'God doth devise means, that His banished be not expelled from Him.' 2
SAMUEL xiv. 14.
David's good-for-nothing son Absalom had brought about the murder of
one of his brothers, and had fled the country. His father weakly loved
the brilliant blackguard, and would fain have had him back, but was
restrained by a sense of kingly duty. Joab, the astute
Commander-in-chief, a devoted friend of David, saw how the land lay,
and formed a plan to give the king an excuse for doing what he wished
to do. So he got hold of a person who is called 'a wise woman' from the
country, dressed her as a mourner, and sent her with an ingeniously
made-up story of how she was a widow with two sons, one of whom had
killed the other, and of how the relatives insisted on their right of
avenging blood, and demanded the surrender of the murderer; by which,
as she pathetically said, 'the coal' that was left her would be
'quenched.' The king's sympathy was quickly roused--as was natural in
so impulsive and poetic a nature--and he pledged his word, and finally
his oath, that the offender should be safe.
So the woman has him in a trap, having induced him to waive justice and
to absolve the guilty by an arbitrary act. Then she turns upon him with
an application to his own case, and bids him free himself from the
guilt of double measures and inconsistency by doing with his banished
son the same thing--viz. abrogating law and bringing back the offender.
In our text she urges still higher considerations--viz. those of God's
way of treating criminals against His law, of whom she says that He
spares their lives, and devises means-or, as the words might perhaps be
rendered, 'plans plannings'--by which He may bring them back. She would
imply that human power and sovereignty are then noblest and likest
God's when they remit penalties and restore wanderers.
I do not further follow the story, which ends, as we all know, with
Absalom's ill-omened return. But the wise woman's saying goes very
deep, and, in its picturesque form, may help to bring out more vividly
some truths--all-important ones--of which I wish to beg your very
earnest consideration and acceptance.