Exile

The narrow umbrella of exile in this entry collects two figures who illustrate banishment as a personal status rather than a national event: Absalom, sent away from his father's house after the killing of Amnon, and Ittai the Gittite, named by David as a foreigner and exile in his own right.

Absalom's Banishment

After Absalom kills Amnon, the wise woman of Tekoa is sent to David with a parable that is also a plea: the king has stayed his hand from his own banished son. "And the woman said, Why then have you devised such a thing against the people of God? For in speaking this word the king is as one who is guilty, in that the king does not fetch home again his banished one" (2Sa 14:13). She presses the case theologically as well as politically: "For we must surely die, and are as water spilled on the ground, which can't be gathered up again; neither does God take away a soul, but he devises means, that he who is banished not be an outcast from him" (2Sa 14:14). The argument is that exile is not the same as final separation — God himself "devises means" so that the banished one is not finally cast off, and the king should follow that pattern with his son.

David is moved enough to recall Absalom to Jerusalem, but a partial exile remains. "And the king said, Let him turn to his own house, but don't let him see my face. So Absalom turned to his own house, and didn't see the king's face" (2Sa 14:24). Absalom is in the city without being in his father's presence — a domestic exile inside the capital.

Ittai the Foreigner

The second figure, Ittai the Gittite, is exiled twice over: once from his Philistine homeland and again, by David's own offer, from the company of the fugitive king. As David flees Jerusalem during Absalom's revolt he addresses Ittai directly: "Then the king said to Ittai the Gittite, Why do you also go with us? Return, and remain with the king: for you are a foreigner, and also an exile; [return] to your own place" (2Sa 15:19). The verse names the status precisely — Ittai is "a foreigner, and also an exile" — and David tries to release him from a loyalty he was not bound by.

Banishment and the Hope of Return

What unites the two scenes is the framing of exile as a state that calls out for reversal. The Tekoite's argument runs from the universal fact of death to the specific divine pattern: God does not take away a soul, but "devises means, that he who is banished not be an outcast from him" (2Sa 14:14). The reasoning is then turned on the king: David ought to fetch home his banished one (2Sa 14:13). With Ittai the movement is Ittai's own — he refuses the offered release and stays with David — but David's offer itself recognizes that an exile already in his own service has a "place" he might still return to (2Sa 15:19).