Absalom

the third son of David, King of Israel. The story of Absalom is interesting. His beauty; the affront to his sister; the slaying of his brother; his flight, exile, and recall; his burning the standing grain of his cousin Joab; Joab's intercession for him at court; his popular ways; his rebellion and foolish advisers; the adverse battle in the wood of Ephraim; his tragic death in the boughs of an old oak at Joab's hand; his burial beneath a great heap of stones, and David's grief for a favorite though disobedient son, "are they not set forth" in II Samuel, beginning at the thirteenth chapter and following? A rock-hewn sepulcher, with an attic of masonry adorned with Ionic columns and a Doric frieze, is pointed out at Jerusalem as "Absalom's Tomb." In one of his celebrated satires John Dryden pictures the Duke of Monmouth as Absalom--the type of undutiful sons, a monster of ingratitude. See David; Jews