_ABSALOM AND AMNON._
2 SAMUEL xiii. 1-37.
A living sorrow, says the proverb, is worse than a dead. The dead
sorrow had been very grievous to David; what the living sorrow, of
which this chapter tells us, must have been, we cannot conceive.
It is his own disorderly lusts, reappearing in his sons, that are
the source of this new tragedy. It is often useful for parents to
ask whether they would like to see their children doing what they
allow in themselves; and in many cases the answer is an emphatic
"No." David is now doomed to see his children following his own evil
example, only with added circumstances of atrocity. Adultery and
murder had been introduced by him into the palace; when he is done
with them they remain to be handled by his sons.
It is a very repulsive picture of sensuality that this chapter
presents. One would suppose that Amnon and Absalom had been
accustomed to the wild orgies of pagan idolatry. Nathan had rebuked
David because he had given occasion to the enemies of the Lord to
blaspheme. He had afforded them a pretext for denying the work of the
Holy Spirit in regeneration and sanctification, and for affirming
that so-called holy men were just like the rest of mankind. This
in God's eyes was a grievous offence. Amnon and Absalom are now
guilty of the same offence in another form, because they afford a
pretext for ungodly men to say that the families of holy men are no
better--perhaps that they are worse--than other families. But as
David himself in the matter of Uriah is an exception to the ordinary
lives of godly men, so his home is an exception to the ordinary tone
and spirit of religious households. Happily we are met with a very
different ideal when we look behind the scenes into the better class
of Christian homes, whether high or low. It is a beautiful picture of
the Christian home, according to the Christian ideal, we find, for
example, in Milton's _Comus_--pure brothers, admiring a dear sister's
purity, and jealous lest, alone in the world, she should fall in
the way of any of those bloated monsters that would drag an angel
into their filthy sty. Commend us to those homes where brothers and
sisters, sharing many a game, and with still greater intimacy pouring
into each other's ears their inner thoughts and feelings, never utter
a jest, or word, or allusion with the slightest taint of indelicacy,
and love and honour each other with all the higher affection that
none of them has ever been near the haunts of pollution. It is easy
to ridicule innocence, to scoff at young men who "flee youthful
lusts;" yet who will say that the youth who is steeped in fashionable
sensuality is worthy to be the brother and companion of pure-minded
maidens, or that his breath will not contaminate the atmosphere of
their home? What easy victories Belial gains over many! How easily he
persuades them that vice is manly, that impurity is grand, that the
pig's sty is a delightful place to lie down in! How easily he induces
them to lay snares for female chastity, and put the devil's mask on
woman's soul! But "God is not mocked; whatsoever a man soweth, that
shall he also reap; for he that soweth to the flesh shall of the
flesh reap corruption, while he that soweth to the Spirit shall of
the Spirit reap life everlasting."
In Scripture some men have very short biographies; Amnon is one of
these. And, like Cain, all that is recorded of him has the mark of
infamy. We can easily understand that it was a great disaster to him
to be a king's son. To have his position in life determined and all
his wants supplied without an effort on his part; to be surrounded
by such plenty that the wholesome necessity of denying himself was
unknown, and whatever he fancied was at once obtained; to be so
accustomed to indulge his legitimate feelings that when illegitimate
desires rose up it seemed but natural that they too should be
gratified; thus to be led on in the evil ways of sensual pleasure
till his appetite became at once bloated and irrepressible; to be
surrounded by parasites and flatterers, that would make a point of
never crossing him nor uttering a disagreeable word, but constantly
encouraging his tastes,--all this was extremely dangerous. And when
his father had set him the example, it was hardly possible he would
avoid the snare. There is every reason to believe that before he is
presented to us in this chapter he was already steeped in sensuality.
It was his misfortune to have a friend, Jonadab, the son of Shimeah,
David's brother, "a very subtil man," who at heart must have been
as great a profligate as himself. For if Jonadab had been anything
but a profligate, Amnon would never have confided to him his odious
desire with reference to his half-sister, and Jonadab would never
have given him the advice that he did. What a blessing to Amnon, at
this stage of the tragedy, would have been the faithful advice of
an honest friend--one who would have had the courage to declare the
infamy of his proposal, and who would have so placed it in the light
of truth that it would have shocked and horrified even Amnon himself!
In reality, the friend was more guilty than the culprit. The one was
blinded by passion; the other was self-possessed and cool. The cool
man encourages the heated; the sober man urges on the intoxicated.
O ye sons of wealth and profligacy, it is sad enough that you are
often so tempted by the lusts that rise up in your own bosoms, but
it is worse to be exposed to the friendship of wretches who never
study your real good, but encourage you to indulge the vilest of your
appetites, and smooth for you the way to hell!
The plan which Jonadab proposes for Amnon to obtain the object of
his desire is founded on a stratagem which he is to practise on his
father. He is to pretend sickness, and under this pretext to get
matters arranged by his father as he would like. To practise deceit
on a father was a thing not unknown even among the founders of the
nation; Jacob and Jacob's sons had resorted to it alike. But it had
been handed down with the mark of disgrace attached to it by God
Himself. In spite of this it was counted both by Jonadab and Amnon
a suitable weapon for their purpose. And so, as every one knows, it
is counted not only a suitable, but a smart and laughable, device,
in stage plays without number, and by the class of persons whose
morality is reflected by the popular stage. Who so suitable a person
to be made a fool of as "the governor"? Who so little to be pitied
when he becomes the dupe of his children's cunning? "Honour thy
father and thy mother," was once proclaimed in thunder from Sinai,
and not only men's hearts trembled, but the very earth shook at the
voice. But these were old times and old-fashioned people. Treat your
father and mother as useful and convenient tools, inasmuch as they
have control of the purse, of which you are often in want. But as
they are not likely to approve of the objects for which you would
spend their money; as they are sure, on the other hand, to disapprove
of them strongly, exercise your ingenuity in hoodwinking them as to
your doings, and if your stratagem succeed, enjoy your chuckle at
the blindness and simplicity of the poor old fools! If this be the
course that commends itself to any son or daughter, it indicates a
heart so perverted that it would be most difficult to bring it to
any sense of sin. All we would say is, See what kind of comrades you
have in this policy of deceiving parents. See this royal blackguard,
Amnon, and his villainous adviser Jonadab, resorting to the very same
method for hoodwinking King David; see them making use of this piece
of machinery to compass an act of the grossest villainy that ever
was heard of; and say whether you hold the device to be commended by
their example, and whether you feel honoured in treading a course
that has been marked before you by such footprints.
If anything more was needed to show the accomplished villainy of Amnon,
it is his treatment of Tamar after he has violently compassed her ruin.
It is the story so often repeated even at this day,--the ruined victim
flung aside in dishonour, and left unpitied to her shame. There is no
trace of any compunction on the part of Amnon at the moral murder he
has committed, at the life he has ruined; no pity for the once blithe
and happy maiden whom he has doomed to humiliation and woe. She has
served his purpose, king's daughter though she is; let her crawl into
the earth like a poor worm to live or to die, in want or in misery;
it is nothing to him. The only thing about her that he cares for is,
that she may never again trouble him with her existence, or disturb
the easy flow of his life. We think of those men of the olden time as
utter barbarians who confined their foes in dismal dungeons, making
their lives a continual torture, and denying them the slightest
solace to the miseries of captivity. But what shall we say of those,
high-born and wealthy men, it may be, who doom their cast-off victims
to an existence of wretchedness and degradation which has no gleam of
enjoyment, compared with which the silence and loneliness of a prison
would be a luxury? Can the selfishness of sin exhibit itself anywhere
or anyhow more terribly? What kind of heart can be left to the seducer,
so hardened as to smother the faintest touch of pity for the woman he
has made wretched for ever; so savage as to drive from him with the
roughest execrations the poor confiding creature without whom he used
to vow, in the days of her unsuspecting innocence, that he knew not how
to live!
In a single word, our attention is now turned to the father of both
Amnon and Tamar. "When King David heard of all these things, he was
very wroth." Little wonder! But was this all? Was no punishment found
for Amnon? Was he allowed to remain in the palace, the oldest son
of the king, with nothing to mark his father's displeasure, nothing
to neutralise his influence with the other royal children, nothing
to prevent the repetition of his wickedness? Tamar, of course, was
a woman. Was it for this reason that nothing was done to punish
her destroyer? It does not appear that his position was in any way
changed. We cannot but be indignant at the inactivity of David. Yet
when we think of the past, we need not be surprised. David was too
much implicated in the same sins to be able to inflict suitable
punishment for them. It is those whose hands are clean that can
rebuke the offender. Let others try to administer reproof--their own
hearts condemn them, and they shrink from the task. Even the king of
Israel must wink at the offences of his son.
But if David winked, Absalom did nothing of the kind. Such treatment
of his full sister, if the king chose to let it alone, could not be
let alone by the proud, indignant brother. He nursed his wrath, and
watched for his opportunity. Nothing short of the death of Amnon
would suffice him. And that death must be compassed not in open fight
but by assassination. At last, after two full years, his opportunity
came. A sheepshearing at Baal-hazor gave occasion for a feast, to
which the king and all his sons should be asked. His father excused
himself on the ground of the expense. Absalom was most unwilling to
receive the excuse, reckoning probably that the king's presence would
more completely ward off any suspicion of his purpose, and utterly
heedless of the anguish his father would have felt when he found
that, while asked professedly to a feast, it was really to the murder
of his eldest son. David, however, refuses firmly, but he gives
Absalom his blessing. Whether this was meant in the sense in which
Isaac blessed Jacob, or whether it was merely an ordinary occasion
of commending Absalom to the grace of God, it was a touching act,
and it might have arrested the arm that was preparing to deal such a
fatal blow to Amnon. On the contrary, Absalom only availed himself of
his father's expression of kindly feeling to beg that he would allow
Amnon to be present. And he succeeded so well that permission was
given, not to Amnon only, but to all the king's sons. To Absalom's
farm at Baal-hazor accordingly they went, and we may be sure that
nothing would be spared to make the banquet worthy of a royal family.
And now, while the wine is flowing freely, and the buzz of jovial
talk fills the apartment, and all power of action on the part of
Amnon is arrested by the stupefying influence of wine, the signal is
given for his murder. See how closely Absalom treads in the footsteps
of his father when he summons intoxicating drink to his aid, as David
did to Uriah, when trying to make a screen of him for his own guilt.
Yes, from the beginning, drink, or some other stupefying agent, has
been the ready ally of the worst criminals, either preparing the
victim for the slaughter or maddening the murderer for the deed.
But wherever it has been present it has only made the tragedy more
awful and the aspect of the crime more hideous. Give a wide berth,
ye servants of God, to an agent with which the devil has ever placed
himself in such close and deadly alliance!
It is not easy to paint the blackness of the crime of Absalom.
We have nothing to say for Amnon, who seems to have been a man
singularly vile; but there is something very appalling in his being
murdered by the order of his brother, something very cold-blooded
in Absalom's appeal to the assassins not to flinch from their task,
something very revolting in the flagrant violation of the laws of
hospitality, and something not less daring in the deed being done
in the midst of the feast, and in the presence of the guests. When
Shakespeare would paint the murder of a royal guest, the deed is
done in the dead of night, with no living eye to witness it, with no
living arm at hand capable of arresting the murderous weapon. But
here is a murderer of his guest who does not scruple to have the deed
done in broad daylight in presence of all his guests, in presence
of all the brothers of his victim, while the walls resound to the
voice of mirth, and each face is radiant with festive excitement. Out
from some place of concealment rush the assassins with their deadly
weapons; next moment the life-blood of Amnon spurts on the table, and
his lifeless body falls heavily to the ground. Before the excitement
and horror of the assembled guests has subsided Absalom has made his
escape, and before any step can be taken to pursue him he is beyond
reach in Geshur in Syria.
Meanwhile an exaggerated report of the tragedy reaches King David's
ears,--Absalom has slain all the king's sons, and there is not one of
them left. Evil, at the bottom of his heart, must have been David's
opinion of him when he believed the story, even in this exaggerated
form. "The king arose and rent his clothes, and lay on the earth; and
all his servants stood round with their clothes rent." Nor was it till
Jonadab, his cousin, assured him that only Amnon could be dead, that
the terrible impression of a wholesale massacre was removed from his
mind. But who can fancy what the circumstances must have been, when
it became a relief to David to know that Absalom had murdered but one
of his brothers? Jonadab evidently thought that David did not need to
be much surprised, inasmuch as this murder was a foregone conclusion
with Absalom; it had been determined on ever since the day when Amnon
forced Tamar. Here is a new light on the character of Jonadab. He knew
that Absalom had determined that Amnon should die. It was no surprise
to him to hear that this purpose was carried out with effect. Why did
he not warn Amnon? Could it be that he had been bribed over to the side
of Absalom? He knew the real state of the case before the king's sons
arrived. For when they did appear he appealed to David whether his
statement, previously given, was not correct.
And now the first part of the retribution denounced by Nathan begins
to be fulfilled, and fulfilled very fearfully,--"the sword shall
never depart from thy house." Ancient history abounds in frightful
stories, stories of murder, incest, and revenge, the materials, real
or fabulous, from which were formed the tragedies of the great Greek
dramatists. But nothing in their dramas is more tragic than the crime
of Amnon, the incest of Tamar, and the revenge of Absalom. What David's
feelings must have been we can hardly conceive. What must he have felt
as he thought of the death of Amnon, slain by his brother's command,
in his brother's house, at his brother's table, and hurried to God's
judgment while his brain was reeling with intoxication! What a pang
must have been shot by the recollection how David had once tried, for
his own base ends, to intoxicate Uriah as Absalom had intoxicated
Amnon! It does not appear that David's grief over Amnon was of the
passionate kind that he showed afterwards when Absalom was slain; but,
though quieter, it must have been very bitter. How could he but be
filled with anguish when he thought of his son, hurried, while drunk,
by his brother's act, into the presence of God, to answer for the
worse than murder of his sister, and for all the crimes and sins of an
ill-spent life! What hope could he entertain for the welfare of his
soul? What balm could he find for such a wound?
And it was not Amnon only he had to think of. These three of his
children, Amnon, Tamar, Absalom, in one sense or another, were now
total wrecks. From these three branches of his family tree no fruit
could ever come. Nor could the dead now bury its dead. Neither the
remembrance nor the effect of the past could ever be wiped out. It
baffles us to think how David was able to carry such grief. "David
mourned for his son every day." It was only the lapse of time that
could blunt the edge of his distress.
But surely there must have been terrible faults in David's upbringing
of his family before such results as these could come. Undoubtedly
there were. First of all, there was the number of his wives. This
could not fail to be a source of much jealousy and discord among
them and their children, especially when he himself was absent, as
he must often have been, for long periods at a time. Then there
was his own example, so unguarded, so unhallowed, at a point where
the utmost care and vigilance had need to be shown. Thirdly, there
seems to have been an excessive tenderness of feeling towards his
children, and towards some of them in particular. He could not bear
to disappoint; his feelings got the better of his judgment; when the
child insisted the father weakly gave way. He wanted the firmness and
the faithfulness of Abraham, of whom God had said, "I know him that
he will _command_ his children and his household after him, and they
shall keep the way of the Lord to do justice and judgment." Perhaps,
too, busy and often much pressed as he was with affairs of state,
occupied with foreign wars, with internal improvements, and the
daily administration of justice, he looked on his house as a place
of simple relaxation and enjoyment, and forgot that there, too, he
had a solemn charge and most important duty. Thus it was that David
failed in his domestic management. It is easy to spy out his defects,
and easy to condemn him. But let each of you who have a family to
bring up look to himself. You have not all David's difficulties, but
you may have some of them. The precept and the promise is, "Train
up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not
depart from it." It is not difficult to know the way he should
go--the difficulty lies in the words, "Train up." To train up is
not to force, nor is it merely to lay down the law, or to enforce
the law. It is to get the whole nature of the child to move freely
in the direction wished. To do this needs on the part of the parent
a combination of firmness and love, of patience and decision, of
consistent example and sympathetic encouragement. But it needs also,
on the part of God, and therefore to be asked in earnest, believing
prayer, that wondrous power which touches the springs of the heart,
and draws it to Him and to His ways. Only by this combination of
parental faithfulness and Divine grace can we look for the blessed
result, "when he is old he will not depart from it."