and Plêthi). Absalom's host was routed. He was in some strange way entangled in the branches of a tree as he fled on his mule through the forest of Rephaim.[72] As he hung helpless there, Joab, with needless cruelty, drove three wooden staves through his body in revenge for his past insolence, leaving his armour-bearer to despatch the miserable fugitive. To this day every Jewish child flings a contumelious stone at the pillar in the King's Dale, which bears the traditional name of David's Son, the beautiful and bad.[73] The days which followed were thickly strewn with calamities for the rapidly ageing and heart-broken king. His helpless decline was yet to be shaken by the attempted usurpation of another bad son. FOOTNOTES: [63] The same word is rendered "worship" in Psalm xlv. 11. Comp. 2 Sam. ix. 6; Esth. iii. 2-5. In 1 Chron. xxix. 20 we are told that the people "_worshipped_" the Lord and the king. [64] "Μηδὲ βαρβάρου φωτὸς δίκην Χαμαιπετὲς βόαμα προσχανῇς ἐμοί." Æsch., _Agam._, 887. [65] Ecclus. xvi. 1-3. He must have had at least twenty sons, and at least one daughter (2 Sam. iii. 1-5, v. 14-16; 1 Chron. iii. 1-9, xiv. 3-7). Josephus again (_Antt._, VII. iii. 3) has a different list. [66] _Kohanim._ [67] From the fact that his son Eliada (2 Sam. v. 16) is called Beeliada (_i.e._, "Baal knows") in 1 Chron. xiv. 7, it is surely a precarious inference that "now and then he paid his homage to some Baal, perhaps to please one of his foreign wives" (Van Oort, _Bible for Young People_, iii. 84). The true explanation seems to be that at one time Baal, "Lord," was not regarded as an unauthorised title for Jehovah. The fact that David once had _teraphim_ in his house (1 Sam. xix. 13, 16) shows that his advance in knowledge was gradual. [68] Chileab was either dead, or was of no significance. [69] 2 Sam. xiii. 39. "The soul of king David longed to go forth unto Absalom." [70] Max. Tyr., _Dissert._, 9 (Keil, _ad loc._). [71] In 2 Sam. xv. 7 we should certainly alter "forty" into four. [72] Rephaim seems a more probable reading than Ephraim in 2 Sam. xviii. 6; see Josh. xvii. 15, 18. Yet the name "Ephraim" may have been given to this transjordanic wood. The notion that he _hung by his hair_ is only a conjecture, and not a probable one. [73] His three sons had pre-deceased him; his beautiful daughter Tamar (2 Sam. xiv. 27) became the wife of Rehoboam. She is called Maachah in 1 Kings xv. 2, and the LXX. addition to 2 Sam. xiv. 27 says that she bore both names. The so-called tomb of Absalom in the Valley of Hebron is of Asmonæan and Herodian origin. CHAPTER IX. _ADONIJAH'S REBELLION._ 1 KINGS i. 5-53. "The king's word hath power; and who may say unto him, What doest thou?"--ECCLES. viii. 4.