Bible Corner

This is my favourite scripture of the moment, from 2 Samuel 18:9 -

Absalom was riding on his mule, and the mule went under the thick branches of a great oak, and his head caught fast in the oak, and he was suspended between heaven and earth, while the mule that was under him went on.

Brilliant stuff. Writing like this is clearly the product of inhaling too closely next to a Norman Wisdom film.

There's a happy end to all this, you'll be glad to know, when a guy called Jo'ab shows up:

And he [Jo'ab] took three javelins in his hand and thrust them into the heart of Absalom while he was still alive in the oak. And ten young men, Joab’s armor-bearers, surrounded Absalom and struck him and killed him. 2 Samuel 18:14-15

Is it just me or is this overkill? The guy's hanging from a branch by his head and it takes ten people to kill him. Jo'ab could have used his ten young men in a far more profitable way, perhaps using them as dancers or prostitutes, or even retrain them to enter the flourishing food business in early Iron Age Palestine.  They could have called themselves Kosher Katering, The marketing writes itself, doesn't it?