_ABSALOM BANISHED AND BROUGHT BACK._
2 SAMUEL xiii. 38, 39; xiv.
Geshur, to which Absalom fled after the murder of Amnon, accompanied
in all likelihood by the men who had slain him, was a small kingdom
in Syria, lying between Mount Hermon and Damascus. Maacah, Absalom's
mother, was the daughter of Talmai, king of Geshur, so that Absalom
was there among his own relations. There is no reason to believe
that Talmai and his people had renounced the idolatrous worship that
prevailed in Syria. For David to ally himself in marriage with an
idolatrous people was not in accordance with the law. In law, Absalom
must have been a Hebrew, circumcised the eighth day; but in spirit he
would probably have no little sympathy with his mother's religion.
His utter alienation in heart from his father; the unconcern with
which he sought to drive from the throne the man who had been so
solemnly called to it by God; the vow which he pretended to have
taken, when away in Syria, that if he were invited back to Jerusalem
he would "serve the Lord," all point to a man infected in no small
degree with the spirit, if not addicted to the practice, of idolatry.
And the tenor of his life, so full of cold-blooded wickedness,
exemplified well the influence of idolatry, which bred neither fear
of God nor love of man.
We have seen that Amnon had not that profound hold on David's heart
which Absalom had; and therefore it is little wonder that when time
had subdued the keen sensation of horror, the king "was comforted
concerning Amnon, seeing he was dead." There was no great blank left
in his heart, no irrepressible craving of the soul for the return
of the departed. But it was otherwise in the case of Absalom,--"the
king's heart was towards him." David was in a painful dilemma,
placed between two opposite impulses, the judicial and the paternal;
the judicial calling for the punishment of Absalom, the paternal
craving his restoration. Absalom in the most flagrant way had broken
a law older even than the Sinai legislation, for it had been given
to Noah after the flood--"Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall
his blood be shed." But the deep affection of David for Absalom not
only caused him to shrink from executing that law, but made him most
desirous to have him near him again, pardoned, penitent as he no
doubt hoped, and enjoying all the rights and privileges of the king's
son. The first part of the chapter now before us records the manner
in which David, in great weakness, sacrificed the judicial to the
paternal, sacrificed his judgment to his feelings, and the welfare
of the kingdom for the gratification of his affection. For it was
too evident that Absalom was not a fit man to succeed David on the
throne. If Saul was unfit to rule over God's people, and as God's
vicegerent, much more was Absalom. Not only was he not the right kind
of man, but, as his actions had showed, he was the very opposite. By
his own wicked deed he was now an outlaw and an exile; he was out of
sight and likely to pass out of mind; and it was most undesirable
that any step should be taken to bring him back among the people,
and give him every chance of the succession. Yet in spite of all this
the king in his secret heart desired to get Absalom back. And Joab,
not studying the welfare of the kingdom, but having regard only to
the strong wishes of the king and of the heir-apparent, devised a
scheme for fulfilling their desire.
That collision of the paternal and the judicial, which David removed
by sacrificing the judicial, brings to our mind a discord of the same
kind on a much greater scale, which received a solution of a very
different kind. The sin of man created the same difficulty in the
government of God. The judicial spirit, demanding man's punishment,
came into collision with the paternal, desiring his happiness. How
were they to be reconciled? This is the great question on which the
priests of the world, when unacquainted with Divine revelation,
have perplexed themselves since the world began. When we study the
world's religions, we see very clearly that it has never been held
satisfactory to solve the problem as David solved his difficulty,
by simply sacrificing the judicial. The human conscience refuses to
accept of such a settlement. It demands that some satisfaction shall
be made to that law of which the Divine Judge is the administrator.
It cannot bear to see God abandoning His judgment-seat in order that
He may show indiscriminate mercy. Fantastic and foolish in the last
degree, grim and repulsive too, in many cases, have been the devices
by which it has been sought to supply the necessary satisfaction.
The awful sacrifices of Moloch, the mutilations of Juggernaut, the
penances of popery, are most repulsive solutions, while they all
testify to the intuitive conviction of mankind that something in the
form of atonement is indispensable. But if these solutions repel
us, not less satisfactory is the opposite view, now so current,
that nothing in the shape of sin-offering is necessary, that no
consideration needs to be taken of the judicial, that the infinite
clemency of God is adequate to deal with the case, and that a true
belief in His most loving fatherhood is all that is required for the
forgiveness and acceptance of His erring children. In reality this
is no solution at all; it is just David's method of sacrificing the
judicial; it satisfies no healthy conscience, it brings solid peace
to no troubled soul. The true and only solution, by which due regard
is shown both to the judicial and the paternal, is that which is so
fully unfolded and enforced in the Epistles of St. Paul. "God was
in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself, not imputing unto men
their trespasses.... For He hath made Him to be sin for us, who knew
no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him."
Returning to the narrative, we have next to examine the stratagem of
Joab, designed to commit the king unwittingly to the recall of Absalom.
The idea of the method may quite possibly have been derived from
Nathan's parable of the ewe lamb. The design was to get the king to
give judgment in an imaginary case, and thus commit him to a similar
judgment in the case of Absalom. But there was a world-wide difference
between the purpose of the parable of Nathan and that of the wise woman
of Tekoah. Nathan's parable was designed to rouse the king's conscience
as against his feelings; the woman of Tekoah's, as prompted by Joab,
to rouse his feelings as against his conscience. Joab found a fitting
tool for his purpose in a wise woman of Tekoah, a small town in the
south of Judah. She was evidently an accommodating and unscrupulous
person; but there is no reason to compare her to the woman of Endor,
whose services Saul had resorted to. She seems to have been a woman
of dramatic faculty, clever at personating another, and at acting a
part. Her skill in this way becoming known to Joab, he arranged with
her to go to the king with a fictitious story, and induce him now to
bring back Absalom. Her story bore that she was a widow who had been
left with two sons, one of whom in a quarrel killed his brother in
the field. All the family were risen against her to constrain her to
give up the murderer to death, but if she did so her remaining coal
would be quenched, and neither name nor remainder left to her husband
on the face of the earth. On hearing the case, the king seems to have
been impressed in the woman's favour, and promised to give an order
accordingly. Further conversation obtained clearer assurances from him
that he would protect her from the avenger of blood. Then, dropping so
far her disguise, she ventured to remonstrate with the king, inasmuch
as he had not dealt with his own son as he was prepared to deal with
hers. "Wherefore then hast thou devised such a thing against the people
of God? for in speaking this word, the king is as one that is guilty,
in that the king doth not fetch home again his banished one. For we
must needs die, and are as water spilt upon the ground which cannot be
gathered up again; neither doth God take away life, but deviseth means
that he that is banished be not an outcast from Him." We cannot but
be struck, though not favourably, with the pious tone which the woman
here assumed to David. She represents that the continued banishment
of Absalom is against the people of God,--it is not for the nation's
interest that the heir-apparent should be for ever banished. It is
against the example of God, who, in administering His providence, does
not launch His arrows at once against the destroyer of life, but rather
shows him mercy, and allows him to return to his former condition.
Clemency is a divine-like attribute. The king who can disentangle
difficulties, and give such prominence to mercy, is like an angel
of God. It is a divine-like work he undertakes when he recalls his
banished. She can pray, when he is about to undertake such a business,
"The Lord thy God be with thee" (R.V.). She knew that any difficulties
the king might have in recalling his son would arise from his fears
that he would be acting against God's will. The clever woman fills his
eye with considerations on one side--the mercy and forbearance of God,
the pathos of human life, the duty of not making things worse than they
necessarily are. She knew he would be startled when she named Absalom.
She knew that though he had given judgment on the general principle
as involved in the imaginary case she had put before him, he might
demur to the application of that principle to the case of Absalom.
Her instructions from Joab were to get the king to sanction Absalom's
return. The king has a surmise that the hand of Joab is in the whole
transaction, and the woman acknowledges that it is so. After the
interview with the woman, David sends for Joab, and gives him leave to
fetch back Absalom. Joab goes to Geshur and brings Absalom to Jerusalem.
But David's treatment of Absalom when he returns does not bear out
the character for unerring wisdom which the woman had given him. The
king refuses to see his son, and for two years Absalom lives in his
own house, without enjoying any of the privileges of the king's son.
By this means David took away all the grace of the transaction, and
irritated Absalom. He was afraid to exercise his royal prerogative in
pardoning him out-and-out. His conscience told him it ought not to
be done. To restore at once one who had sinned so flagrantly to all
his dignity and power was against the grain. Though therefore he had
given his consent to Absalom returning to Jerusalem, for all practical
purposes he might as well have been at Geshur. And Absalom was not the
man to bear this quietly. How would his proud spirit like to hear of
royal festivals at which all were present but he? How would he like
to hear of distinguished visitors to the king from the surrounding
countries, and he alone excluded from their society? His spirit would
be chafed like that of a wild beast in its cage. Now it was, we
cannot doubt, that he felt a new estrangement from his father, and
conceived the project of seizing upon his throne. Now too it probably
was that he began to gather around him the party that ultimately gave
him his short-lived triumph. There would be sympathy for him in some
quarters as an ill-used man; while there would rally to him all who
were discontented with David's government, whether on personal or on
public grounds. The enemies of his godliness, emboldened by his conduct
towards Uriah, finding there what Daniel's enemies in a future age
tried in vain to find in his conduct, would begin to think seriously
of the possibility of a change. Probably Joab began to apprehend the
coming danger when he refused once and again to speak to Absalom. It
seemed to be the impression both of David and of Joab that there would
be danger to the state in his complete restoration.
Two years of this state of things had passed, and the patience of
Absalom was exhausted. He sent for Joab to negotiate for a change of
arrangements. But Joab would not see him. A second time he sent, and
a second time Joab declined. Joab was really in a great difficulty.
He seems to have seen that he had made a mistake in bringing Absalom
to Jerusalem, but it was a mistake out of which he could not
extricate himself. He was unwilling to go back, and he was afraid to
go forward. He had not courage to undo the mistake he had made in
inviting Absalom to return by banishing him again. If he should meet
Absalom he knew he would be unable to meet the arguments by which he
would press him to complete what he had begun when he invited him
back. Therefore he studiously avoided him. But Absalom was not to be
outdone in this way. He fell on a rude stratagem for bringing Joab to
his presence. Their fields being adjacent to each other, Absalom sent
his servants to set Joab's barley on fire. The irritation of such an
unprovoked injury overcame Joab's unwillingness to meet Absalom; he
went to him in a rage and demanded why this had been done. The matter
of the barley would be easy to arrange; but now that he had met
Joab he showed him that there were just two modes of treatment open
to David,--either really to pardon, or really to punish him. This
probably was just what Joab felt. There was no good, but much harm in
the half-and-half policy which the king was pursuing. If Absalom was
pardoned, let him be on friendly terms with the king. If he was not
pardoned, let him be put to death for the crime he had committed.
Joab was unable to refute Absalom's reasoning. And when he went to
the king he would press that view on him likewise. And now, after
two years of a half-and-half measure, the king sees no alternative
but to yield. "When he had called for Absalom, he came to the king,
and bowed himself to his face on the ground before the king; and
the king kissed Absalom." This was the token of reconciliation and
friendship. But it would not be with a clear conscience or an easy
mind that David saw the murderer of his brother in full possession of
the honours of the king's son.
In all this conduct of King David we can trace only the infatuation
of one left to the guidance of his own mind. It is blunder after
blunder. Like many good but mistaken men, he erred both in inflicting
punishments and in bestowing favours. Much that ought to be punished
such persons pass over; what they do select for punishment is
probably something trivial; and when they punish it is in a way
so injudicious as to defeat its ends. And some, like David, keep
oscillating between punishment and favour so as at once to destroy
the effect of the one and the grace of the other. His example may
well show all of you who have to do with such things the need
of great carefulness in this important matter. Penalties, to be
effectual, should be for marked offences, but when incurred should
be firmly maintained. Only when the purpose of the punishment is
attained ought reconciliation to take place, and when that comes it
should be full-hearted and complete, restoring the offender to the
full benefit of his place and privilege, both in the home and in the
hearts of his parents.
So David lets Absalom loose, as it were, on the people of Jerusalem.
He is a young man of fine appearance and fascinating manners. "In
all Israel there was none to be so much praised as Absalom for his
beauty; from the sole of the foot even to the crown of the head
there was no blemish in him. And when he polled his head (for it
was at every year's end that he polled it; because his hair was
heavy on him, therefore he polled it) the weight of the hair of his
head was two hundred shekels after the king's weight." No doubt this
had something to do with David's great liking for him. He could not
but look on him with pride, and think with pleasure how much he was
admired by others. The affection which owed so much to a cause of
this sort was not likely to be of the highest or purest quality. What
then are we to say of David's fondness for Absalom? Was it wrong for
a father to be attached to his child? Was it wrong for him to love
even a wicked child? No one can for a moment think so who remembers
that "God _commended His love towards us_, in that _while we were
yet sinners_ Christ died for us." There is a sense in which loving
emotions may warrantably be more powerfully excited in the breast of
a godly parent toward an erring child than toward a wise and good
one. The very thought that a child is in the thraldom of sin creates
a feeling of almost infinite pathos with reference to his condition.
The loving desire for his good and his happiness becomes more intense
from the very sense of the disorder and misery in which he lies. The
sheep that has strayed from the fold is the object of a more profound
emotion than the ninety-and-nine that are safe within it. In this
sense a parent cannot love his child, even his sinful and erring
child, too well. The love that seeks another's highest good can never
be too intense, for it is the very counterpart and image of God's
love for sinful men.
But, as far as we can gather, David's love for Absalom was not
exclusively of this kind. It was a fondness that led him to wink
at his faults even when they became flagrant, and that desired to
see him occupying a place of honour and responsibility for which
he certainly was far from qualified. This was more than the love of
benevolence. The love of benevolence has, in the Christian bosom, an
unlimited sphere. It may be given to the most unworthy. But the love of
complacency, of delight in any one, of desire for his company, desire
for close relations with him, confidence in him, as one to whom our
own interests and the interests of others may be safely entrusted, is
a quite different feeling. This kind of love must ever be regulated
by the degree of true excellence, of genuine worth, possessed by the
person loved. The fault in David's love to Absalom was not that he was
too benevolent, not that he wished his son too well. It was that he
had too much complacency or delight in him, delight resting on very
superficial ground, and that he was too willing to have him entrusted
with the most vital interests of the nation. This fondness for Absalom
was a sort of infatuation, to which David never could have yielded if
he had remembered the hundred and first Psalm, and if he had thought of
the kind of men whom alone when he wrote that psalm he determined to
promote to influence in the kingdom.
And on this we found a general lesson of no small importance. Young
persons, let us say emphatically young women, and perhaps Christian
young women, are apt to be captivated by superficial qualities,
qualities like those of Absalom, and in some cases are not only
ready but eager to marry those who possess them. In their blindness
they are willing to commit not only their own interests but the
interests of their children, if they should have any, to men who
are not Christians, perhaps barely moral, and who are therefore not
worthy of their trust. Here it is that affection should be watched
and restrained. Christians should never allow their affections to be
engaged by any whom, on Christian grounds, they do not thoroughly
esteem. All honour to those who, at great sacrifice, have honoured
this rule! All honour to Christian parents who bring up their
children to feel that, if they are Christians themselves, they can
marry only in the Lord! Alas for those who deem accidental and
superficial qualities sufficient grounds for a union which involves
the deepest interests of souls for time and for eternity! In David's
ill-founded complacency in Absalom, and the woeful disasters which
flowed from it, let them see a beacon to warn them against any
union which has not mutual esteem for its foundation, and does not
recognise those higher interests in reference to which the memorable
words were spoken by our Lord, "What is a man profited if he gain the
whole world and lose his own soul?"