserving of death at the hand of my lord the king; yet didst thou set thy servant among them that did eat at thine own table. What right therefore have I yet? or why should I cry any more unto the king?' ³⁰And the king said unto him: 'Why speakest thou any more of thy matters? I say: Thou and Ziba divide the land.' ³¹And Mephibosheth said unto the king: 'Yea, let him take all, forasmuch as my lord the king is come in peace unto his own house.'

      ³²And Barzillai the Gileadite came down from Rogelim; and he passed on to Jordan with the king, to bring him on the way over the Jordan. ³³Now Barzillai was a very aged man, even fourscore years old; and he had provided the king with sustenance while he lay at Mahanaim; for he was a very great man. ³⁴And the king said unto Barzillai: 'Come thou over with me, and I will sustain thee with me in Jerusalem.' ³⁵And Barzillai said unto the king: 'How many are the days of the years of my life, that I should go up with the king unto Jerusalem? ³⁶I am this day fourscore years old; can I discern between good and bad? can thy servant taste what I eat or what I drink? can I hear any more the voice of singing men and singing women? wherefore then should thy servant be yet a burden unto my lord the king? ³⁷Thy servant would but just go over the Jordan with the king; and why should the king recompense it me with such a reward? ³⁸Let thy servant, I pray thee, turn back, that I may die in mine own city, by the grave of my father and my mother. But behold thy servant Chimham; let him go over with my lord the king; and do to him what shall seem good unto thee.' ³⁹And the king answered: 'Chimham shall go over with me, and I will do to him that which shall seem good unto thee; and whatsoever thou shalt require of me, that will I do for thee.' ⁴⁰And all the people went over the Jordan, and the king went over; and the king kissed Barzillai, and blessed him; and he returned unto his own place.

⁴¹So the king went over to Gilgal, and ⁷Chimham went over with him; and all the people of Judah brought the king over, and also half the people of Israel. ⁴²And, behold, all the men of Israel came to the king, and said unto the king: 'Why have our brethren the men of Judah stolen thee away, and brought the king, and his household, over the Jordan, and all David's men with him?' ⁴³And all the men of Judah answered the men of Israel: 'Because the king is near of kin to us; wherefore then are ye angry for this matter? have we eaten at all of the king's cost? or hath any gift been given us?' ⁴⁴And the men of Israel answered the men of Judah, and said: 'We have ten parts in the king, and we have also more right in David than ye; why then did ye despise us, that our advice should not be first had in bringing back our king?' And the words of the men of Judah were fiercer than the words of the men of Israel.

      20Now there happened to be there a base fellow, whose name was Sheba, the son of Bichri, a Benjamite; and he blew the horn, and said: 'We have no portion in David, neither have we inheritance in the son of Jesse; every man to his tents, O Israel.' ²So all the men of Israel went up from following David, and followed Sheba the son of Bichri; but the men of Judah did cleave unto their king, from the Jordan even to Jerusalem.

      ³And David came to his house at Jerusalem; and the king took the ten women his concubines, whom he had left to keep the house, and put them in ward, and provided them with sustenance, but went not in unto them. So they were shut up unto the day of their death, in widowhood, with their husband alive.

      ⁴Then said the king to Amasa: 'Call me the men of Judah together within three days, and be thou here present.' ⁵So Amasa went to call the men of Judah together; but he tarried longer than the set time which he had appointed him. ⁶And David said to Abishai: 'Now will Sheba the son of Bichri do us more harm than did Absalom; take thou thy lord's servants, and pursue after him, lest he get him fortified cities, and escape out of our sight.' ⁷And there went out after him Joab's men, and the Cherethites and the Pelethites, and all the mighty men; and they went out of Jerusalem, to pursue after Sheba the son of Bichri. ⁸When they were at the great stone which is in Gibeon, Amasa came to meet them. And Joab was girded with his apparel of war that he had put on, and thereon was a girdle with a sword fastened upon his loins in the sheath thereof; and as he went forth it fell out. ⁹And Joab said to Amasa: 'Is it well with thee, my brother?' And Joab took Amasa by the beard with his right hand to kiss him. ¹⁰But Amasa took no heed to the sword that was in Joab's hand; so he smote him therewith in the groin, and shed out his bowels to the ground, and struck him not again; and he died.

      And Joab and Abishai his brother pursued after Sheba the son of Bichri. ¹¹And there stood by him one of Joab's young men, and said: 'He that favoureth Joab, and he that is for David let him follow Joab.' ¹²And Amasa lay wallowing in his blood in the midst of the highway. And when the man saw that all the people stood still, he carried Amasa out of the highway into the field, and cast a garment over him, when he saw that every one that came by him stood still. ¹³When he was removed out of the highway, all the people went on after Joab, to pursue after Sheba the son of Bichri.

      ¹⁴And he went through all the tribes of Israel unto Abel, and to Beth-maacah, and all the Berites; and they were gathered together, and went in also after him. ¹⁵And they came and besieged him in Abel of Beth-maacah, and they cast up a mound against the city, and it stood in the moat; and all the people that were with Joab battered the wall, to throw it down.

      ¹⁶Then cried a wise woman out of the city: 'Hear, hear; say, I pray you, unto Joab: Come near hither, that I may speak with thee.' ¹⁷And he came near unto her; and the woman said: 'Art thou Joab?' And he answered: 'I am.' Then she said unto him: 'Hear the words of thy handmaid.' And he answered: 'I do hear.' ¹⁸Then she spoke, saying: 'They were wont to speak in old time, saying: They shall surely ask counsel at Abel; and so they ended the matter. ¹⁹We are of them that are peaceable and faithful in Israel; seekest thou to destroy a city and a mother in Israel? why wilt thou swallow up the inheritance of the Lord?' ²⁰And Joab answered and said: 'Far be it, far be it from me, that I should swallow up or destroy. ²¹The matter is not so; but a man of the hill-country of Ephraim, Sheba the son of Bichri by name, hath lifted up his hand against the king, even against David; deliver him only, and I will depart from the city.' And the woman said unto Joab: 'Behold, his head shall be thrown to thee over the wall.' ²²Then the woman went unto all the people in her wisdom. And they cut off the head of Sheba the son of Bichri, and threw it out to Joab. And he blew the horn, and they were dispersed from the city, every man to his tent. And Joab returned to Jerusalem unto the king.

      ²³Now Joab was over all the host of Israel; and Benaiah the son of Jehoiada was over the Cherethites and over the Pelethites; ²⁴and Adoram was over the levy; and Jehoshaphat the son of Ahilud was the recorder; ²⁵and Sheva was scribe; and Zadok and Abiathar were priests; ²⁶and Ira also the Jairite was chief minister unto David.

      21And there was a famine in the days of David three years, year after year; and David sought the face of the Lord. And the Lord said: 'It is for Saul, and for his bloody house, because he put to death the Gibeonites.' ²And the king called the Gibeonites, and said unto them—now the Gibeonites were not of the children of Israel, but of the remnant of the Amorites; and the children of Israel had sworn unto them; and Saul sought to slay them in his zeal for the children of Israel and Judah—³and David said unto the Gibeonites: 'What shall I do for you? and wherewith shall I make atonement, that ye may bless the inheritance of the Lord?' ⁴And the Gibeonites said unto him: 'It is no matter of silver or gold between us and Saul, or his house; neither is it for us to put any man to death in Israel.' And he said: 'What say ye that I should do for you?' ⁵And they said unto the king: 'The man that consumed us, and that devised against us, so that we have been destroyed from remaining in any of the borders of Israel, ⁶let seven men of his sons be delivered unto us, and we will hang them up unto the Lord in Gibeah of Saul, the chosen of the Lord.' And the king said: 'I will deliver them.'

      ⁷But the king spared Mephibosheth, the son of Jonathan the son of Saul, because of the Lord's oath that was between them, between David and Jonathan the son of Saul. ⁸But the king took the two sons of Rizpah the daughter of Aiah, whom she bore unto Saul, Armoni