David’s friend Hushai arrived in the city, just as Absalom was entering Jerusalem.¹  Absalom was suspicious of Hushai at first, Do you call this loyalty [See Addendum below] to your friend?  Why didn’t you go with your friend?²  Hushai lied or told such a cleverly concealed truth that Absalom failed to unravel the riddle.  No, I will be loyal to the one whom the Lord, these people, and all the men of Israel have chosen. Moreover, whom should I serve?  Should it not be his son?  Just as I served your father, so I will serve you.³  And so Hushai was established as both a spy and false counselor.

Absalom turned to Ahithophel for advice, What should we do?⁴ In those days Ahithophel’s advice was considered as valuable as a prophetic revelation.  Both David and Absalom highly regarded the advice of Ahithophel.⁵  But when he learned that his trusted adviser had defected to Absalom, David had prayed, Make the advice of Ahithophel foolish (sâkal, סַכֶּל), O Lord!⁶  Samuel defined the word foolish for Saul: Then Samuel said to Saul, “You have made a foolish (sâkal, נִסְכָּ֑לְתָּ) choice! You have not obeyed the commandment that the Lord your God gave you. Had you done that, the Lord would have established your kingdom over Israel forever!”⁷

Ahithophel replied to Absalom, “Have sex with your father’s concubines whom he left to care for the palace.  All Israel will hear that you have made yourself repulsive to your father.  Then your followers will be motivated to support you.”⁸  I turned to the Jewish Virtual Library online to see if I could gain some insight how David might have felt about these women.  I still don’t know if they were mistresses or chambermaids he bed a time or two.  But I did find out something about Ahithophel’s advice.

“To lie with a monarch’s concubine was tantamount to usurpation of the throne (II Sam. 3:7; 16:21–22). For this reason Abner took Rizpah (II Sam. 3:7). The same concept stands behind Ahitophel’s advice to Absalom, to ‘go into his father’s concubines’ (16:21)…”⁹  So Ahithophel’s advice may or may not have been advantageous on the horizontal plane.  Personally, I think it is sort of an open question how Absalom’s followers might have responded.  On the vertical plane, however, Ahithophel advised a usurper of the throne, one not anointed nor chosen by God, to do a foolish thing and disobey one of his commandments¹⁰ publicly as his first royal act.

So they pitched a tent for Absalom on the roof, and Absalom had sex with his father’s concubines in the sight of all Israel.¹¹  The Jewish Virtual Library article I quoted disagrees that this was a violation of God’s law regarding a father’s wife (a capital offence, by the way).  “Nor does living with a man as his concubine create a kinship as an impediment to marriage between herself and any of the man’s relatives, or between the man and her relatives, as would be the case if she would be considered to be his wife (Rosh, Resp. no. 32:1; Oẓar ha-Posekim, EH26, n. 3).”¹²  The problem I see with this analysis is that there is no legislation concerning concubines in the Bible.  The only way to know what a concubine was and what rights or obligations she had was from foreign law.  Both the Assyrian Code and the Code of Hammurapi are referenced as sources for determining the legal status of a concubine in the above mentioned article.

God prophesied to David [See Addendum below], I will take your wives (Septuagint: γυναῖκάς, a form of γυνή) and hand them over to your companion.  He will have sexual relations with your wives (Septuagint: γυναικῶν, another form of γυνή) in broad daylight!  Although you have acted in secret, I will do this thing before all Israel, and in broad daylight.¹³  I am using the Greek here simply because I recognize the Greek alphabet better than the Hebrew.  (In other words, I don’t know Greek a whole lot less than I don’t know Hebrew.)  Both γυναῖκάς and γυναικῶν are plural forms of γυνή.  Both instances are the same Hebrew word, too, according to the concordance.  Both words can be translated wives or women.

In Ephesians 5:28 (NET) γυναικας was translated wives, In the same way husbands ought¹⁴ to love their wives (γυναικας) as their own bodies.  In Matthew 14:21 (NET) γυναικων was translated women, Not counting women (γυναικων) and children, there were about five thousand men who ate.  I won’t make an issue of whether 2 Samuel 12:11 should have been translated wives or women, because γυναικὸς in Leviticus 18:8 (NET) [See Addendum below] was translated wife, You must not have sexual intercourse with your father’s wife (Septuagint: γυναικὸς); she is your father’s nakedness, and in Leviticus 20:11 (NET) [See Addendum below], If a man has sexual intercourse with his father’s wife (Septuagint: γυναικὸς), he has exposed his father’s nakedness.  Both of them must be put to death; their blood guilt is on themselves.

Again, γυναικὸς is a singular form of gunē (γυνή), and the Hebrew word is also the same according to the concordance.  In Matthew 19:10 (NET) [Table] γυναικος was translated wife, The¹⁵ disciples said to him, “If this is the case of a husband with a wife (γυναικος), it is better not to marry!”  In John 4:9 (NET) γυνη and γυναικος were both translated woman, So the Samaritan¹⁶ woman (γυνη) said to him, “How can you – a Jew – ask me, a Samaritan¹⁷ woman (γυναικος), for water to drink?”¹⁸

So whether 2 Samuel 12:11 should have been translated David’s wives or women is immaterial, since the same word, both in Greek and Hebrew, was used in Leviticus 18:8 and 20:11.  Since God was apparently satisfied when Absalom had sex with David’s concubines that Nathan’s prophesy about David’s wives or women was fulfilled, and since the only other way to distinguish David’s concubines from his wives or his women was by foreign law, I am going to assume that the category called concubine referred to a traditional practice that probably should not have been part of the thought of the kingdom of Israel.

That being said, however, it seems very likely that what God called Saul’s wives through Nathan the prophet were perceived by many in Israel as the concubines of David’s father-in-law:¹⁹  I gave you your master’s house, and put your master’s wives (Septuagint: γυναῖκάς) into your arms,²⁰ when Nathan confronted David on God’s behalf.  It puts some perspective on Absalom’s willingness to fall in with Ahithophel’s advice.  He wanted his father’s concubines just like his father got his father-in-law’s concubines when David received the kingdom after Saul’s death.  It makes me wonder what Absalom heard of his father’s life.

I assume Absalom was told all the stories about David.  But what he heard seems to have been something less than the sum total of what he was told.  He did not hear for instance that David was chosen (anointed) by God when Saul was rejected for his disobedience to God.  Oh, perhaps he heard it in part.  Maybe he assumed that David was, or should have been, rejected by God when he took Bathsheba and murdered Uriah, or if not then, perhaps when he failed to avenge Tamar, as Absalom himself had done.  He certainly heard that Samuel used sacrifices to God as the cover to anoint David as king while Saul yet lived.  He imitated that scene faithfully, minus of course the sanction of God or the presence of his prophet.  He did not hear how his father David respected the Lord’s chosen or anointed one even after he was rejected by God, or he would have behaved differently toward his father.  In fact, if he had any faith whatsoever in God or his choice, Absalom would not have challenged David at all.

The irony here was, though he was born a son of David, though he did everything he could to imitate David’s career outwardly, Absalom proved to be a man after Saul’s own heart:  So Saul feared David, because the Lord was with him but had departed from Saul.²¹  And Absalom, like Saul before him, set himself to the task of finding a way to kill David.

Addendum: April 28, 2021
I won’t make too much of it since Absalom was speaking, but I was intrigued by loyalty:

That kindness and mercy are joined in חַסְדְּךָ֖ (ḥeseḏ) makes perfect sense, though I’m not sure I could have accessed it that concretely.  To hear kindness and mercy as loyalty, or faithfulness, is a minor revolution and a great relief in my thinking.  I am too often tempted that I should be tougher than that.

A comparison of 2 Samuel 12:11 translated from the Hebrew of the Masoretic text and the Greek of the Septuagint follows:

A comparison of Leviticus 18:8 translated from the Hebrew of the Masoretic text and the Greek of the Septuagint follows:

A comparison of Leviticus 20:11 translated from the Hebrew of the Masoretic text and the Greek of the Septuagint follows:

Tables comparing 2 Samuel 15:37; 16:17; 16:18; 16:19; 16:20; 16:23; 1 Samuel 13:13; 2 Samuel 16:21; 16:22; Leviticus 18:8 and 1 Samuel 18:12 in the Tanakh, KJV and NET, and tables comparing 2 Samuel (Reigns, Kings) 15:37; 16:17; 16:18; 16:19; 16:20; 16:23; 1 Samuel (Reigns, Kings) 13:13; 2 Samuel (Reigns, Kings) 16:21; 16:22; Leviticus 18:8 and 1 Samuel (Reigns, Kings) 18:12 in the Septuagint (BLB and Elpenor), and tables comparing Ephesians 5:28 and John 4:9 in the NET and KJV follow.