Stealing the Hearts of Israel
1 After this, Absalom prepared a chariot and horses for himself, and fifty men to run before him. 2 Absalom rose up early, and stood beside the way of the gate. When any man had a suit which should come to the king for judgment, then Absalom called to him, and said, “What city are you from?” He said, “Your servant is of one of the tribes of Israel.” 3 Absalom said to him, “Behold, your matters are good and right; but there is no man deputized by the king to hear you.” 4 Absalom said moreover, “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!” 5 It was so, that when any man came near to bow down to him, he stretched out his hand, took hold of him, and kissed him. 6 Absalom did this sort of thing to all Israel who came to the king for judgment. So Absalom stole the hearts of the men of Israel. 7 At the end of forty years, Absalom said to the king, “Please let me go and pay my vow, which I have vowed to Yahweh, in Hebron. 8 For your servant vowed a vow while I stayed at Geshur in Syria, saying, ‘If Yahweh shall indeed bring me again to Jerusalem, then I will serve Yahweh.’” 9 The king said to him, “Go in peace.” So he arose and went to Hebron. 10 But Absalom sent spies throughout all the tribes of Israel, saying, “As soon as you hear the sound of the trumpet, then you shall say, ‘Absalom is king in Hebron!’” 11 Two hundred men went with Absalom out of Jerusalem, who were invited, and went in their simplicity; and they didn’t know anything. 12 Absalom sent for Ahithophel the Gilonite, David’s counselor, from his city, even from Giloh, while he was offering the sacrifices. The conspiracy was strong, for the people increased continually with Absalom.
Four years at the city gate, promising everyone justice he never has to deliver — and a coup launched under cover of a vow.
After this, Absalom prepared a chariot and horses for himself, and fifty men to run before him.
The campaign begins with a motorcade. Israel had no royal chariotry to speak of, so the display announces a king before anyone has crowned one — and nobody stops him.
Absalom said to him, “Behold, your matters are good and right; but there is no man deputized by the king to hear you.”
The method is meeting every petitioner at the gate before he reaches the court, agreeing that his case is sound, and blaming the administration for the delay. It is unfalsifiable and it costs nothing: he never has to rule, so he is never wrong, and every man leaves believing he would have won. The charge itself has some truth in it — the king who once executed justice for all his people 2 Samuel 8:15 has been notably unable to judge his own household 2 Samuel 13:21. Absalom, whose own crime went unjudged, campaigns on the failure to judge.
It was so, that when any man came near to bow down to him, he stretched out his hand, took hold of him, and kissed him.
He refuses the homage due a prince and embraces the man instead — the common touch as strategy. So Absalom stole the hearts of the men of Israel 2 Samuel 15:6, and the verb is the narrator's verdict: this is theft, not persuasion.
At the end of forty years, Absalom said to the king, “Please let me go and pay my vow, which I have vowed to Yahweh, in Hebron.
The coup is launched under the cover of religion — a vow made in exile, now to be paid in the old capital. Hebron is a shrewd choice: David's own first throne, where Absalom was born, in a Judah that may resent the move to Jerusalem. Two hundred guests are invited who went in their simplicity; and they didn't know anything 2 Samuel 15:11, their presence lending the gathering the look of a court in waiting.
Absalom sent for Ahithophel the Gilonite, David’s counselor, from his city, even from Giloh, while he was offering the sacrifices. The conspiracy was strong, for the people increased continually with Absalom.
The last piece is the defection of the king's own strategist, whose advice was reckoned like an oracle 2 Samuel 16:23. His granddaughter, on the book's own genealogy, was Bathsheba 2 Samuel 11:3 2 Samuel 23:34, and Uriah was his colleague on the roll of the mighty men. If that is the reason, the sword of the oracle has reached the cabinet: the counselor David needed most is the one man in Jerusalem with a private account to settle. The conspiracy was strong, for the people increased continually with Absalom.
settled What this mark means