PRINCE S’alom was beaten once; and then a second time. It was by two things that baffle the mind.
For not only was he shocked that his men kept running for their lives. As they fled when they were chased past; and he wished they could stop to help.
But now he was even more dazed when he saw that his father’s men left him hanging. He realized that those boys weren’t sent to kill him.
Yes, the Third One knew this from the start. That if David had wanted him dead, he’d have been long dead and buried.
Now it was clear that he’d been taking advantage of the just man’s goodwill. And this he knew himself.
The prince faced this truth; so it knocked him off that David was still being kind. No, he’d so taken things for granted.
Therefore, it happened that one of the chasers who ran past returned to find Joab when he saw the prince hanging.
He told the captain what he saw and assured him the prince wasn’t dead. Now when the general saw that the boy didn’t kill him, he went all mad and furious.
‘Why will you not finish up the man we’re chasing? Why? What if his soldiers let him loose?’
The young soldier explained that he only followed the order given them. He reminded the captain that the king had clearly asked them to spare him.
At that instant Joab smirked and mocked his reason. He didn’t have the time for any excuse. He was sure he knew what David wanted.
Then even if it was hard to end a son, Joab told himself Absalom was no son.
Therefore with a wild flight through the woods, the man raced faster than the one who guided him.
Then when he got to the spot and found the prince still there, he was a hundred times relieved.
Joab looked up at the young man and their burning eyes met. His gaze was the eager one; then the prince’s own quite the stare.
Absalom said no word. But Joab, he spoke just five.
He looked in the boy’s eyeball, and spat.
‘Friend, this is the end!’
And the captain waved the fact that this frenemy was also his kinsman.
Now the next moment, the man threw back his hand and yank off three spears from the soldiers standing behind him.
One was his. Another his aide’s. Then the third belonged to the man who led them there.
So Joab stood beneath the prince; and with a fury that frightened all, he thrust the three brass in the young man’s chest. Then he took steps back and asked his men to hack him all over.
Absalom was killed, and butchered, and hacked like a foe. Then Joab commanded the trumpeters to blow the sound of triumph.
That day it was a loud shout of victory within David’s camp. But when the king heard about it, he cried his lungs out and grieved.
‘Ah my son Absalom—my son, my son Absalom—if only I had died in your place! Ah Absalom my son, my son!’
Thus within a span, the bliss of that victory turned a grief in Israel. But only the king knew the pain of that grief.
For it is grief, indeed, when the Sons of Good choose to be of Evil.
Nay, it is the mother of all grief.
[AND THE SAGA CONTINUES]
Thank you for reading through Sons of the Flaming Throne: The Fire in the Throne.
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