2 Samuel 14:7

And, behold, the whole family is risen against thine handmaid, and they said, Deliver him that smote his brother, that we may kill him, for the life of his brother whom he slew; and we will destroy the heir also: and so they shall quench my coal which is left, and shall not leave to my husband neither name nor remainder upon the earth.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(7) We will destroy the heir also.—The woman puts this into the mouth of the family, because this would be the result of what they proposed. The effect of the parable is greatly heightened by this, and there is no doubt intended a covert allusion to Absalom as the heir of David.

Benson Commentary

2 Samuel 14:7. Deliver him, that we may kill him — Put him to death, as the law requires, Numbers 35:18-19. We will destroy the heir also — Take away his life, although he be the heir, or the only one remaining of the family. And so they shall quench my coal which is left — Deprive me of the little comfort of my life which remains, and ruin the only hope of my family. Shall leave to my husband neither name nor remainder — Shall utterly extinguish my husband’s memory. The reader will easily observe that there is a great difference between the supposed case of this widow and that of David, however plausible their likeness may appear. For her son, she pretended, was slain in a scuffle with his brother, and his death, therefore, was not a premeditated murder, as was the death of Amnon. It also happened in the field, where there were no witnesses, whether he was killed wilfully: whereas all the king’s sons saw Amnon designedly and barbarously murdered. And in the last particular the difference is as great as in either of the others. For David’s family was not in danger of being extinguished, if Absalom had been lost also; David having many children, and also many wives by whom he might have more.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

14:1-20 We may notice here, how this widow pleads God's mercy, and his clemency toward poor guilty sinners. The state of sinners is a state of banishment from God. God pardons none to the dishonour of his law and justice, nor any who are impenitent; nor to the encouragement of crimes, or the hurt of others.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

The whole family ... - This indicates that all the king's sons, and the whole court, were against Absalom, and that the knowledge of this was what hindered David from yielding to his affection and recalling him.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

7. they shall quench my coal which is left—The life of man is compared in Scripture to a light. To quench the light of Israel (2Sa 21:17) is to destroy the king's life; to ordain a lamp for any one (Ps 132:17) is to grant him posterity; to quench a coal signifies here the extinction of this woman's only remaining hope that the name and family of her husband would be preserved. The figure is a beautiful one; a coal live, but lying under a heap of embers—all that she had to rekindle her fire—to light her lamp in Israel.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

That we may kill him; according to the law, Numbers 35:19 Deu 19:12.

We will destroy the heir also; so they plainly discover that their prosecution of him was not so much from love of justice, as from a covetous desire to deprive him of the inheritance, and to transfer it to themselves; which self-interest might justly render their testimony suspected. Or perhaps these words are not spoken as the expresswords of the prosecutors, (who can hardly be thought so directly to express a sinister design,) but as the woman’s inference or comment upon what they were doing, (for this would be indeed the result of it, though they did not say so in express words,) thereby to represent her case as the more deserving pity.

My coal which is left; the poor remainder of my light and comfort, by whom alone my hopes may be revived and repaired.

To my husband; she names him rather than herself, because children bear the names of their fathers, not of their mothers.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

And, behold, the whole family is risen against thine handmaid,.... Who had sheltered her son, that slew his brother, from the avenger of blood; and not only the next akin, the avenger of blood, but even all the kindred and relations of the deceased, those of her husband's family rose up as one man, demanding justice:

and they said, deliver him that smote his brother, that we may kill him for the life of his brother whom he slew; pretending great regard to the deceased, and a zeal for justice, when the main thing aimed at was to get the inheritance into their own hands, as appears by what follows:

and we will destroy the heir also; and hereby she would insinuate to the king, that the reason why the rest of the king's sons spake against Absalom to him, and stirred him up to punish him with death, was because he was heir to the crown, and they thought by removing him to make way for themselves:

and so they shall quench my coal that is left; she had but one son, as she represents her case, who was like a coal left among ashes, in the ruins of her family; the only one to support her, keep alive her family, and bear up and continue her husband's name; and, as the Targum,"they seek to kill the only one that is left;''

and so the family be extinct:

and shall not leave to my husband neither name nor remainder upon the earth; should he be delivered up to them and slain; but herein the fable or apologue differed greatly from the case it was intended to represent; for had Absalom been put to death, as the law required, David had sons enough to inherit his throne, and keep up his name.

Geneva Study Bible

And, behold, the whole family is risen against thine handmaid, and they said, Deliver him that smote his brother, that we may kill him, for the {d} life of his brother whom he slew; and we will destroy the heir also: and so they shall quench my coal which is left, and shall not leave to my husband neither name nor remainder upon the earth.

(d) Because he has slain his brother he ought to be slain according to the law, Ge 9:6, Ex 21:12.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

7. the whole family, &c.] The whole clan demanded blood-revenge, according to the primitive custom, sanctioned and regulated by the Mosaic Law. See Numbers 35:19; Deuteronomy 19:12-13.

and we will destroy the heir also] The woman puts these words that we may kill him … and destroy the heir also into the mouth of her kinsmen, in order to make their conduct appear in the worst possible light, as actuated not so much by a wish to observe the law as by covetousness and a desire to share the inheritance among themselves. Cp. Matthew 21:38.

they shall quench my coal which is left] The surviving son, who is the last hope for the continuance of his family, is compared to the live coal still left among the embers, by which the fire almost extinct may be rekindled.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 7. - The whole family. This does not mean the kinsfolk, in whom such a disregard of the mother's feelings would have been cruel, but one of the great divisions of the tribe (see note on the mishpachah, in 1 Samuel 20:6, and comp. 1 Samuel 10:21). In ver. 15 she rightly calls them "the people." We have thus a glimpse of the ordinary method of administering the criminal law, and find that each portion of a tribe exercised justice within its own district, being summoned to a general convention by its hereditary chief; and in this case the widow represents it as determined to punish the crime of fratricide with inflexible severity, and we may assume that such was the usual practice. The mother sets before David the other side of the matter - her own loneliness, the wiping out of the father's house, the utter ruin of her home if the last live coal on her hearth be extinguished. And in this way she moves his generous sympathies even to the point of overriding the legal rights of the mishpachah. In modern communities there is always some formal power of softening or entirely remitting penalties required by the letter of the law, and of taking into consideration matters of equity and even of feeling, Which the judge must put aside; and in monarchies this is always the high prerogative of the crown. And we will destroy the heir also. The Syriac has the third person, "And they will destroy even the heir, and quench my coal that is left." This is more natural, but there is greater pungency in the widow putting into the mouth of the heads of the clan, not words which they had actually spoken, but words which showed what would be the real effect of their determination. There is great force and beauty also in the description of her son as the last live coal left to keep the family hearth burning. In another but allied sense David is called "the lamp of Israel" (2 Samuel 21:17, marg.). 2 Samuel 14:7

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

When the king asked her, "What aileth thee?" the woman described the pretended calamity which had befallen her, saying that she was a widow, and her two sons had quarrelled in the field; and as no one interposed, one of them had killed the other. The whole family had then risen up and demanded that the survivor should be given up, that they might carry out the avenging of blood upon him. Thus they sought to destroy the heir also, and extinguish the only spark that remained to her, so as to leave her husband neither name nor posterity upon the earth. The suffix attached to ויּכּו, with the object following ("he smote him, the other," 2 Samuel 14:6), may be explained from the diffuseness of the style of ordinary conversation (see at 1 Samuel 21:14). There is no reason whatever for changing the reading into יכּוּ, as the suffix ow, though unusual with verbs הל, is not without parallel; not to mention the fact that the plural יכּוּ is quite unsuitable. There is also quite as little reason for changing ונשׁמידה into וישׁמידוּ, in accordance with the Syriac and Arabic, as Michaelis and Thenius propose, on the ground that "the woman would have described her relatives as diabolically malicious men, if she had put into their mouths such words as these, 'We will destroy the heir also.' " It was the woman's intention to describe the conduct of the relations and their pursuit of blood-revenge in the harshest terms possible, in order that she might obtain help from the king. She begins to speak in her own name at the word וכבּוּ ("and so they shall quench and"), where she resorts to a figure, for the purpose of appealing to the heart of the king to defend her from the threatened destruction of her family, saying, "And so they shall quench the burning coal which is left." גּחלת is used figuratively, like τὸ ζώπυρον, the burning coal with which one kindles a fresh fire, to denote the last remnant. שׁוּם לבלתּי: "so as not to set," i.e., to preserve or leave name and remnant (i.e., posterity) to my husband.

This account differed, no doubt, from the case of Absalom, inasmuch as in his case no murder had taken place in the heat of a quarrel, and no avenger of blood demanded his death; so that the only resemblance was in the fact that there existed an intention to punish a murderer. But it was necessary to disguise the affair in this manner, in order that David might not detect her purpose, but might pronounce a decision out of pity for the poor widow which could be applied to his own conduct towards Absalom.