by Angela Hunt
and on me are falling the insults
of those insulting you.
He had written much more, but those lines remained with me because I’d been startled by David’s confession that he felt no connection to his seven brothers. When I asked Samuel about it, my teacher quietly explained that since David felt cut off from his own family, he began to consider Saul his father and Jonathan his brother. He might have considered the king’s daughters, Merab and Michal, his sisters until the king offered one of them in marriage. In the end, David married Michal because Saul wanted him to. David would have done anything to please the king he so admired.
In the same way, Saul loved David . . . until he began to fear him. Then that fierce love turned to fierce hate, and Saul’s hate nearly destroyed the young shepherd.
“The lad has a sensitive soul,” Samuel had finished. “And that is why he is here now. He has been hurt, and his soul needs time to heal. When a cry for love is met by hate or indifference, the one who begged for love will become hard as a seed of bitterness grows. We will pray with David and encourage him to seek Adonai so his heart will remain tender.”
I closed my eyes and again saw Absalom’s handsome face as he looked at the king, his eyes alight with hope, his fingers fluttering in anticipation of embracing his father in reconciliation and forgiveness. He had been silently, earnestly seeking love and approval, and David had not granted it. David had given ceremonial kisses on both cheeks to former enemies, yet to his son he could only bestow a chilly kiss on the hand.
I groaned. Oh, Absalom. After being his father’s favored child for so many years, this sort of public humiliation would do nothing to keep his heart soft and tender toward the king. After waiting two years for the king to do something about Amnon’s sin, Absalom had boldly avenged his sister, and what had been the result? Exile. Disinterest. And now, public humiliation.
No, Absalom’s heart would not be softened by David’s welcome today. And seeds of bitterness thrived in the hard ground of anger and resentment.
One day it occurred to me that David treated his son Absalom in the same way he’d treated Michal, the daughter of Saul. He had sought his wife when she lived with another man, but after she dared rebuke him, he’d kept her at arm’s length. In the same way, David had pined for Absalom and allowed him to return to Jerusalem, but then he forbade the young man to appear at court.
So just as Michal had invested her life in raising her nephews, Absalom began to invest his life in the people of Israel.
After he’d been officially welcomed at court by his father the king, the citizens of Jerusalem were no longer shy about praising and admiring the supposed heir. In return, Absalom indulged in princely perks no son of Israel had ever claimed. He expected free food at the market, the lending of servants to tend his fields, and volunteers to care for his animals. No longer content to travel by mule like others in the royal family, he bought a chariot and horses and hired fifty men to run in front of his conveyance to announce his approach.
Unlike some wealthy men, Absalom was not a sluggard. He rose early to ride out in his chariot and station himself beneath a shaded tent near the approach to the city gate.
Since I lived in the last house at the outskirts of Jerusalem, he often set his tent across the road from my home. Each morning I rose at sunrise only to find that Absalom had risen in the dark. As I sat beneath the shade of my fig tree, Absalom greeted every traveler on the road, hailing them with a smile and friendly questions: “What city are you from? What business have you in Jerusalem?”
If someone from a neighboring tribe was bringing a case to the king for judgment, Absalom would run his fingers through his thick hair in a thoughtful gesture, then lean forward to say, “Look, your cause is good and just, but the king hasn’t deputized anyone to hear your case. If I were made judge in the land, anyone with a suit or other cause could come to me. I would see to it that justice was meted out fairly.”
When anyone, visitor or neighbor, approached and prepared to prostrate himself before Absalom, the prince would put out his hands, hold the person upright, and kiss his cheeks as if they were close kinsmen and not prince and servant.
Whenever I witnessed the prince’s effusive greetings, I couldn’t help remembering what I’d observed on the morning Absalom returned to court. Since he did not receive a warm welcome from the king, he seemed determined to offer it to anyone who crossed his path.
After four years of this behavior, Absalom had thoroughly stolen the hearts of those who lived in Jerusalem and those from neighboring tribes who had met him on visits to the capital city. Because he acted with fierce intention and bold rashness, many of the king’s counselors dared to call the king’s attention to Absalom’s overweening ambition.
David’s only response was to offer a polite smile. “And why shouldn’t Absalom win the people’s hearts?” he would ask. “He is a prince of Israel. Let him be, and do not disturb him.”
I didn’t know what to make of David’s answer. I believed he loved his son, but why didn’t he show it? Did he not know how, or did he worry that any display of support for Absalom would appear to be support for a murderer?
I didn’t know what Ahithophel and the counselors said to the king about his son or if they said anything at all. But I did know this: though many of the king’s officials felt uneasy with Absalom’s intentions, nothing they said could sway the king’s opinion that Absalom should be allowed to do as he pleased.
One day I was working in my family’s field when I looked up to see a familiar form in the distance. The prophet Gad, the king’s personal seer, was approaching on the road, and within a few moments I realized he had come to see me. I dropped my hoe, washed my hands, and greeted my guest with water and a seat in the shade.
From the line between his brows, I knew something troubled the man, so I sat and waited for him to speak. After a few moments of apparent soul-searching, he did. “David has taken a census,” he said. “Months ago the king sent Joab’s men throughout the tribes to count the number of people in the land.”
I blinked. I had heard nothing from Adonai about a census, but the Lord did not tell me everything. “Well,” I said, “the offering will be good for the priests. The Tabernacle may need repairs—”
“They are not collecting an offering,” Gad interrupted, his face grim. “They are only counting men twenty and older.”
I smoothed my beard, troubled by this news. HaShem told Moses that whenever a census of the people was taken, each man was to pay a small piece of silver as a ransom for himself so that no plague would strike the people as they were counted. The payment was intended to purify the populace and confirm their commitment to the care of the Tabernacle. If David’s men weren’t collecting an offering, why were they counting heads?
Gad must have read the question in my eyes. “It would appear this census is being taken to satisfy the king’s curiosity. Perhaps he has been tempted to take pride in the strength of his army or the number of his people.”
“We are at peace,” I pointed out. “David doesn’t need to know the strength of his army.” I paused to search my thoughts. “As a rich man foolishly places his trust in the number of silver coins he has, perhaps the king has placed his trust in the number of his soldiers.”
“I don’t know what David is thinking,” Gad said. “And Adonai has not told me. But even Joab tried to persuade the king to forget the idea, but David insisted. The commander’s men have been traveling through Israel for nearly nine months and will soon return with an answer for the king.”
“And after that?”
Gad’s dark brows slanted in a frown. “Then we shall see what Adonai says.”
Days passed before I heard from Gad again. When I met him at the palace, he told me that Joab’s men had returned and reported their findings: Israel had eight hundred thousand men capable of swinging a sword, and Judah five hundred thousand.
After hearing the report, David realized the extent of his si
n almost immediately. “I have offended greatly in what I have done,” he told Joab. Then he addressed Adonai, saying, “And now, Lord, pardon the guilt of your servant, for I have been foolish.”
Gad went to David early the next morning with a question from HaShem. “‘For your sin in taking the census, will you choose three years of famine throughout your territory, three months of fleeing from your enemies, or three days of severe plague throughout your land?’ Think this over and decide what answer I should give Adonai.”
“I am in great distress,” David told his seer. “Please let us fall into the hand of the Lord, for His mercies are great, but do not let me fall into human hands.”
So for three days a plague smote the people of Israel. From Dan in the north to Beersheba in the south, seventy thousand men died, along with women and children. As the angel of death prepared to destroy Jerusalem, Adonai relented and told the angel to stop.
At that moment David looked up and saw the death angel hovering over a threshing floor that belonged to Araunah the Jebusite.
Gad told David to go to the threshing floor and build an altar there. The king went as the seer had instructed, then purchased the threshing floor and oxen for a sacrifice of burnt offerings and peace offerings. After David prayed, Adonai answered by sending fire from heaven to burn the offering on the altar. David was filled with the Ruach HaKodesh and declared, “This will be the location for the Temple of the Lord God and the place of the altar for Israel’s burnt offerings.”
Gad looked at me when he finished his story. “Were any sick in your house?”
I shook my head. “None. Though I heard about many who died in other villages.”
“I do not always understand the ways of Adonai,” Gad said, “but He makes His plans in the heavens while we make ours on earth. We may not understand His ways, but we must trust that they are right.”
The census and its grievous consequences affected David’s own family, though the king did not realize it right away. The next day, while he sketched out plans to build Adonai’s Temple on the former threshing floor, Absalom and his wife dressed in sackcloth and led a procession of mourners to the King’s Valley, where the king’s son buried four of his five children and piled rocks on the grave, inviting other mourners to do the same. When the pile of stones reached higher than a man’s head, Absalom addressed those who had come with him. “I have built this monument,” he said, placing his hand on his chest, “because I have no son to carry on my name. Only my daughter, Maacah, still lives.”
When he had finished, he returned to his post at the city gate. Though he had buried four of his precious children that morning, he stood stoically beneath his tent, unsmiling and red-eyed. On that day the visitors who entered the City of David kissed and comforted him, for word of his loss had spread throughout the land, proving beyond doubt that he was a man of the people.
The citizens of Jerusalem wept over those dead children, not for their grandfather David’s sake but for Absalom’s.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Bathsheba
AFTER WATCHING MY SONS TRAIN with Abishai and other members of the Thirty, I left the practice field and walked back to my apartment. The afternoon was bathed in honey-thick sunshine, and it felt good to stretch my legs.
I smiled when I thought of my boys. Solomon was a fair swordsman, but he had inherited my father’s height and my lean frame, so he would never be known for physical strength. The twins, Shammua and Shobab, were stocky and square like their father and would make good soldiers when the time came. At seventeen, they were older than David had been when he killed Goliath, yet Israel did not conscript soldiers under the age of twenty.
My youngest, Nathan, was fifteen, and though he might have to fight one day, I prayed he would not. He had inherited the sensitive side of David’s nature, so I hoped he would spend his days serving Adonai as a musician or a poet. Like all princes, he had to train in the art of warfare, but it did not suit his nature.
I nodded at the guard posted at an inconspicuous gate in the palace wall, then slipped through the opening and crossed the harem courtyard. Few of the king’s women would be stirring at this hour unless they covered themselves with scarves and veils to protect their skin from the hot sun.
I paused at a fountain when I saw three men leaving Abigail’s chamber. I recognized two of them as royal physicians, but the third was a stranger. I let the fountain spray my fingers as I considered the unusual guests. Who was sick in Abigail’s quarters? One of her maids or the lady herself?
I ran my wet fingers over the warm skin at my neck, then decided to seek my own answers. I hadn’t seen Abigail in several weeks, and we usually crossed paths at least every few days. But nearly all of David’s wives attended worship at the Tabernacle on feast days, and lately I hadn’t seen Abigail at those ceremonies, either.
The door was slightly ajar when I approached, so I knocked softly and pushed it open. “Hello?”
Before anyone had time to answer, I saw Abigail seated on the edge of her bed, her hair piled on top of her head and her chest bare. Her handmaid was struggling to wrap a wide linen strip around her mistress’s chest, and with one downward glance I saw why. Abigail’s left breast was malformed, distorted with purple lumps, one of which had broken open to reveal a suppurating tumor.
“Oh!” Upon seeing me, Abigail raised her hands to try to hide her disfigurement, discomfiting the handmaid all the more. The poor girl broke into tears, and after a speechless moment in which every word left my head, I stepped forward and said the only words that came to mind: “I’m so sorry.”
Abigail released a heavy sigh, then dropped her defensive posture and gave me a sad smile. “Sometimes it happens,” she said simply. “The physicians have no answers, but they do give me herbs for the pain.”
A wave of guilt washed over me, slumping my shoulders and leaving me weak-kneed. I had envied this woman so many times—her pleasant features, her charming smile, her open countenance. Most of all, I had envied the relationship she shared with David. Even though she had only given him one son, she knew things about him that I might never know, because they were friends.
“Abigail.” I sank to a stool, then rose on impulse and took the linen strip from the weeping handmaid. Dismissing the girl with a nod, I held the edges and looked into Abigail’s eyes. “I’m sorry this has happened to you,” I told her. “But let me help. If you would raise your arms . . .”
She did, and with the skill I’d gained from dressing rambunctious little boys, I wrapped the linen around her breasts, careful not to cause her pain. I padded the festering area with loose cotton, then wrapped another layer over the first. When I had finished, I dropped a silk tunic over her head, helped her stand, and gently tied a fabric belt at her slender waist.
“Mirza means well,” Abigail murmured, speaking of her maid. “But the sight of my disfigurement frightens her.”
“What does David say?”
“I have not seen him since . . .” She looked away as her words trailed off.
The sight of such an awful wound was enough to shock anyone, but what could a woman do? In this, as in all things in which we were powerless, we could only trust Adonai to help us endure what must be endured.
I helped Abigail back to her bed, lifted her feet onto the mattress, and propped her up with pillows. “I wondered why I hadn’t seen much of you,” I offered in a pitiful attempt to make conversation. “Now I understand.”
Anyone with a festering sore was unclean according to our law and had to be separated from others. Abigail could not attend worship or visit David, and anyone who touched her would have to wash their clothes, bathe in water, and be unclean until evening—including me.
Abigail moved a pillow over her chest and wrapped her arms around it. “Actually, I’m glad we have this time to talk alone. I know my days are numbered, and there is much I want to say to you.”
“I remember,” I assured her, “what you said the last time we spoke. A
t first I wasn’t sure I could trust you, but now I know you had only good intentions.”
“The king and I—” a coughing spasm interrupted her—“are the same age. We are friends. And as his friend I have always tried to rejoice when he rejoices and weep when he weeps. I have also cared for those he loves. And the woman he loves most, Bathsheba, is you.”
I moved to the stool by the bed. “I care a great deal for him. I hope you know I would never hurt him.”
“I worried about you in the beginning.” A glaze seemed to come down over her damp eyes. “You were so beautiful, and experience has taught me that beautiful women are dangerous. Their beauty gives them power over men, and some of them use it against the king, or try to.”
She gave me a secretive smile, and I knew she was talking about Maacah, mother to Tamar and Absalom. Maacah had always demanded the best for herself and her children—the best garments, the best tutors, the best mounts, the best accommodations. The woman did not know the meaning of the word humility.
“I would never—”
“I know you wouldn’t; such selfishness is not part of your nature. But I didn’t know you at first. I only knew David was smitten with your beauty. He brought you to the palace because he knew what would happen if he abandoned you. And because you were so devastated and grief-stricken because of what he’d done to your husband, he determined to do anything in his power to make you happy. And in doing so, he began to love you, the woman beneath the beautiful face and form.”
Her expression softened into one of fond reminiscence. “I knew my lord and king had finally found a woman worthy of his love. Yet with all you had endured, I wondered if you could really care for him. I still wonder, but at least I know you will not be cruel to him. You are not cruel by nature.”
“I . . .” I floundered in a desperate search for words. I wanted to give this woman an answer that would set her at ease, but what could I say? I respected David, I cared for him greatly, and I enjoyed his company. But did my heart leap at his approach like it did when I waited for Uriah to come home?