Today can be summarized very briefly with the death of Absalom. It started out with David sending all of his men out to fight Absalom and Israel. Which I find incredibly confusing, because aren’t they all Israel? I missed the part where they broke off, or certain tribes followed certain people. This was basically a Civil War?
Anyway, the two groups came together and began fighting. The battle was fought in the forest of Ephraim. The men of Israel were ultimately defeated by David’s servants, and the loss was twenty-thousand men.
Absalom went down when he was riding his mule through the forest and went under thick branches of an oak tree. His head got caught in the fast of the oak and was suspended there while his mule rode away.
Someone saw it and told Joab, and even though David commanded him to protect his son, he took three javelins and thrust them in Absalom’s heart. Then ten more men came and surrounded him and struck him and killed him.
Joab blew the trumpets, and the troops came back from pursuing Israel. They took Absalom and threw him in a pit in the forest and raised a great heap of stones over him.
When David heard of his sons’ death he was grief-stricken. He mourned for him and cried out. The victory of defeating Israel was replaced with mourning. Joab was pretty pissed at David for this, because he was not acknowledging what had been done for him.
Joab told David, “You have covered with shame the faces of all your servants, who have this day saved your life and the lives of your [family], because you love those who hate you and hate those who love you. For you have made it clear today that commanders and servants are nothing to you.”
He continued by telling David to go and speak to his people, or they would all likely leave him. So the king rose and went and sat at the gate, and all the people came before him.
At this point, it was time for the king to return to Jerusalem now that the fighting was over. Judah came to meet the king to bring him over the Jordan. Apparently the rest of Israel had a problem with this, and were questioning why Judah got to bring him back.
Again, this is all still confusing to me, because I thought they were all part of Israel in the first place? Oh well. Judah responded by saying the king was their close relative, and the words of Judah were fiercer than the words of the men of Israel.