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[278]
While these rulers were thus disputing one with another,. a certain
wicked man, who took a pleasure in seditious practices, (his name was Sheba,
the son of Bichri, of the tribe of Benjamin,) stood up in the midst of
the multitude, and cried aloud, and spake thus to them: "We have no
part in David, nor inheritance in the son of Jesse." And when he had
used those words, he blew with a trumpet, and declared war against the
king; and they all left David, and followed him; the tribe of Judah alone
staid with him, and settled him in his royal palace at Jerusalem. But as
for his concubines, with whom Absalom his son had accompanied, truly he
removed them to another house, and ordered those that had the care of them
to make a plentiful provision for them, but he came not near them any more.
He also appointed Amass for the captain of his forces, and gave him the
same high office which Joab before had; and he commanded him to gather
together, out of the tribe of Judah, as great an army as he could, and
come to him within three days, that he might deliver to him his entire
army, and might send him to fight against [Sheba] the son of Bichri. Now
while Amass was gone out, and made some delay in gathering the army together,
and so was not yet returned, on the third day the king said to Joab, "It
is not fit we should make any delay in this affair of Sheba, lest he get
a numerous army about him, and be the occasion of greater mischief, and
hurt our affairs more than did Absalom himself; do not thou therefore wait
any longer, but take such forces as thou hast at hand, and that [old] body
of six hundred men, and thy brother Abishai, with thee, and pursue after
our enemy, and endeavor to fight him wheresoever thou canst overtake him.
Make haste to prevent him, lest he seize upon some fenced cities, and cause
us great labor and pains before we take him."
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