שמואל ב, פרק י״ד, פסוק י״א

Seeking to secure an ironclad guarantee for her surviving child, the wise woman from Tekoa escalates her plea, pressing King David to transform his general royal assurance into an absolute, irreversible commitment. She asks him to invoke God's name to guarantee her son's safety. The primary approach among commentators is that she is directly requesting the king to swear a formal oath in the name of God [רד״ק, מלבי״ם, ביאור שטיינזלץ]. However, others suggest her appeal carries deeper layers of meaning. She may be urging the king to emulate God's traits and act with His impartial mercy [מצודת דוד], or subtly alluding to the Torah's laws concerning cities of refuge, which were established specifically to preserve life [רש״י]. Another perspective views her request as a parallel to the story of Cain and Abel. Just as God spared Cain to prevent further grief for Adam, granting Cain a mark of absolute protection rather than leaving him vulnerable to attack, she asks David for that same definitive shield for her son. Through this plea, she also gently corrects the king; while he previously promised to protect her, she redirects his focus to her son, who is the one in actual, immediate danger [אברבנאל].

She justifies her urgent request by expressing fear of the blood avenger, a relative of the deceased who is duty-bound to seek vengeance [מצודת ציון]. Her concern centers on preventing this avenger from causing further destruction. Most commentators explain that because the murderer and the victim are brothers, executing the surviving son would not serve ordinary justice. Instead, it would merely multiply the devastation and double the family's tragedy [רש״י, ביאור שטיינזלץ, מלבי״ם, רלב״ג]. Furthermore, there might be numerous relatives seeking revenge, and a standard royal promise would not be enough to deter them all, making a public oath absolutely essential [רד״ק]. Conversely, some interpret her fear as relating to the avenger's social standing. She worries that the avenger is a prominent and influential figure, and that the king might yield to his pressure rather than showing mercy to her son [מצודת דוד, מצודת ציון].

Moved by her arguments, David yields and swears by the life of God that not a single hair of her son will fall to the ground. This well-known idiom serves as an exaggeration emphasizing that absolutely no harm will come to him [מצודת דוד, ביאור שטיינזלץ, מצודת ציון, רד״ק]. From a legal standpoint, David utilizes his royal authority to spare the son's life. He does this either because there were no formal witnesses to the murder, meaning the death penalty could not be strictly applied, or by exercising his unique sovereign power to issue a temporary decree that overrides standard law [רלב״ג]. Ultimately, this definitive ruling achieves the woman's hidden objective. By securing this pardon, she successfully establishes the exact legal and moral precedent that will later compel David to bring his own son, Absalom, back from exile [מלבי״ם].