Bible Strands
2 Samuel 13:29
So Absalom’s young men did to Amnon just as Absalom had ordered. Then all the other sons of the king got up, and each one fled on his mule.
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — The narrator describes the immediate aftermath of Absalom’s secret command, detailing how his attendants executed the plan and how the surviving royal brothers reacted in sudden panic.
The words — The passage turns on וַֽ/יַּעֲשׂ֞וּ (va/i.ya.'a.Su), meaning “and they did,” which records the attendants’ exact compliance, and וַ/יָּקֻ֣מוּ (va/i.ya.Ku.mu), meaning “and they arose,” which marks the brothers’ abrupt flight.
The thread — The specific detail of fleeing on mules reappears in 2 Samuel 18:9 when Absalom rides a mule during his revolt, and resurfaces in 1 Kings 1:33 where a mule is used to install Solomon as king.
Why it lands — The text forces the reader to track how a single hidden command unravels into public chaos, showing that royal violence inevitably triggers flight and fractures the family line.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
And the servants of Absalom did unto Amnon as Absalom had commanded. Then all the king’s sons arose, and every man gat him up upon his mule, and fled.
Cross-references
- 2 Samuel 18:9 Now Absalom was riding on his mule when he met the servants of David, and as the mule went under the thick branches of a large oak, Absalom’s head was caught fast in the tree. The mule under him kept going, so that he was suspended in midair.
- 1 Kings 1:33 “Take my servants with you,” said the king. “Set my son Solomon on my own mule and take him down to Gihon.
- Genesis 36:24 These are the sons of Zibeon: Aiah and Anah. (This is the Anah who found the hot springs in the wilderness as he was pasturing the donkeys of his father Zibeon.)
- Leviticus 19:19 You are to keep My statutes. You shall not crossbreed two different kinds of livestock; you shall not sow your fields with two kinds of seed; and you shall not wear clothing made of two kinds of material.
- 1 Samuel 22:18 So the king ordered Doeg, “You turn and strike down the priests!” And Doeg the Edomite turned and struck down the priests himself. On that day he killed eighty-five men who wore the linen ephod.
- 1 Kings 21:11 So the elders and nobles who lived in Naboth’s city did as Jezebel had instructed in the letters she had written to them.
- 2 Kings 1:9 Then King Ahaziah sent to Elijah a captain with his company of fifty men. So the captain went up to Elijah, who was sitting on top of a hill, and said to him, “Man of God, the king declares, ‘Come down!’”
- Proverbs 29:12 If a ruler listens to lies, all his officials will be wicked.
- Micah 7:3 Both hands are skilled at evil; the prince and the judge demand a bribe. When the powerful utters his evil desire, they all conspire together.