Question 1

What happened to Absalom as he rode his mule through the forest (2 Samuel 18:9)?

Accepted Answer

As Absalom rode his mule beneath a great oak, his head became wedged among its dense boughs. The mule kept going, and he was left dangling (18:9). The man who had stolen the hearts of Israel (15:6) was now left helpless. His downfall fulfilled what the narrator had said: the LORD had determined to bring ruin on Absalom (17:14). Proverbs warns that pride leads to ruin (Proverbs 16:18).

Question 2

How did Absalom come to be helpless in Ephraim’s forest (2 Samuel 18:9)?

Accepted Answer

Absalom, riding under a great oak, was caught by the head and left suspended as his mule went on (18:9). The would-be king who had stolen the hearts of Israel (15:6) was rendered helpless, an image of the disaster the LORD had determined against him (17:14) and of the proverb that pride precedes destruction (Proverbs 16:18).

Question 3

When David asked Ahimaaz whether Absalom was safe, how did Ahimaaz answer (2 Samuel 18:29)?

Accepted Answer

David’s first question to Ahimaaz was about his son: was his son safe? Ahimaaz did not answer directly. He said he had seen a great commotion when Joab sent him, but could not say what it meant (18:29). David told him to stand aside and wait (18:30). Joab had already told Ahimaaz that the king’s son was dead (18:20), so his answer avoided the hard news. David’s question showed where his heart was, just as his order to deal gently with Absalom had (18:5).

Question 4

How did Ahimaaz respond to David’s question about Absalom’s welfare (2 Samuel 18:29)?

Accepted Answer

The king’s first concern was Absalom’s welfare, and Ahimaaz evaded it, reporting only a great tumult whose meaning he claimed not to know (18:29), although Joab had told him that the king’s son was dead (18:20). David set him aside to wait (18:30). The exchange underscores the father’s preoccupation already evident in his order to deal gently with the young man (18:5).

Question 5

When Ahimaaz reached David, to whom did he give the credit for the victory (2 Samuel 18:28)?

Accepted Answer

Ahimaaz outran the Cushite, bowed before the king, and blessed the LORD, David’s God, for handing over the rebels who had lifted a hand against the king (18:28). He gave the glory for the victory to God. David himself sang that God was the one who avenged him and rescued him from his enemies (Psalm 18:47-48), and in the psalm from this very flight he confessed that rescue comes from the LORD alone (Psalm 3:8).

Question 6

To whom did Ahimaaz give the credit for the victory when he reported to David (2 Samuel 18:28)?

Accepted Answer

Ahimaaz’s announcement attributed the victory wholly to the LORD, who had delivered up the rebels (18:28). This matches David’s own confession in the psalm of his flight from Absalom that deliverance is the LORD’s alone (Psalm 3:8), and his song of praise to God as the one who avenges him and delivers him from his enemies (Psalm 18:47-48).

Question 7

How did the Cushite let David know that Absalom was dead (2 Samuel 18:32)?

Accepted Answer

The Cushite announced that the LORD had avenged the king of everyone who had risen against him (18:31). When David asked about Absalom, the Cushite answered by wishing that all the king’s enemies, and everyone who rose up to harm him, would end up as Absalom had (18:32). It was a polite way of saying Absalom was dead, and it treated him simply as one of the king’s enemies. Absalom had indeed made himself David’s enemy by rising up to take the throne (15:10), but to David he was still his son.

Question 8

In what form did the Cushite convey the news of Absalom’s death (2 Samuel 18:32)?

Accepted Answer

The Cushite delivered the news indirectly, wishing that all the king’s enemies and all who rose against him might be as that young man (18:32), after first announcing the LORD’s vindication of the king (18:31). His words classed Absalom among the rebels, which he truly was (15:10), but they collided with the father’s love that David had shown throughout (18:5).

Question 9

How did David react when he learned that Absalom was dead (2 Samuel 18:33)?

Accepted Answer

David was deeply shaken. He climbed to the room above the gateway in tears, and as he went he kept crying out his son’s name and saying he wished he could have died in Absalom’s place (18:33). The victory meant nothing to him beside the loss of his son. This grief was part of the sorrow God had told David would come to his house after his sin with Bathsheba: the sword would not depart from it (12:10). Proverbs says a foolish son causes his father sorrow (Proverbs 17:25), and David’s sorrow here is real and deep.

Question 10

What does the narrator record of David’s response to the news of Absalom’s death (2 Samuel 18:33)?

Accepted Answer

Overwhelmed, David withdrew to the room above the gateway in tears, crying out for his son and wishing he had died in Absalom’s place (18:33). His lament reveals a father’s love untouched by Absalom’s treason. It also belongs to the train of sorrows announced by Nathan, that the sword would never depart from David’s house (12:10), and it embodies the grief that a foolish son causes his father (Proverbs 17:25).

Question 11

What order did David give his three commanders about Absalom before the battle (2 Samuel 18:5)?

Accepted Answer

David commanded his three commanders to go easy on Absalom for his sake, and every soldier heard the order (18:5). Even though Absalom was trying to take his throne and his life, David still loved his son. David had longed for Absalom before (13:39) and had kissed him when they were reconciled (14:33). His love for his son was real, and it shaped everything that follows in this chapter and the next.

Question 12

What instruction concerning Absalom did David give his three commanders (2 Samuel 18:5)?

Accepted Answer

David’s charge to his three commanders to deal gently with Absalom for his sake was given publicly, so that the whole army heard it (18:5). It reveals a father’s love persisting toward a son in open rebellion, the same longing that had marked David earlier (13:39; 14:33). The public nature of the order makes Joab’s later action a deliberate defiance of the king (18:12-14).

Question 13

True or False: The narrator says that in the battle in Ephraim’s forest, the forest claimed more lives than the sword did.

Accepted Answer

This is true. David’s servants defeated the army of Israel that followed Absalom, with a great loss of life, and the fighting spread across the whole region; the narrator says the forest itself took more lives that day than the sword (18:6-8). The battle was decided as the LORD had planned when He overturned Ahithophel’s counsel to bring ruin on Absalom (17:14). Proverbs says a horse may be prepared for battle, but the victory comes from the LORD (Proverbs 21:31).

Question 14

True or False: According to 2 Samuel 18:8, more men died by the forest than by the sword in the battle of Ephraim’s forest.

Accepted Answer

This is true. The battle in Ephraim’s forest ranged across the whole region, and the narrator observes that the woods consumed more men than the sword did (18:6-8). The rout of Absalom’s forces was the outworking of the LORD’s purpose to bring ruin on Absalom (17:14), confirming that victory comes from the LORD, not from human preparation (Proverbs 21:31).

Question 15

Why did Joab at first refuse to let Ahimaaz carry the news to David (2 Samuel 18:19-20)?

Accepted Answer

Ahimaaz, Zadok’s son, wanted to run and tell David that the LORD had avenged him on his enemies (18:19). Joab told him not to carry the news that day, since David’s son had died (18:20), and he sent a Cushite instead (18:21). Earlier, a messenger who brought David news of a death had fared badly: David had executed the man who reported Saul’s death thinking it was good news (4:10).

Question 16

What reason did Joab give for not sending Ahimaaz with the report (2 Samuel 18:19-20)?

Accepted Answer

Joab refused Ahimaaz the role of messenger because, with the king’s son dead, the news could not be good news to David (18:19-20), and he dispatched a Cushite instead (18:21). Earlier David had put to death the man who brought word of Saul’s death as if it were good news (4:10; 1:15).

Question 17

Who killed Absalom, in spite of David’s order (2 Samuel 18:14-15)?

Accepted Answer

Joab refused to wait. He struck Absalom with spears while he hung in the tree, and ten of Joab’s young armor-bearers closed in and finished him (18:14-15). Joab did this in direct defiance of David’s order to deal gently with the young man (18:5). Then he blew the horn and stopped the fighting (18:16). Absalom’s death was part of the bitter consequence that Nathan had announced: the sword would not depart from David’s house (12:10). God’s purpose was carried out (17:14), but Joab still acted against his king’s clear command.

Question 18

Who was responsible for Absalom’s death, contrary to the king’s command (2 Samuel 18:14-15)?

Accepted Answer

Joab took matters into his own hands, striking Absalom while he hung in the oak, after which his ten armor-bearers killed him (18:14-15). The act openly defied David’s command (18:5). Yet it also fulfilled the LORD’s word that the sword would not depart from David’s house (12:10) and the LORD’s purpose to bring ruin on Absalom (17:14). God’s sovereign purpose and Joab’s accountable defiance stand together, without the one excusing the other.

Question 19

Why did David’s troops insist that he not go out to the battle with them (2 Samuel 18:3)?

Accepted Answer

David organized his army under three commanders (Joab, his brother Abishai, and Ittai) and said he would march out with them (18:1-2). The people refused. If they had to run, or if even half of them fell, the enemy would not care; but David was worth as much as ten thousand of them, so he should help them from the city (18:3). They understood what Ahithophel had also seen: the whole revolt was aimed at David’s own life (17:2). Another battle recorded later in the book ends with David’s men swearing that he would no longer join them in battle, so that Israel’s lamp would not go out (21:17). David agreed and stood by the city gate as the troops went out (18:4).

Question 20

What reason did the troops give for keeping David out of the fighting (2 Samuel 18:3)?

Accepted Answer

The people’s argument (18:3) recognized that the conflict turned on David’s life alone: the enemy would care nothing for the fall of the troops, but the king was worth as much as ten thousand of them. Ahithophel’s plan had been built on the same insight, to strike only the king (17:2). Another episode in the book records David’s men swearing that he would no longer join them in battle, lest Israel’s lamp be put out (21:17). David yielded and remained at the gate (18:4).

Question 21

How did Absalom’s burial contrast with the monument he had erected for himself (2 Samuel 18:17-18)?

Accepted Answer

Absalom’s body was flung into a great hole in the woods and covered with a great pile of stones (18:17). Yet during his life he had raised a stone pillar in the valley called the King’s Valley and named it after himself, because he said he had no son to keep his name remembered (18:18). The man who wanted a lasting monument ended in a forest pit under a heap of rocks, much like Achan long before (Joshua 7:26). Proverbs says the wicked leave a name that decays (Proverbs 10:7).

Question 22

What contrast does the narrator draw between Absalom’s burial and his self-made memorial (2 Samuel 18:17-18)?

Accepted Answer

The narrator sets two memorials side by side: a heap of stones over Absalom in a forest pit (18:17), and the pillar he had erected to his own name, because he said he had no son to carry it on (18:18). The stone heap recalls the burial of Achan (Joshua 7:26), and the whole contrast illustrates the proverb that a wicked man’s name decays (Proverbs 10:7).

Question 23

Why did the soldier who found Absalom refuse to kill him, even for a large reward (2 Samuel 18:12-13)?

Accepted Answer

Joab scolded the man for not killing Absalom and said he would have paid him a silver reward plus a soldier’s belt (18:10-11). The man answered that even for a thousand shekels he would not touch the king’s son, because everyone had heard David command the commanders to protect Absalom. He added that the king finds out everything, and if he had done it, Joab himself would have left him to face the consequences (18:12-13). The soldier honored the king’s word, which Ecclesiastes urges (Ecclesiastes 8:2), and his remark that nothing escapes the king echoes the words of the woman of Tekoa, who had told David that he knew all that went on in the land (14:20).

Question 24

What reasons did the soldier give Joab for not striking Absalom (2 Samuel 18:12-13)?

Accepted Answer

The soldier’s reply to Joab (18:12-13) rested on two grounds: the king’s explicit, publicly heard command to protect Absalom (18:5), and the certainty that the deed would reach the king, at which point Joab would disown him. His regard for the king’s command matches the wisdom of Ecclesiastes 8:2, and his certainty of discovery echoes the Tekoan woman’s praise of David as one who knew all that happened in the land (14:20). His refusal exposes Joab’s own choice in the next verses as deliberate defiance.

2 Samuel 18 Study Notes: The Death of Absalom

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