2 Samuel 14:12

THE WOMAN APPLIED HER STORY TO DAVID HIMSELF

"Then the woman said, "Pray let your handmaid speak a word to my lord the king." He said, "Speak." And the woman said, "Why have you planned such a thing against the people of God? For in giving this decision the king convicts himself, inasmuch as the king does not bring his banished one home again. We must all die, we are like water spilt to the ground; but God will not take away the life of him who devises means not to keep his banished one an outcast. Now I have come to say this to my lord the king because the people have made me afraid; and your handmaid thought, `I will speak to the king; it may be that the king will perform the request of his servant. For the king will hear, and deliver his servant from the hand of the man who would destroy me and my son together from the heritage of God.' And your handmaid thought, `The word of my lord the king will set me at rest'; for my lord the king is like the angel of God to discern good and evil. The Lord your God be with you"!"

"Let your handmaid speak a word to my lord the king" (2 Samuel 14:12). David at this point had already decided the woman's case and confirmed his decision with an oath; and it was therefore incumbent upon her to get the king's permission to continue speaking to him. "Only at this point did she have David in just the right position to spring on him the personal application of her fictitious story."[10]

"Why then have you planned such a thing against the people of God" (2 Samuel 14:13)? Cook's paraphrase of this verse is: "If you have done right as regards my son, how is it that you harbor such a purpose of vengeance against Absalom as to keep him, one of God's people, an outcast in a heathen country, far from the worship of the God of Israel? Upon your own showing, you are guilty of a great fault in not allowing Absalom to return."[11]

"The last half of 2 Samuel 14:14 here is obscure";[12] and there is no certainty that the RSV in this place is correct. The KJV reads, "God doth not respect any person"; and the alternative reading in the margin is that, "God does not take away life" (in the case of every sin that deserves death). David himself was a conspicuous example of that very truth.

"The king is like the angel of God to discern good and evil" (2 Samuel 14:17). David deserved this compliment, as proved a moment later when he discerned the hand of Joab in this woman's appeal. "David's ability as a judge were God-given and God-like; Absalom's complaint (at a later time in 2 Samuel 15:4) was not leveled at David's ability but at his lack of time."[13]