apodosis, which really follows in the clause commencing with ואתּה.
Verses 14-15
Joab replied, “Not so will I wait before thee,” i.e., I will not leave the thing to thee. He then took three staffs in his hand, and thrust them into Absalom's heart. שׁבטים is rendered by the lxx and Vulgate, βέλη, lanceas; and Thenius would adopt שׁלחים accordingly, as an emendation of the text. But in the earlier Hebrew שׁלח only occurs in poetical writings in the sense of a missile or dart (Job 33:18; Job 36:12; Joe 2:8); and it is not till after the captivity that we find it used to denote a weapon generally. There is no necessity, however, for altering the text. Joab caught up in his hurry the first thing that he found, namely pointed staff, and pierced Absalom with them to the heart. This explains the reason for his taking three, whereas one javelin or dart would have been sufficient, and also the fact that Absalom was not slain, notwithstanding their being thrust at his heart. The last clause of the verse belongs to what follows: “Still living (i.e., as he was still alive) in the midst of the terebinth, ten young men, Joab's armour-bearers, surrounded him, and smote him to death.”
Verse 16
Immediately afterwards Joab stopped any further pursuit, “for Joab spared the people,” i.e., he wanted to spare them.
Verse 17
But Absalom they cast into a great pit in the wood, and threw up over him a very large heap of stones, as an ignominious monument, like those thrown up over Achan (Jos 7:26) and the king of Air (Jos 8:29). This was the end of Absalom and his rebellion. “All Israel (that had crowded round him) had fled, every one to his tent” (i.e., home: see at Deu 16:7).
Verse 18
Absalom had erected a monument to himself in the king's valley during his lifetime; “for he said, I have no son to preserve the remembrance of my name, and he called the monument by his own name; and so it was called hand (memorial) of Absalom unto this day.” The לקח before ויּצּב is apparently pleonastic; but it belongs to the diffuse and circumstantial character of the antiquated Hebrew diction (as in Num 16:1). מצּבת, a memorial of stone; whether in the form of a column, or an obelisk, or a monolith, cannot be determined (vid., Gen 28:22; Gen 31:52). The king's valley, which received its name from the event narrated in Gen 14:17, was two stadia from Jerusalem according to Josephus (Ant. vii. 10, 3), and therefore not “close to the
