2 SAMUEL xviii. 1-18.
_ABSALOM'S DEFEAT AND DEATH._
Whatever fears of defeat and destruction might occasionally flit
across David's soul between his flight from Jerusalem and the battle
in the wood of Ephraim, it is plain both from his actions and from
his songs that his habitual frame was one of serenity and trust. The
number of psalms ascribed to this period of his life may be in excess
of the truth; but that his heart was in near communion with God all
the time we cannot doubt. Situated as his present refuge was not far
from Peniel, where Jacob had wrestled with the angel, we may believe
that there were wrestlings again in the neighbourhood not unworthy to
be classed with that from which Peniel derived its memorable name.
In the present emergency the answer to prayer consisted, first, in the
breathing-time secured by the success of Hushai's counsel; second, in
the countenance and support of the friends raised up to David near
Mahanaim; and last, not least, in the spirit of wisdom and harmony with
which all the arrangements were made for the inevitable encounter.
Every step was taken with prudence, while every movement of his
opponents seems to have been a blunder. It was wise in David, as we
have already seen, to cross the Jordan and retire into Gilead; it was
wise in him to make Mahanaim his headquarters; it was wise to divide
his army into three parts, for a reason that will presently be seen;
and it was wise to have a wood in the neighbourhood of the battlefield,
though it could not have been foreseen how this was to bear on the
individual on whose behalf the insurrection had taken place.
By this time the followers of David had grown to the dimensions
of an army. We are furnished with no means of knowing its actual
number. Josephus puts it at four thousand, but, judging from some
casual expressions ("David set captains of hundreds and _captains of
thousands_ over them," ver. 1; "Now thou art worth _ten thousand_ of
us," ver. 3; "The people came by thousands," ver. 4), we should infer
that David's force amounted to a good many thousands. The division
of the army into three parts, however, reminding us, as it does,
of Gideon's division of his little force into three, would seem to
imply that David's force was far inferior in number to Absalom's. The
insurrectionary army must have been very large, and stretching over a
great breadth of country, would have presented far too wide a line to
be effectually dealt with by a single body of troops, comparatively
small. Gideon had divided his handful into three that he might make
a simultaneous impression on three different parts of the Midianite
host, and thus contribute the better to the defeat of the whole. So
David divided his army into three, that, meeting Absalom's at three
different points, he might prevent a concentration of the enemy that
would have swallowed up his whole force. David had the advantage of
choosing his ground, and his military instinct and long experience
would doubtless enable him to do this with great effect. His three
generals were able and valuable leaders. The aged king was prepared
to take part in the battle, believing that his presence would be
helpful to his men; but the people would not allow him to run the
risk. Aged and somewhat infirm as he seems to have been, wearied with
his flight, and weakened with the anxieties of so distressing an
occasion, the excitement of the battle might have proved too much for
him, even if he had escaped the enemy's sword. Besides, everything
depended on him; if his place were discovered by the enemy, their
hottest assault would be directed to it; and if he should fall,
there would be left no cause to fight for. "It is better," they
said to him, "that thou succour us out of the city." What kind of
succour could he render there? Only the succour that Moses and his
two attendants rendered to Israel in the fight with Amalek in the
wilderness, when Moses held up his hands, and Aaron and Hur propped
them up. He might pray for them; he could do no more.
By this time Absalom had probably obtained the great object of his
ambition; he had mustered Israel from Dan to Beersheba, and found
himself at the head of an array very magnificent in appearance,
but, like most Oriental gatherings of the kind, somewhat unwieldy
and unworkable. This great conglomeration was now in the immediate
neighbourhood of Mahanaim, and must have seemed as if by sheer weight
of material it would crush any force that could be brought against
it. We read that the battle took place "in the wood of Ephraim." This
could not be a wood in the tribe of Ephraim, for that was on the other
side of Jordan, but a wood in Gilead, that for some reason unknown
to us had been called by that name. The whole region is still richly
wooded, and among its prominent trees is one called the prickly oak.
A _dense_ wood would obviously be unsuitable for battle, but a wooded
district, with clumps here and there, especially on the hill-sides,
and occasional trees and brushwood scattered over the plains, would
present many advantages to a smaller force opposing the onset of a
larger. In the American war of 1755 some of the best troops of England
were nearly annihilated in a wood near Pittsburg in Pennsylvania,
the Indians levelling their rifles unseen from behind the trees, and
discharging them with yells that were even more terrible than their
weapons. We may fancy the three battalions of David making a vigorous
onslaught on Absalom's troops as they advanced into the wooded country,
and when they began to retreat through the woods, and got entangled in
brushwood, or jammed together by thickset trees, discharging arrows at
them, or falling on them with the sword, with most disastrous effect.
"There was a great slaughter that day of twenty thousand men. For the
battle there was scattered over the face of all the country, and the
wood devoured more people that day than the sword devoured." Many of
David's men were probably natives of the country, and in their many
encounters with the neighbouring nations had become familiar with the
warfare of "the bush." Here was one benefit of the choice of Mahanaim
by David as his rallying-ground. The people that joined him from that
quarter knew the ground, and knew how to adapt it to fighting purposes;
the most of Absalom's forces had been accustomed to the bare wadies and
limestone rocks of Western Palestine, and, when caught in the thickets,
could neither use their weapons nor save themselves by flight.
Very touching, if not very business-like, had been David's
instructions to his generals about Absalom: "The king commanded
Joab and Abishai and Ittai saying, Deal gently for my sake with
the young man, even with Absalom. And all the people heard when
the king gave all the captains charge concerning Absalom." It is
interesting to observe that David fully expects to win. There is no
hint of any alternative, as if Absalom would not fall into their
hands. David knows that he is going to conquer, as well as he knew
it when he went against the giant. The confidence which is breathed
in the third Psalm is apparent here. Faith saw his enemies already
defeated. "Thou hast smitten all mine enemies upon the cheekbone;
Thou hast broken the teeth of the ungodly. Salvation belongeth unto
the Lord; Thy blessing is upon Thy people." In a pitched battle, God
could not give success to a godless crew, whose whole enterprise was
undertaken to drive God's anointed one from his throne. Temporary and
partial successes they might have, but final success it was morally
impossible for God to accord. It was not the spirit of his own
troops, nor the undisciplined condition of the opposing host, that
inspired this confidence, but the knowledge that there was a God in
Israel, who would not suffer His anointed to perish, nor the impious
usurper to triumph over him.
We cannot tell whether Absalom was visited with any misgivings as to
the result before the battle began. Very probably he was not. Having
no faith in God, he would make no account whatever of what David
regarded as the Divine palladium of his cause. But if he entered on
the battle confident of success, his anguish is not to be conceived
when he saw his troops yield to panic, and, in wild disorder, try
to dash through the wood. Dreadful miseries must have overwhelmed
him. He does not appear to have made any attempt to rally his troops.
Riding on a mule, in his haste to escape, he probably plunged into
some thick part of the wood, where his head came in contact with a
mass of prickly oak; struggling to make a way through it, he only
entangled his hair more hopelessly in the thicket; then, raising
himself in the saddle to attack it with his hands, his mule went from
under him, and left him hanging between heaven and earth, maddened by
pain, enraged at the absurdity of his plight, and storming against
his attendants, none of whom was near him in his time of need. Nor
was this the worst of it. Absalom was probably among the foremost of
the fugitives, and we can hardly suppose but that many of his own
people fled that way after him. Could it be that all of them were so
eager to escape that not one of them would stop to help their king?
What a contrast the condition of Absalom when fortune turned against
him to that of his father! Dark though David's trials had been, and
seemingly desperate his position, he had not been left alone in its
sudden horrors; the devotion of strangers, as well as the fidelity of
a few attached friends, had cheered him, and had the worst disaster
befallen him, had his troops been routed and his cause ruined, there
were warm and bold hearts that would not have deserted him in his
extremity, that would have formed a wall around him, and with their
lives defended his grey hairs. But when the hour of calamity came
to Absalom it found him alone. Even Saul had his armour-bearer at
his side when he fled over Gilboa; but neither armour-bearer nor
friend attended Absalom as he fled from the battle of the wood of
Ephraim. It would have been well for him if he had really gained a
few of the many hearts he stole. Much though moralists tell us of
the heartlessness of the world in the hour of adversity, we should
not have expected to light on so extreme a case of it. We can hardly
withhold a tear at the sight of the unhappy youth, an hour ago with
thousands eager to obey him, and a throne before him, apparently
secure from danger; now hanging helpless between earth and heaven,
with no companion but an evil conscience, and no prospect but the
judgment of an offended God.
A recent writer, in his "History of the English People" (Green), when
narrating the fall of Cardinal Wolsey, powerfully describes the way of
Providence in suffering a career of unexampled wickedness and ambition
to go on from one degree of prosperity to another, till the moment
of doom arrives, when all is shattered by a single blow. There was
long delay, but "the hour of reckoning at length arrived. Slowly the
hand had crawled along the dial-plate, slowly as if the event would
never come; and wrong was heaped on wrong, and oppression cried, and
it seemed as if no ear had heard its voice, till the measure of the
wickedness was at length fulfilled. The finger touched the hour; and
as the strokes of the great hammer rang out above the nation, in an
instant the whole fabric of iniquity was shivered to ruins."
This hour had now come to Absalom. He had often been reproved, but
had hardened his heart, and was now to be destroyed, and that without
remedy. In the person of Joab, God found a fitting instrument for
carrying His purpose into effect. The character of Joab is something
of a riddle. We cannot say that he was altogether a bad man, or
altogether without the fear of God. Though David bitterly complained
of him in some things, he must have valued him on the whole, for
during the whole of his reign Joab had been his principal general.
That he wanted all tenderness of heart seems very plain. That he
was subject to vehement and uncontrollable impulses, in the heat
of which fearful deeds of blood were done by him, but done in what
seemed to him the interest of the public, is also clear. There is no
evidence that he was habitually savage or grossly selfish. When David
charged him and the other generals to deal tenderly with the young
man Absalom, it is quite possible that he was minded to do so. But in
the excitement of the battle, that uncontrollable impulse seized him
which urged him to the slaughter of Amasa and Abner. The chance of
executing judgment on the arch-rebel who had caused all this misery,
and been guilty of crimes never before heard of in Israel, and thus
ending for ever an insurrection that might have dragged its slow
length along for harassing years to come, was too much for him. "How
could you see Absalom hanging in an oak and not put an end to his
mischievous life?" he asks the man that tells him he had seen him in
that plight. And he has no patience with the man's elaborate apology.
Seizing three darts, he rushes to the place, and thrusts them through
Absalom's heart. And his ten armour-bearers finish the business with
their swords. We need not suppose that he was altogether indifferent
to the feelings of David; but he may have been seized by an
overwhelming conviction that Absalom's death was the only effectual
way of ending this most guilty and pernicious insurrection, and so
preserving the country from ruin. Absalom living, whether banished or
imprisoned, would be a constant and fearful danger. Absalom dead,
great though the king's distress for the time might be, would be the
very salvation of the country. Under the influence of this conviction
he thrust the three darts through his heart, and he allowed his
attendants to hew that comely body to pieces, till the fair form that
all had admired so much became a mere mass of hacked and bleeding
flesh. But whatever may have been the process by which Joab found
himself constrained to disregard the king's order respecting Absalom,
it is plain that to his dying day David never forgave him.
The mode of Absalom's death, and also the mode of his burial, were
very significant. It had probably never happened to any warrior, or
to any prince, to die from a similar cause. And but for the vanity
that made him think so much of his bodily appearance, and especially
of his hair, death would never have come to him in such a form.
Vanity of one's personal appearance is indeed a weakness rather than
a crime. It would be somewhat hard to punish it directly, but it is
just the right way of treating it, to make it punish itself. And so
it was in the case of Absalom. His bitterest enemy could have desired
nothing more ludicrously tragical than to see those beautiful locks
fastening him as with a chain of gold to the arm of the scaffold,
and leaving him dangling there like the most abject malefactor. And
what of the beautiful face and handsome figure that often, doubtless,
led his admirers to pronounce him every inch a king? So slashed and
mutilated under the swords of Joab's ten men, that no one could have
told that it was Absalom that lay there. This was God's judgment on
the young man's vanity.
The mode of his burial is particularly specified. "They took Absalom
and cast him into a great pit in the wood, and laid a very great
heap of stones upon him; and all Israel fled every one to his tent."
The purpose of this seems to have been to show that Absalom was
deemed worthy of the punishment of the rebellious son, as appointed
by Moses; and a more significant expression of opinion could not have
been given. The punishment for the son who remained incorrigibly
rebellious was to be taken beyond the walls of the city, and stoned
to death. It is said by Jewish writers that this punishment was never
actually inflicted, but the mode of Absalom's burial was fitted to
show that he at least was counted as deserving of it. The ignominious
treatment of that graceful body, which he adorned and set off with
such care, did not cease even after it was gashed by the weapons of
the young men; no place was found for it in the venerable cave of
Machpelah; it was not even laid in the family sepulchre at Jerusalem,
but cast ignominiously into a pit in the wood; it was bruised and
pounded by stones, and left to rot there, like the memory of its
possessor, and entail eternal infamy on the place. What a lesson to
all who disown the authority of parents! What a warning to all who
cast away the cords of self-restraint! It is said by Jewish writers
that every by-passer was accustomed to throw a stone on the heap that
covered the remains of Absalom, and as he threw it to say, "Cursed be
the memory of rebellious Absalom; and cursed for ever be all wicked
children that rise up in rebellion against their parents!"
And here it may be well to say a word to children. You all see the
lesson that is taught by the doom of Absalom, and you all feel that
in that doom, terrible though it was, he just reaped what he had
sowed. You see the seed of his offence, disobedience to parents,
bringing forth the most hideous fruit, and receiving in God's
providence a most frightful punishment. You see it without excuse and
without palliation; for David had been a kind father, and had treated
Absalom better than he deserved. Mark, then, that this is the final
fruit of that spirit of disobedience to parents which often begins
with very little offences. These little offences are big enough to
show that you prefer your own will to the will of your parents. If
you had a just and true respect for their authority, you would guard
against little transgressions--you would make conscience of obeying
in all things great and small. Then remember that every evil habit
must have a beginning, and very often it is a small beginning. By
imperceptible stages it may grow and grow, till it becomes a hideous
vice, like this rebellion of Absalom. Nip it in the bud; if you
don't, who can tell whether it may not grow to something terrible,
and at last brand you with the brand of Absalom?
If this be the lesson to children from the doom of Absalom, the
lesson to parents is not less manifest from the case of David. The
early battle between the child's will and the parent's is often
very difficult and trying; but God is on the parent's side, and
will give him the victory if he seeks it aright. It certainly needs
great vigilance, wisdom, patience, firmness, and affection. If you
are careless and unwatchful, the child's will will speedily assert
itself. If you are foolish, and carry discipline too far, if you
thwart the child at every point, instead of insisting on one thing,
or perhaps a few things, at a time, you will weary him and weary
yourself without success. If you are fitful, insisting at one time
and taking no heed at another, you will convey the impression of a
very elastic law, not entitled to much respect. If you lose your
temper, and speak unadvisedly, instead of mildly and lovingly, you
will most effectually set the child's temper up against the very
thing you wish him to do. If you forget that you are not independent
agents, but have got the care of your beloved child from God, and
ought to bring him up as in God's stead, and in the most humble and
careful dependence on God's grace, you may look for blunder upon
blunder in sad succession, with results in the end that will greatly
disappoint you. How close every Christian needs to lie to God in
the exercise of this sacred trust! And how much, when conscious
of weakness and fearing the consequences, ought he to prize the
promise--"My grace is sufficient for thee!"