7 And it came to pass after 40 years, that [Avshalom] said unto the king, I pray thee, let me go and pay my vow, which I have vowed unto Yahweh, in Hebron.

Absalom's Forty Years

—"And it came to pass after forty years that Absalom said" (2 Sam. 15:7).

The forty years of this passage is possibly an error of transcription. Four years is the number suggested by several circumstances:

—1. The apparent requirements of the case; 2. The fact that the difference between four and forty in the Hebrew is only the difference between arba and arbaim; 3. Josephus speaks of it as "four years," saying, "When four years had passed since his father's reconciliation to him, he came to him and besought him to give him leave and go to Hebron and pay a sacrifice to God;" 4. This is confirmed by that copy of the septuagint version whence the Armenian translation was made; and again by the Syriac and Arabic versions which all read "four years."

The Christadelphian, Oct 1889