Absalom, The Old Men And The Tale Of The Sacrifice

This is a fictional story from my crazily funny friend Timi Price. Open your heart and be ready for some serious laugh. Thank me later and by the way it is serial, so expect more!!!!!!!!

And Solomon offered a sacrifice of peace offerings, which he offered unto the LORD, two and twenty thousand oxen, and an hundred and twenty thousand sheep. So the king and all the children of Israel dedicated the house of the LORD.

1 Kings 8:63

In the Old Testament, Solomon sacrificed to God one of the biggest sacrifice any human being had ever sacrificed.

The stories in the Bible are like the World Cup finals (pretty much summarized) that hold once in a couple of years, the race to the finals takes longer than the finals itself, the qualifiers takes years to play while the finals take like a month.

He offered 22,000 oxen and 120,000 sheep, what was summarized in I King 8:63 will no doubt have been an herculean task. Solomon would have needed to source for more oxen and sheep. I mean he wasn’t gonna sacrifice all the flock he had and go hungry. Imagine how many people live in the palace, the king with his wives, probably housed his concubines somewhere around, carefully allocating spaces so there wouldn’t be fight in the palace, and his children, relatives, the sheer amount of people in the palace must be mesmerizing. Over 6 cows may have to lay their lives down, so the palace can have breakfast.

Considering all of these situations, the smart play would be take some from his farm, and source the rest from his land (Israel) and quite possibly abroad.

He didn’t really do the sacrifice for himself but for all the children of Israel to dedicate the new temple.

So, it was for a just cause…

Anyway, you can imagine the harrowing experience that the committee in charge of sourcing the oxen and sheep would have gone through.

This post or whatever you choose to call it wants to explore a fictional team lead in charge of sourcing the peace offerings and team encounter, his name was Absalom, King Solomon’s junior brother, the most handsome man in the world at that time (This is actually a genuine fact, you can look it up)

Absalom was appointed the leader of the entire process of sourcing for peace offering from all over the land; he would sometime go to visit nearby farms, which was what happened this particular day. He would choose emissaries from his house to approach the wealthy landowners, the ones who could make the sourcing easier than imagined.

On this particular day, he visited one of the largest farm in the land towards the outskirts of the town, adorned in the finest ornament of the time. They rode into the man’s land with a flag representing Israel as well as King Solomon, and the house of his father.

Assistants helped Absalom down his horse, carefully making sure his robe doesn’t get twisted with the leash or ropes around the horse. Finally, he was free of the ropes and the horse, he led to 15 man emissary into the compound, the compound looked very clean. He could see far down south a section of the farm animals.

One of emissary stepped forward to knock on the door a few times, the door was opened by a fairly old man. Absalom introduced himself to the man

“My name is Absalom;

First of my name;

Son of the great King David and Lady Maachah, daughter of Talmai, the great King of Geshur;

Trusted Adviser and brother to the Great King Solomon”

The fairly old man yawned, feeling uninterested as the wealthy looking man was introducing himself along with his lineage structure and what number of his name he was which he didn’t care for at all. He could feel the man was very proud of his heritage as he took out time to clearly explain his ancestry.

Absalom continued, ignoring the not interested look on the man’s face.

“I have been sent by the great King Solomon, the wise King;

First of his name;

Son of King David and Queen Bathsheba

Ruler of all of Isreal;

The voice of the one and only true God

The Lord’s beloveth.

He has personally sent me to you. We are here to discuss procurement of your oxen and sheep.”

“With all due respect sir” The man tried to cut Absalom.

One of the emissaries was about to draw his sword; interruption of the king’s emissary while speaking is a treasonable offence punishable by death.

Absalom made hand gesture for him to sheath his sword.

“You wanted to say something ” Absalom calming the situation.

“You might want to talk to my father about this, we just split up our farm to the neighboring country, I’m not sure we might be able to help your cause at all.” The man replied

“So, why didn’t you tell me this as soon as I introduced myself that your father is the decision maker”

The same emissary tried to pull out his sword for the second time to strike down the young man for wasting the Absalom’s time.

“How many people are you gonna kill, Abraham.” Absalom said holding his wrist, forcing him to put back the sword in the sheath.

“He insulted you, my lord” The young man named after Abraham said, giving his reasons for defending his boss’s honor.

“Let me be the one to decide who disrespects me or not!” He told him.

“You killed 8 people last week because of these insult shenanigan!

What is wrong with you?

Are you a serial killer or do you drink human blood for fun? Do you want to be re-assigned to the war front.

Your mother begged me to help you, but it seems you’re a blood thirty vampire.

This is your last chance, if you repeat any of this nonsense, you will be shipped to the war front, you can serve our land better there.

Lets see how you fare with other nut-jobs like you who enjoy killing people.” Absalom put Abraham in check with hush tones.

“I apologise for his foolishness. Please get your father. Thank you” Absalom said, trying to forget the ugly accident that almost happened.

The man walked into another chamber to fetch his father, with an uneasy stare at Abraham, he nearly died twice today alone from a boy who looked barely a day older than 18 years of age. The things that happen in Israel these days are quite unimaginable, that an 18 year old boy almost murdered him in his own living room, sorry in his father’s living room.

Absalom gave Abraham one more stare down, and re-adjusted him robes, as the man’s elderly father walked out with the aid of the walking stick, old and very sarcastic man.

“So, who wants to speak with me” The elderly man said

“I was having my 6-hour siesta, this had better be good” The man said

“They are emissaries from King Solomon” his son said

“What is it this time around, he want to marry wife number 245 now?”

“I have already been to 45 of those, the public bathroom there is appalling.

I’m old, I have to go to the bathroom like 5 times in 20 minutes, I virtually miss the whole ceremony. Tell him, I can’t make it. I’m too old for it anyway.

Tell him to leave me out of this.”

Abraham couldn’t take it anymore, his blood was boiling at someone insulting the great King Solomon but a firm stare from Absalom made him keep his temper in check, this is the last time he would idly stand by while a commoner will insult the King.

Absalom stepped forward to introduce himself to the elderly man

“My name is Absalom;

First of my name;

Son of the great King David and Lady Maachah, daughter of Talmai….”