n, we cannot
but wonder at you when you call the king your kinsman alone, whereas he
that hath received from God the power over all of us in common ought to
be esteemed a kinsman to us all; for which reason the whole people have
eleven parts in him, and you but one part [21] we are also elder than
you; wherefore you have not done justly in coming to the king in this
private and concealed manner."

6. 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."

7. So Joab resolved to make no delay, but taking with him his brother,
and those six hundred men, and giving orders that the rest of the army
which was at Jerusalem should follow him, he marc