The rebel king’s forces meet king David’s soldiers in the forest of Ephraim, east of the Jordan river. The location is not incidental - this crucial and famous battle between father and son, two forces within Israel, is fought and won in the thick of the trees and nature has a big part in determining the outcomes. One tree in particular is known for its part in the rebel prince’s brutal fate.
Nowadays this area is mostly urban. But back in 1880 it was still considered “a grand old forest”, as William M. Thomson, a famous Protestant missionary and illustrator of the Holy Land described in one of his books:
“I had a delightful ramble early the next morning in those grand old forests, and then understood perfectly how Absalom could be caught by the thick branches of an oak. The strong arms of these trees spread out so near the ground that one cannot walk erect beneath them; and it is interesting to know that the region east of the Jordan, that “wood of Ephraim” where the battle was fought, is still covered with thick oaks, tangled bushes, and thorny creepers growing over ragged rocks, and ruinous precipices, down which the rebel army plunged in wild dismay, horses and men crushing each other to death in remediless ruin.”
Today’s chapter details the battle, much as Thomson imagines it, with the devastating number of casualties - 20,000 soldiers dead in yet another civil war between the people of Israel, not the first and not the last.
Before leaving for the battle, King David, who wants to go fight along with the troops but is advised not to, begs them to make sure Absalom is not harmed. The tension between the love of a father and the duty of a king come into play here and will continue to echo through this story. Almost as if to harp on this note of human nature - paternal love vs. political wisdom, nature itself steps in to intervene, in a dramatic and cruel twist. As the battle rages in the forest, Absalom’s men are scattered, unable to fight together in the thick of trees, and ‘the forest devours more than the sword’. That’s when Absalom is trapped:
וַיִּקָּרֵא֙ אַבְשָׁל֔וֹם לִפְנֵ֖י עַבְדֵ֣י דָוִ֑ד וְאַבְשָׁל֞וֹם רֹכֵ֣ב עַל־הַפֶּ֗רֶד וַיָּבֹ֣א הַפֶּ֡רֶד תַּ֣חַת שׂ֩וֹבֶךְ֩ הָאֵלָ֨ה הַגְּדוֹלָ֜ה וַיֶּחֱזַ֧ק רֹאשׁ֣וֹ בָאֵלָ֗ה וַיֻּתַּן֙ בֵּ֤ין הַשָּׁמַ֙יִם֙ וּבֵ֣ין הָאָ֔רֶץ וְהַפֶּ֥רֶד אֲשֶׁר־תַּחְתָּ֖יו עָבָֽר׃
“ Absalom was riding on a mule, and as the mule passed under the tangled branches of a great oak, his hair got caught in the tree; he was hanging between heaven and earth as the mule under him kept going.”
His hair was already mentioned as one of the main assets of his beauty, his claim to fame. It’s now his hair that entangles him in the limbs of the oak, the sacred tree often associated with the Great Goddess. The Hebrew here is playing on that - the name of the tree is Elah - oak, but also, Goddess. Is mother nature used here not as nurturing mother but as the punisher of princely pride?
The irony of hair and branches tangled till death, carefully crafted by the authors of Samuel, was not lost on the sages of the Mishna who in Tractate Sotah use this story to claim a concept similar to the Hindu notion of karma:
“In the measure that a person measures, so it is measured out back to that person... Absalom was proud of his hair, therefore he was hanged by his hair.”
Robert Alter reads further into this dramatic moment:
“This striking and bizarre image of Absalom’s penultimate moment provides a brilliant symbolic summation of his story. Most obviously, the head of hair that was his narcissistic glory is now the instrument of his fatal entrapment, Absalom the commander microcosmically enacting the fate of his army “devoured” by the forest.
There is nothing supernatural here—David’s forces have shrewdly taken advantage of the irregular terrain—yet there is a sense that nature is conspiring against Absalom and his men. The mule is in this period the usual mount for princes and kings (one should recall that all the king’s sons ride away on their mules after Absalom has Amnon killed), so Absalom’s losing his mule from under him is an image of his losing his royal seat. Having climbed from exile and rejection to the throne, he now dangles helplessly between sky and earth.”
But Absalom will not be left hanging long. Yoav and his soliders quickly find him and although Yoav promised David that the lad will be brought alive, what follows is a torture scene in which it looks as if some random soldiers killed the prince, but not the general in charge. They quickly bury him under a pile of rocks. With time they’ll bury him back in Jerusalem.
Another of Thomson’s famous illustrations is Absalom’s Monument in the Kidron Valley, right below the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. For centuries this impressive tomb was believed to be the rebel prince’s grave but 19th century archeologists already proved that it’s of Hellenistic times and bares no notion of that ancient monument, despite the colorful folklore.
But Absalom’s memory lives on. A warning tale of tragedy and triumph, hubris and hair, a family drama that will take the Davidic dynasty one step further into further and deeper decay.
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