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AbsalomAid to Bible Understanding
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Preparing for the conflict, David organized his expanding forces into three divisions under Joab, Abishai and Ittai the Gittite. Urged to remain in the city, as his presence would be of more value there, David submitted and again displayed an amazing lack of rancor toward Absalom by publicly requesting his three captains to “deal gently for my sake with the young man Absalom.”—2 Sam. 17:15–18:5.
DECISIVE BATTLE AND DEATH
Absalom’s newly formed forces were administered a crushing defeat by David’s experienced fighters. The battle reached into the forest of Ephraim. Absalom, riding away on his royal mule, passed under the low branches of a large tree and apparently got his head enmeshed in the fork of a branch so that he was left suspended in the air. The man who reported to Joab that he had seen him said he would not have disobeyed David’s request by slaying Absalom for a “thousand pieces of silver,” but Joab felt no such restraint and drove three shafts into Absalom’s heart, after which ten of his men joined their captain in sharing the responsibility for Absalom’s death. Absalom’s body was thereafter thrown into a hollow and covered with a mound of stones as unworthy of burial—2 Sam. 18:6-17; compare Joshua 7:26; 8:29.
When messengers reached David in Mahanaim, his first concern was for his son. Learning of Absalom’s death, David paced the floor of the roof chamber, crying: “My son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom! O that I might have died, I myself, instead of you Absalom my son, my son!” (2 Sam. 18:24-33) Only Joab’s blunt, straightforward speech and reasoning brought David out of his great grief due to the tragic course and end of this physically attractive and resourceful young man, whose driving ambition led him to fight against God’s anointed and to ruin.—2 Sam. 19:1-8; compare Proverbs 24:21, 22.
Psalm 3 is considered to have been written by David at the time of Absalom’s revolt, according to the superscription that heads the psalm.
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Absalom’s MonumentAid to Bible Understanding
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ABSALOM’S MONUMENT
A pillar erected by Absalom in the “Low Plain of the King,” also called the “Low Plain of Shaveh,” near Jerusalem. (2 Sam. 18:18; Gen. 14:17) The monument was erected by him due to his having no sons to keep his name alive after his death. It thus appears that his three sons mentioned at 2 Samuel 14:27 had died when young. Absalom was not buried at the place of his monument but was left in a hollow in the forest of Ephraim.—2 Sam.18:6, 17.
There is a pillar cut out of the rock in the valley of Kidron that has been called the “Tomb of Absalom,” but its architecture indicates it is from the Graeco-Roman period, perhaps of the time of Herod. So there is no basis for associating the name of Absalom with it.
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Abusive SpeechAid to Bible Understanding
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ABUSIVE SPEECH
As noted under the heading BLASPHEMY, the original Greek word bla·sphe·miʹa has a broader meaning than the present English word “blasphemy.” The Greek-English Lexicon of Liddell and Scott shows that bla·sphe·miʹa and the verb bla·sphe·meʹo basically indicate “defamatory, calumnious, abusive language.” In English, only when such speech is directed against God, not against his creatures, is it properly termed “blasphemy.” Concerning this, The Popular and Critical Bible Encyclopædia (Vol. I, p. 291, col. 2, sec. 1, par. 3) says: “Our English translators [that is, primarily those of the AV] have not adhered to the right use of the term. They employ it with the same latitude as the Greek; but it is generally easy to perceive, from the connection and subject of a passage, whether blasphemy, properly so called, be meant, or only defamation.”
Thus, while the Authorized Version uses “blasphemy” and “blasphemed” in Acts 18:6, Colossians 3:8, 1 Timothy 6:1, and Titus 2:5, later translations say “slander,” “abusive talk [or ‘speech’],” “reviled,” “defamed,” “abused,” “speak abusively of,” and similar expressions. (See RS, AT, NW, and others.) The Authorized Version, however, does recognize this distinction elsewhere in the Greek Scriptures.
As the following texts and surrounding verses show, abusive speech was directed against Christ at the time of his impalement by passersby, who said, “Bah! You would-be thrower-down of the temple and builder of it in three days’ time, save yourself by coming down off the torture stake.” Similar words came from one of the evildoers alongside. (Mark 15:29, 30; Matt 27:39, 40; Luke 23:39) Paul and his fellow Christians were objects of such speech by those who falsely construed their purpose, message and Christian conscience (Acts 18:6; Rom. 3:8; 14:16; 1 Cor. 4:13; 10:30; 1 Pet. 4:4), yet they themselves were to “speak injuriously of no one,” and by their conduct gave no true grounds for their work or message to be spoken of abusively. (Eph. 4:31; Col. 3:8; 1 Tim. 6:1; Titus 2:5; 3:2; compare 2 Peter 2:2.) Even the angels “do not bring . . . an accusation in abusive terms, not doing so out of respect for Jehovah.” (2 Pet. 2:11) But such talk can be expected from those who indulge in loose conduct, those who are proud and mentally diseased over questionings and debates, and those who disregard or disrespect God’s appointments.—1 Tim. 6:4; 2 Pet. 2:10-12; Jude 8-10.
The word ga·dhaphʹ is used in a corresponding way in the Hebrew Scriptures. Basically meaning “to hack” or “to cut,” it is used metaphorically to mean “to cut with reproachful words.” It is found at Numbers 15:30; 2 Kings 19:6, 22; Psalm 44:16; Isaiah 37:6, 23, and Ezekiel 20:27. Two other related words are found at Isaiah 43:28; 51:7; Ezekiel 5:15, and Zephaniah 2:8. In all these cases harsh or coarse speech is indicated, directed against either Jehovah God himself or his people. A study of the context makes clear the nature of such “abusive speech.”—See EXECRATION; MALEDICTION; REVILING.
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AbyssAid to Bible Understanding
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ABYSS
(A·byssʹ; in AV “bottomless pit; deep”) [Greek, aʹbys·sos].
In the Greek this word is formed by the intensifying prefix a and bys·sosʹ, the Ionic form of by·thosʹ (2 Cor. 11:25), meaning “depth” or “extent.” It means “very or exceedingly deep” (Parkhurst) or “unfathomable, boundless” (Liddell and Scott). The Septuagint translation uses it regularly to translate the Hebrew tehohmʹ (watery deep), as at Genesis 1:2; 7:11.
Aʹbys·sos occurs nine times in the Christian Greek Scriptures, seven of them being in the book of Revelation. It is from the “abyss” that the symbolic locusts come forth under the headship of their king, Abaddon or Apollyon, “the angel of the abyss.” (Rev. 9:1-3, 11) The “wild beast” that makes war against the “two witnesses” of God and kills them is also spoken of as coming “out of the abyss.” (Rev. 11:3, 7) Revelation 20:1-3 describes the future casting of Satan into the abyss for a thousand years; something that a legion of demons urged Jesus not to do to them on a certain occasion.—Luke 8:31.
SCRIPTURAL SIGNIFICANCE
It is noteworthy that the Septuagint does not use aʹbys·sos to translate the Hebrew sheʼohlʹ, and in view of the fact that spirit creatures are cast into it, it cannot properly be limited in meaning to Sheol or Hades, inasmuch as these two words clearly refer to the common earthly grave of mankind. (Job 17:13-16; see HADES; SHEOL.) It does not refer to the “lake of fire,” since It is after Satan’s release from the abyss that he is thereupon hurled into the lake of fire. (Rev. 20:1-3, 7-10) Paul’s statement at Romans 10:7, in which he speaks of Christ as being in the abyss, also precludes such possibility, and shows as well that the abyss is not the same as Tartarus.—See TARTARUS.
Romans 10:6, 7 aids in clearing up the meaning of the “abyss” in stating: “But the righteousness resulting; from faith speaks in this manner: ‘Do not say in your
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