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Sons Of The Flaming Throne – Ch. 6 | KT OLLA

THE woman spoke up and King David was shaken up a little.

‘Your Royal Majesty, I know you are fair and just. That you will not dash the hope of a poor widow as I. But why?

‘Why has your Majesty refused to pardon his prince Absalom, and ask him back from exile?

‘Why have you not waved your son’s murder as you freely did mine?

‘In this only thing, my lord the king seems to deal unfairly with us God’s people.

‘Yet the Almighty will not end a man; but He devises means to bring his banished ones home.

‘But here am I, the poor widow you have justified! Truly, I have only taken it on me to ask mercy for my own son’s error.

‘And indeed, I do not mean to poke at the king, Your Majesty!’

Upon those words the woman fell prostrate to the ground and lay there frightened to her bones. She waited for the king’s verdict.

But David leaned back in the throne seat, and mused a moment.

The wise king could smell something straight up. He sniffed the hand of his general in the matter.

He smiled. This is Joab and no one else!

Yes, King David sniffed out everything where he sat. And indeed, everything was an act.

He could sense from the burning fervour with which the woman presented her subject, that the speaker didn’t speak for herself. She’d got his aide put her up to this.

Only Joab, commander of David’s army, cared for him more than he cared for himself.

Only Joab burned with jealousy or rage where the king said nothing.

And only that man called Joab would do what David really meant to say, and leave what he said in diplomacy.

He was the king’s right-hand man. He was his nephew also.

And truly he brought the woman from the faraway plains to act out his words.

For he saw David’s heavy heart. That he missed his son Absalom.

Now King David leaned forward and asked the woman herself.

‘Please rise up and tell me, woman. Do not hide anything from me.’

The woman raised herself to a crouch. ‘Your maidservant listens, Your Majesty.’

David’s words were direct. ‘Tell me: is my army chief with you in this plot? Did Joab put you up to this?’

Now the Tekoan woman knew there was no hiding place anymore.

She was no widow at all; and neither did a son of hers kill another.

Everything she said was made up, so the king could be moved to forgive his son completely.

And now the king has seen through the woman’s act, and even named the man who put her to this.

Right there, the woman came clean.

‘Your Royal Majesty, there is no place where I can hide from you on this matter. Indeed, your servant Joab asked me to say these things!

‘But it is to seek pardon for your banished son, that your servant Joab thought to do this.

‘Please forgive us, Your Royal Majesty!’

Hearing this, David decided to be generous. He let the woman go, seeing she was the puppet.

 And then he called in the puppeteer himself. But he couldn’t help being lenient again.

‘All right, Joab,’ he obliged with a smile.

‘Send to bring back Absalom: the prince may return.’

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