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42 the king summoned Shimei and said to him: “Did I not have you swear by the Lord and warn you clearly, ‘The day you leave and go anywhere else, be certain you shall surely die’? And you answered, ‘I accept and obey.’[a] 43 Why, then, have you not kept the oath of the Lord and the command that I gave you?” 44 (A)And the king said to Shimei: “In your heart you know very well the evil that you did to David my father. Now the Lord is bringing your own evil upon your head.

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Footnotes

  1. 2:42–44 In his charge against Shimei, Solomon misrepresents the truth in two ways. He did not make Shimei take an oath. And he imposed capital punishment only on crossing the Wadi Kidron, to the east of Jerusalem. This was presumably to prevent Shimei from returning to his home, Bahurim, which lay in that direction; Gath, however, is southwest of Jerusalem. Solomon’s next words to Shimei reveal that he is really being punished for cursing David, not for violating Solomon’s command.