Bible in art · 2 Samuel

Scenes from the Life of Absalom (Ms. Ludwig I 6, verso, from the Morgan Picture Bible)

Unknown French painters · about 1250
Getty Center, Los Angeles

The other side of the same Morgan Picture Bible leaf, painted in northern France about 1250. The pictures are in tempera with gold leaf; Latin and Persian notes fill the margins.

Above, horsemen in mail clash in battle, and Absalom hangs by his hair from an oak while riders come at him with spears. Below, the army rides on, and at the right David sits in the city gate waiting for news.

From the text

Absalom’s head caught fast in a large oak (2 Samuel 18:9)
Joab takes three spears (2 Samuel 18:14)
David sitting between the two gates (2 Samuel 18:24)

The artist’s own

The armies in chain mail of the 1250s

Details

The battle

Knights in mail fight on horseback.

In the oak

A figure hangs from the tree.

David waiting

A seated man in the gate tower.

Latin caption

Lines of Latin explain the scenes.

Unknown illuminators, Northern France. The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles (Ms. Ludwig I 6 (83.MA.55), verso) · Tempera colors and gold leaf · Images provided here are believed to be in the public domain and are available under CC0 through Getty’s Open Content Program. (Getty record: "No Copyright", http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/)

The verses

2 Sam 18:6–15So David’s army marched into the field to engage Israel in the battle, which took place in the forest of Ephraim. There the people of Israel were defeated by David’s servants, and the slaughter was great that day—twenty thousand men. The battle spread over the whole countryside, and that day the forest devoured more people than the sword. 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. When one of the men saw this, he told Joab, “I just saw Absalom hanging in an oak tree!” “You just saw him!” Joab exclaimed. “Why did you not strike him to the ground right there? I would have given you ten shekels of silver and a warrior’s belt!” The man replied, “Even if a thousand shekels of silver were weighed out into my hands, I would not raise my hand against the son of the king. For we heard the king command you and Abishai and Ittai, ‘Protect the young man Absalom for my sake.’ If I had jeopardized my own life—and nothing is hidden from the king—you would have abandoned me.” But Joab declared, “I am not going to wait like this with you!” And he took three spears in his hand and thrust them through the heart of Absalom while he was still alive in the oak tree. And ten young men who carried Joab’s armor surrounded Absalom, struck him, and killed him.

2 Sam 18:24Now David was sitting between the two gates when the watchman went up to the roof of the gateway by the wall, looked out, and saw a man running alone.

See it at the museum’s site