2 Samuel 14:25

STATEMENT REGARDING ABSALOM

"Now in all Israel there was no one so much to be praised for his beauty as Absalom; from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head there was no blemish in him. And when he cut the hair of his head (for at the end of every year he used to cut it; when it was heavy on him, he cut it), he weighed the hair of his head, two hundred shekels by the king's weight. There were born to Absalom three sons, and one daughter whose name was Tamar; she was a beautiful woman."

This little paragraph was apparently included here as preparatory to the account of Absalom's death when that tremendous head of hair provided the opportunity for Joab to kill him!

As for the weight of that hair, scholars give different figures. Payne gave it as "Three and one half or four pounds";[16] Cook estimated it as, "About 6 pounds."[17] He also suggested that the figure of two hundred shekels should probably be read as "twenty shekels." Caird gave the weight as "About three and one-half pounds";[18] and Josephus gave it as "five pounds."[19] From all this, it is perfectly evident that the scholars do not know what it weighed; and we can think of no better comment than that of R. P. Smith who said, "Undoubtedly Absalom's hair was something extraordinary"![20] The reason for all the uncertainty arises from the lack of knowledge concerning the shekels mentioned here. Another possible explanation by Keil alleges that, "There is an error in the text."[21] We also found a suggestion that shekels were also used as units of monetary value, and that the 200 shekels might have indicated the price rather than the weight of Absalom's hair.

"There were born to Absalom three sons and one daughter" (2 Samuel 14:27). Absalom later set up a pillar and stated that he had no sons (2 Samuel 18:18). This does not contradict what is written here, because, as Keil said, "All of Absalom's sons died in infancy, so their names are not given here."[22]

"And one daughter whose name was Tamar" (2 Samuel 14:27). This might have been mentioned here as proof of Absalom's love for his sister Tamar who had been violated by Amnon. The Septuagint (LXX) states that this Tamar became the wife of Solomon's son King Rehoboam; but "Maachah is mentioned as the favorite wife of Rehoboam and the mother of Abijah in 1Kings 15:2,2 Chronicles 11:20-22. Cook solved the problem by understanding Tamar's daughter as Rehoboam's wife[23] and another solution supposes that Tamar was also called Maachah. The problem, to us, appears to have little importance.