After four years had passed, Absalom said to the king, “Please let me go to Hebron to fulfill a vow I have made to the LORD.
We have here the breaking out of Absalom's rebellion, which he had long been contriving. It is said to be after forty years, Sa2 15:7. But whence it is to be dated we are not told; not from David's beginning his reign, for then it would fall in the last year of his life, which is not probable; but either from his first anointing by...
Commenting on 2 Samuel 15:7-12
And it came to pass after forty years,.... Or four years; so long it was from the reconciliation of Absalom to David, as Josephus (f) says; and so read Theodoret on the place, the Syriac and Arabic versions: but some say it was either forty years from the time Israel first had a king; and which might be an era of reckoning with the Jews...
after forty years--It is generally admitted that an error has here crept into the text, and that instead of "forty," we should read with the Syriac and Arabic versions, and JOSEPHUS, "four years"--that is, after Absalom's return to Jerusalem, and his beginning to practice the base arts of gaining popularity. my vow, which I have vowed unto the Lord--during his exile in Geshur.