Commentaria in II Regum (II Samuelis)
FOR AS AN ANGEL OF GOD, SO IS MY LORD THE KING, THAT HE IS NEITHER MOVED WITH BLESSING NOR CURSING.—The woman of Thecua by flattery gains David’s goodwill, as if to say: I will speak freely, because thy kindness, O king, like an angel’s, hears all things calmly, bad as well as good, and is not swayed by praises or reproaches or threats, but judges sincerely of all things, as I hope he will here judge for me, namely that it becomes thy clemency to spare thy son Absalom.
19. IS NOT THE HAND OF JOAB WITH THEE?—as if to say: Dost thou do and say all these things by the work and direction of Joab? It is nothing other than what thou hast most shrewdly scented out, namely that I do all this at the instigation of Joab.
21. BEHOLD, I AM APPEASED AND HAVE DONE THY WORD,—that I should spare Absalom, and recall him from exile to me. You ask whether David sinned in sparing Absalom the murderer, since the law commands murderers to be put to death? Cajetan answers that laws decree in general what is to be done commonly and regularly, but particular cases are left to the prudent prince. Such was this: for it was a fratricide committed by a king’s son, who had fled to his grandfather, the Gentile king of Gessur. Wherefore there was danger that the grandfather would help Absalom as his grandson, and so after David’s death wars would arise over the succession to the kingdom among David’s sons; which David, to avoid, wisely spared Absalom.
25. BUT IN ALL ISRAEL THERE WAS NOT A MAN SO COMELY AS ABSALOM, of all the Israelites. Scripture here mentions Absalom’s beauty incidentally, to indicate why he was acceptable and gracious to all, and to show tropologically how vain are all the goods of this life, and how mixed with evils. For Absalom was most beautiful in body, most black in mind, and therefore fell into a most dismal death; assuredly, as St. Augustine says, book 22 On the City of God, to show that the sweetness of this life is sprinkled with bitterness and troubles, so that another life may be sought, which is disturbed by no bitterness. See Abulensis here, Question 20, illustrating it with other examples.
Furthermore, this exceptional beauty of body argued deformity of soul. For nature had spent all its force in adorning the body; whence it left the soul unadorned, as is plain from his ambition. And God is wont to apportion his goods. Hence to women he gives beauty, to men judgment, to the young strength, to the old prudence. Hear St. Chrysostom, in the homily on “Would that you could bear with me,” 2 Corinthians 11: “For what,” he says, “is more useful than the bee, what more beautiful than the peacock? what wiser than the ant? And the bee has sweetness in itself, but the peacock is comely only in its feathers, not in fruit; and the ant is despised by men, yet is a teacher of virtues.” The same admirably, homily 37 on Genesis, near the end: “This zeal,” he says, “in adorning the body shows the inner deformity: and by these delights they make manifest the hunger of the other; and the expense of these garments shows the nakedness of the other. For it is impossible for anyone to take care of the soul and to take so much trouble over the beauty of the body”—and speaking of Magdalene: “That harlot in the Gospel, baptized with her tears, had not curling head-dresses, etc. The more foul, the more beautiful.” And a little after: “This adornment,” he says, “is not the Lord’s; this veil is Antichrist’s. What confidence lifts up to heaven faces which the Maker does not recognize.”
26. NOW HE WAS POLLED ONCE A YEAR, BECAUSE HIS HAIR WAS BURDENSOME TO HIM.—In the Hebrew, he was polled from the end of days to days, that is, every year, when the year came round, he was polled. So Cajetan, Arias, Pagnini, Vatablus and others. Wrongly, therefore, do the Hebrews in St. Jerome render it, he was polled every thirty days, that is, every month. Wrongly too Josephus, book 7 of the Antiquities, chapter 8, says: “The hair of whose head was so thick that it could be cut every eight days.” To cover this absurdity Gelenius, the translator of Josephus from Greek into Latin, substituted of his own: So great was his hair that within every eighth month it grew to two hundred sicles, that is, to five pounds; which is likewise false, and contradicts Scripture in this place. Furthermore, Absalom wore his hair long through the year, not because he was a Nazarite, as the Rabbis will have it, but because he was careful of beauty and of his hair. Whence also he met his death hanging by it, as a punishment, chapter 17.
HE WEIGHED THE HAIR OF HIS HEAD AT TWO HUNDRED SICLES.—The abundance of hair is here narrated to point out Absalom’s beauty; for a beautiful head of hair and thick locks contribute not a little to it. Now the sicle was a coin weighing four drachms, that is, half an ounce: wherefore a sicle, if of silver, was of the same price and weight as four julii are now at Rome, and in Spain four Spanish reals; if of gold, it weighed and was worth four French crowns, each of which is worth twelve julii or reals. Two hundred sicles, then, weighed a hundred ounces, which make eight pounds and four ounces, if you take the common pound of twelve ounces. Hence some in Abulensis and Lyranus, whom our Sanchez and Salianus follow, thinking this weight of hair excessive, substitute price for weight, as if Absalom’s hair had been yellow, thick and shining, and therefore sought by women to make a head-dress for themselves from it, and so highly valued that it was sold for two hundred sicles of silver, which make eighty Roman gold pieces, each of which contains ten julii. But Lyranus and Abulensis refute this as an unjust, improbable price, and a thing unfitting for women’s ornaments; nor does Scripture commend Absalom’s hair for its colour, that it was yellow and shining, but for its weight. And indeed that opinion seems to do violence to and twist the words of Scripture, for the Hebrew sakal does not signify he was valued, or was sold, but he weighed, as our version, the Septuagint, the Chaldee, Josephus, Vatablus, Pagnini, Cajetan and others everywhere render it.
27. AND THERE WERE BORN TO ABSALOM THREE SONS.—All these died before their father. Hence Absalom, chapter 18, verse 18, is said to have been childless. So Theodoret.
AND ONE DAUGHTER NAMED THAMAR, OF A HANDSOME FORM,—It is likely that this name was given her from Thamar, the aunt and sister of Absalom: indeed Sanchez supposes that this daughter had another proper name, namely Maacha, but was surnamed Thamar, that is, palm, from her elegance and beauty. For the Hebrews and Josephus, book 7, chapter 8, whom Sanchez follows here, and Abulensis on chapter 14, verse 20, hand down that this Thamar is the Maacha who was the wife of Roboam and mother of Abia. For she, 2 Paralipomenon 11:20, is called the daughter of Absalom. Absalom seems, then, to have been born of Maacha, the daughter of the king of Gessur, as was said in chapter 3, verse 3, and to have given his mother’s name Maacha to his daughter, who for her beauty was surnamed Thamar. Josephus, however, below, treating of Roboam and Abia, book 8, chapter 2, asserts that this Thamar, the daughter of Absalom, was not Maacha, but the mother of Maacha, who was the wife of Roboam and mother of Abia. Others, however, think that the Absalom who in 2 Paralipomenon 11:20 is called the father of Maacha, wife of Roboam, is another and different person from this Absalom the son of David: for the same, 2 Paralipomenon 13:2, is called “Uriel of Gabaa. The name of his mother (Abia’s),” it says, “was Michaia (or Maacha, or, as Josephus calls her, Micha), daughter of Uriel of Gabaa.” But Gabaa was in the tribe of Benjamin. Therefore this Absalom, the father of Maacha, who by another name is called Uriel, was of the tribe of Benjamin. But this Absalom, the father of Thamar, the son of David, was of the tribe of Juda. Therefore he is different from the Absalom who was the father of Maacha and by another name is called Uriel. So think Salianus and Abulensis, who recalls his opinion on 2 Paralipomenon 11, Question 20, and on chapter 12, Question 6. If anyone, following Josephus, book 8, chapter 2, should say that Maacha is not Thamar but the daughter of Thamar, he could answer this argument: that this Thamar was the daughter of Absalom the son of David, and married Uriel the Benjamite, and by him bore Maacha, who was the wife of Roboam and mother of Abia: wherefore this Maacha, 2 Paralipomenon 11:20, is called the daughter, that is, the granddaughter, of Absalom. And this fits everything, and is therefore very probable, as I shall say in book 3, chapter 15, verses 2 and 10.