The king was much moved, and went up to the room over the gate, and wept. As he went, he said, “My son Absalom! My son, my son Absalom! I wish I had died for you, Absalom, my son, my son!”
Parallel Translations
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The king was much moved, and went up to the room over the gate, and wept. As he went, he said, “My son Absalom! My son, my son Absalom! I wish I had died for you, Absalom, my son, my son!”
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And the king was much moved, and went up to the chamber over the gate, and wept: and as he went, thus he said, O my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom! would God I had died for thee, O Absalom, my son, my son!
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(19-1) And the king was much moved, and went up to the chamber over the gate, and wept; and as he went, thus he said: 'O my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom! would I had died for thee, O Absalom, my son, my son!'
Cross-references (8)
Passages linked to 2 Samuel 18:33 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- 2 Samuel 19:4 The king covered his face, and the king cried with a loud voice, “My son Absalom, Absalom, my son, my son!”
- 2 Samuel 12:10-23 Now therefore the sword will never depart from your house, because you have despised me, and have taken Uriah the Hittite’s wife to be your wife.’ “This is what Yahweh says: ‘Behold, I will raise up evil against you out of your own house; and I will take your wives before your eyes, and give them to your neighbor, and he will lie with your wives in the sight of this sun. For you did this secretly, but I will do this thing before all Israel, and before the sun.’ ” David said to Nathan, “I have sinned against Yahweh.” Nathan said to David, “Yahweh also has put away your sin. You will not die. However, because by this deed you have given great occasion to Yahweh’s enemies to blaspheme, the child also who is born to you will surely die.” Nathan departed to his house. Yahweh struck the child that Uriah’s wife bore to David, and it was very sick. David therefore begged God for the child; and David fasted, and went in, and lay all night on the ground. The elders of his house arose beside him, to raise him up from the earth: but he would not, and he didn’t eat bread with them. On the seventh day, the child died. David’s servants were afraid to tell him that the child was dead, for they said, “Behold, while the child was yet alive, we spoke to him, and he didn’t listen to our voice. How will he then harm himself, if we tell him that the child is dead?” But when David saw that his servants were whispering together, David perceived that the child was dead; and David said to his servants, “Is the child dead?” They said, “He is dead.” Then David arose from the earth, and washed, and anointed himself, and changed his clothing; and he came into Yahweh’s house, and worshiped. Then he came to his own house; and when he requested, they set bread before him, and he ate. Then his servants said to him, “What is this that you have done? You fasted and wept for the child while he was alive, but when the child was dead, you rose up and ate bread.” He said, “While the child was yet alive, I fasted and wept; for I said, ‘Who knows whether Yahweh will not be gracious to me, that the child may live?’ But now he is dead, why should I fast? Can I bring him back again? I will go to him, but he will not return to me.”
- Psalms 103:13 Like a father has compassion on his children, so Yahweh has compassion on those who fear him.
- Proverbs 10:1 The proverbs of Solomon. A wise son makes a glad father; but a foolish son brings grief to his mother.
- Proverbs 17:25 A foolish son brings grief to his father, and bitterness to her who bore him.
- Exodus 32:32 Yet now, if you will, forgive their sin—and if not, please blot me out of your book which you have written.”
- Romans 9:3 For I could wish that I myself were accursed from Christ for my brothers’ sake, my relatives according to the flesh
- James 5:17 Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed earnestly that it might not rain, and it didn’t rain on the earth for three years and six months.
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this verse (14 sources)
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Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain Because he considereth both the judgment of God against…
Because he considereth both the judgment of God against his sin, and could not otherwise hide his fatherly affection toward his son.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain 2Sa 18:33 And the king was much moved, and…
2Sa 18:33 And the king was much moved, and went up to the chamber over the gate, and wept: and as he went, thus he said, O my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom! would God I had died for thee, O Absalom, my son, my son!
Ver. 33. And the king was much moved.] A great deal more than was justified. Many heathens have better borne the death of their dear children; as he who, bearing his son’s death, said only this, Novi me genuine mortalem. Pulvillus, when he was about to consecrate a temple to Jupiter, and news was brought to him of the death of his son, would not desist from his enterprise, but with much composure of mind gave order for decent burial. Now is it not a shame that nature should outstrip grace? - that David, hearing that Absalom was dead, should thus inconsolabiliter lamentari et victoriam funestare, lament so unreasonably and intempestively now, to the endangering of all his people, who, it might be feared, would hereupon have forsaken him, and set up a new captain over them? But it is like it was the fear lest he died in his sin, and so perished for ever, that so much troubled David, and then, - Lugeatur mortuus; sed ille quem gehenna suscipit, quem Tartarus devorat, in cuius poenam aeternus ignis aestuat, saith Jerome; in that case there is great cause of mourning indeed. Howbeit est modus in rebus, there is reason in all things; and all immoderations are to be avoided, as offensive to God and prejudicial to the soul.
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And as he went thus he said, O Absalom, &c.] The poet saith, Res est ingeniosa dolor, Grief is a witty thing; nevertheless the excess of it maketh a man foolish, as it did David here; and as Alexander the Great, who, bewailing the death of his favourite, Hephaestion, not only clipped his horses’ and mules’ hair, but plucked down also the battlements of the walls of the city, that they might seem to mourn too. {a}
Would God I had died for thee!] Thus he could now cry out ill natural sorrow. But who ever heard David cry out in godly sorrow, O Uriah, would God I had died for thee! But that is more rational, the other more passionate.
{a} Plutarch.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain Went up to the chamber over the gate; retiring…
Went up to the chamber over the gate; retiring himself from all men and business, that he might wholly give up himself to lamentation.
David might speak thus from a deep sense of his eternal state, because he died in his sins, without the least testimony of repentance, and because David himself had by his own sins been the unhappy instrument and occasion of his son’s death.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain And the king was much moved,.... His affections were…
And the king was much moved,.... His affections were moved, his passions were stirred up; he was greatly troubled, distressed, and grieved:
and went up to the chamber over the gate, and wept; got out of sight and company as soon as he could; as his own dwelling was at some distance, he made haste to the chamber in the watchtower, over the gate of the city, where the watchman was, to vent his grief; and could not suppress it till he got thither:
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and as he went; up the stairs to the chamber:
thus he said, O my son Absalom! my son, my son Absalom! which repetition expresses the vehemence of his affections, and how inconsolable he was on account of his son's death:
would God I had died for thee, O Absalom, my son, my son! some think he said this on account of his eternal state, being satisfied of his own; but it may be it was only the effect of natural affection, indulged to too great a degree, and unbecoming so good a man in such a case; the Targum is,"I wish I had died for thee, and thou hadst remained this day.''
Next: 2 Samuel Chapter 19
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain Over the gate - Retiring himself from all men…
Over the gate - Retiring himself from all men and business, that he might wholly give up himself to lamentation. My son - This he might speak from a deep sense of his eternal state, because he died in his sins, and because David himself had by his own sins been the occasion of his death. But it seems rather to be the effect of strong passion, causing him to speak unadvisedly with his lips.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain Verse 33. O my son Absalom] It is allowed…
Verse 33. O my son Absalom] It is allowed by the most able critics that this lamentation is exceedingly pathetic. In what order the words were pronounced, for much depends on this, we cannot say. Perhaps it was the following: -
בני אבשלום בני Beni Abshalom, beni!
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My son Absalom! O my son!
בני אבשלום Beni Abshalom!
O my son Absalom!
מי יתן מותי אני תחתיך
Mi yitten muthi ani thachteicha.
O that I had died in thy stead!
אבשלום בני בני Abshalom, beni! beni!
O Absalom, my son, my son!
Is there no hope for the soul of this profligate young man? He died in his iniquity: but is it not possible that he implored the mercy of his Maker while he hung in the tree? And is it not possible that the mercy of God was extended to him? And was not that suspension a respite, to the end that he might have time to deprecate the wrath of Divine justice?
This is at least a charitable conjecture, and humanity will delight in such a case to lay hold even on possibilities. If there be any room for hope in such a death, who that knows the worth of an immortal soul, would not wish to indulge in it?
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain There is not in the whole of the Old…
There is not in the whole of the Old Testament a passage of deeper pathos than this. Compare Luk 19:41. In the Hebrew Bible this verse commences the nineteenth chapter. The King James Version follows the Greek and Latin versions.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain Wept, in private. (Menochius) --- Would. David lamented the…
Wept, in private. (Menochius) --- Would. David lamented the death of Absalom, because of the wretched state in which he died; and therefore would have been glad to have saved his life, even by dying for him. In this he was a figure of Christ weeping, praying, and dying for his rebellious children, and even for them that crucified him. (Challoner; St. Ambrose (de Ob. Valent.); Theodoret, q. 35.) --- David had presently ceased to weep for the son of Bethsabee, because he had reason to hope that he was saved. (Calmet)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain 33. The chamber over the gate — An apartment…
33. The chamber over the gate — An apartment in the upper part of the tower of one of the gates.
O my son Absalom — This lamentation is the most touchingly pathetic of all David’s elegies, and it sprung from the deepest depths of his heart. One hardly knows which most to wonder at, the excessive tenderness of the father, or the pitiable weakness of the king.
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In the life and death of Absalom we have a picture of the fast young man. At an early period of his life a bitter hatred towards his brother soon ends in impious fratricide, and a soul thus passionate and rash can easily find its way to the crimes of an incendiary. 2Sa_14:30. Excessively vain, he loves to display his beauty, and have his praises spoken of in Israel; and this path of vainglory leads him rapidly on to an ostentatious prodigality that affects regal pomp and splendour, (2Sa_15:1,) and even erects a pillar to perpetuate his name. For a youth thus reckless and headstrong it was no difficult matter to plot treason, (even against a father’s throne,) seduce the people, betray the innocent, and commit the most shameful incest. Such abandoned characters are sure to meet with a miserable end.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain 33. David’s mourning for Absalom
33. David’s mourning for Absalom
33. was much moved] Better perhaps, was sore troubled. Sept. ἐταράχθη is a good rendering. This passionate outburst of grief was due not only to the tenderness of affection, which was so striking a trait in David’s character, but to the bitterness of the thought that the rebel, the would-be parricide, was thus
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“Cut off even in the blossoms of his sin,
No reckoning made, but sent to his account
With all his imperfections on his head;”
and that this terrible catastrophe was the fruit and the punishment of his own crimes. The heart-broken cry “Would God I had died for thee” was not only the utterance of self-sacrificing love, but the confession that he had himself deserved the punishment which fell upon another. Cp. ch. 2Sa_24:17.
would God, &c.] So Moses (Exo_32:32), and so St Paul (Rom_9:3), would have sacrificed themselves, had it been possible, to save others.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain (33) Was much moved.—David’s grief was not merely that…
(33) Was much moved.—David’s grief was not merely that of a father for his first-born son, but for that son slain in the very act of outrageous sin. His sorrow, too, may have gained poignancy from the thought—which must often have come to him during the progress of this rebellion—that all this sin and wrong took its occasion from his own great sin. Yet David was criminally weak at this crisis in allowing the feelings of the father completely to outweigh the duties of the monarch.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain The king was much moved. The Hebrew word properly…
The king was much moved. The Hebrew word properly refers to agitation of body. A violent trembling seized the king, and, rising, he went up to the guard chamber over the two gates, that he might give free course to his lamentation. The whole is told so vividly that we can scarcely doubt that we have here the words of one who was present at this pathetic scene, who saw the tremor which shook David"s body, and watched him as he crept slowly up the stairs, uttering words of intense sorrow. And it was conscience which smote him; for his own "sin had found him out." In Psalm 38, and 40. he has made the confession that it was his own iniquity which was now surging over his head.
Ver. 33. (MAHANAIM.)
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David"s lament over Absalom.
that I had died in thy stead, O Absalom! my son! my son!" In a little court between the inner and the outer gate of the fortified city wall, where (in the early morning) he stood and watched his brave soldiers going forth to battle (ver. 4), sits the aged king at eventide, (2Sa_19:3, 2Sa_19:7) awaiting tidings from the battlefield. The watchman, "from the roof of the gate at the wall," calls out to him that he descries, first one man "running alone" (not with others, as in flight, ver. 25), then another, and, as the foremost approaches nearer, says that he thinks his running is like that of the swift footed Ahimaaz. (2Sa_17:17) On the arrival of the news of victory ("Peace!"), the first words of David (like his last, ver. 5) are of Absalom; "Is there peace (shalom) to is it well with the young man Absalom?" and, perceiving his deep concern, Ahimaaz dares not reveal the whole truth (ver. 20). Again; the king makes the same inquiry of the Cushite, who (with less sympathy, but greater fidelity) utters the wish that as the young man, so might all the king"s enemies be! "And the king was much moved (greatly agitated with grief), and went up to the upper chamber of the gate, and wept; and thus he said, as he walked (to and fro): My son Absalom! my son! my son Absalom!" etc.
Is it so far from thee Thou canst no longer see In the chamber over the gate That old man desolate, Weeping and wailing sore For his son who is no more? "O Absalom, my son!
Somewhere at every hour The watchman on the tower Looks forth, and sees the fleet Approach of hurrying feet Of messengers, that bear The tidings of despair. "O Absalom, my son!
That "tis a common grief Bringeth but slight relief; Ours is the bitterest loss. Ours is the heaviest cross; And forever the cry will be, "Would God I had died for thee, O Absalom, my son! (Longfellow. )
"Absalom afflicted his father more by his death than by his life" (Augustine). This expression of intense and absorbing grief (in which all joy of victory is swallowed up, (2Sa_19:2) is indicative of
I PARENTAL AFFECTION from which it springs. Five times the afflicted father cries, "My son!" (B"ni); thrice, "Absalom!" A father"s love (especially in such a fervid soul as David"s) is:
1. The natural, instinctive, spontaneous effect of the relationship whichsubsists between him and his child. It is the closest relationship of life, and is mercifully joined by the Creator and Father of all with a great and peculiar affection; which, nevertheless (whilst it is intensified and exalted by a proper appreciation of its object, as "the offspring of God") requires to be regulated by intelligence and piety.
1. Deeply rooted, enduring, indestructible. It is not eradicated by a son"sestrangement, (Luk_15:12) wilfulness, manifold transgressions, or even open rebellion. It makes large allowances, has much patience and forbearance; "believeth all things," etc., (1Co_13:7) "covereth
2. all sins. (Pro_10:12) It feels persuaded that he has "some good thing in him," And cannot endure the thought of his entire abandonment, "Not only the question itself (ver. 29), but the very terms of it, breathe the tenderness of David"s feelings. Absalom is "the youth," as if his youth were a full excuse for his conduct" ("Speaker"s Commentary").
3. Pitiful, sympathetic, self-sacrificing. (Psa_103:13) "My son, my beloved, my beautiful Absalom! miserably slain, and now lying dead! Would that I had died for thee!" (2Sa_24:17; Exo_32:32; Rom_9:3)
Thou seest the braided roots that bind Yon towering cedar to the rock; Thou seest the clinging ivy twined As if to spurn the whirlwind"s shock; Poor emblems of the strings that tie His offspring to a parent"s heart; For those will, mouldering, yield and die, But these can never, never part.
II DISAPPOINTED EXPECTATION AND HOPE. All through the course pursued by Absalom, David doubtless cherished the hope that:
1. He might see the error of his way, and, constrained by his father"saffection, repent of his sins. He may have supposed him penitent at the time of his return, (2Sa_14:23) and that his reconciliation (2Sa_14:33) would be followed by filial love and obedience.
2. He might fulfil the anticipations formed at his birth, strengthened by the brilliant promise of his early youth, and apparently justified by his more recent diligence and religious zeal. (2Sa_15:2, 2Sa_15:8) The love of a parent often blinds him to the many defects and malicious designs of his son. Until this moment David hoped (ver. 5) that:
3. His life, at least, might be spared and his destruction averted. All issuddenly extinguished; his "sun is gone down while it was yet day;" and the remembrance of its brightness remains only to deepen the gloom of the succeeding night.
III PERSONAL COMPUNCTION. Had the righteous judgment of God overtaken Absalom because he had "risen up against him" (ver. 31)? Was David himself, then, blameless? He could not but remember that:
1. He had despised the commandment of the Lord, and rebelled against theDivine King of Israel.
2. He had contributed by his own conduct to the misconduct of his Son."the worst ingredient in this cup of anguish would be, I think, the consciousness in David"s heart that, if he had himself been all he ought to have been, his son might not thus have perished (W.M. Taylor).
3. He was now suffering the chastisement of Heaven, of which his son"s death was a part. "Absalom"s sin and shame had two sides there was in it the curse that David"s sin brought on David"s house, (2Sa_12:10) the misdeed of the father"s that is visited on the children; (Exo_20:5) and not less, Absalom"s own wickedness and recklessness, which made him the bearer of the family curse. David looks at Absalom"s deed not on the latter side, but on the former (for his own guilt seems to him so great, that he looks little at Absalom"s); hence his deep, boundless compassion for his misguided son" (Kurtz). "The heartbroken cry, "Would God I had died for thee!" was not only the utterance of self-sacrificing love, but the confession that he himself deserved the punishment which fell upon another" (Kirkpatrick).
IV IRREPARABLE LOSS AND SEPARATION. "As that young man is;" his life "as water spilt upon the ground," etc. No cries nor tears can restore him to his father or "the land of the living" (1Sa_25:29; 2Sa_4:11; Psa_26:9 Psa_49:8) Whatever David may have thought of his condition in Sheol, no parent can contemplate the death of a rebellious and impenitent son without heart rending grief, arising from the fear of his exclusion from the presence of God, sharing the doom of the Lord"s enemies, and endless separation from the fellowship of saints. "All hope abandon, ye who enter here!" (Dante, "Inferno," 3.).
REMARKS.
1. It is possible, under circumstances most favourable to goodness, tobecome exceedingly bad.
2. One of the greatest evils in the world is that of disobedience to parents. (2Ti_3:3)
1. The love of on earthly parent toward his children is a shadow of theeternal Father"s love to men. "He is affected with fatherly love towards the whole human race. Inasmuch as we are men, we must be dear to God, and our salvation must be precious in his sight". (Calvin, on Eze_18:4)
2. The Divine sorrow over men when they fall into sin and ruin, as revealedin the holy tears of Jesus, indicates their final state in "the world of infinite mourning. D.
A father"s anguish at his sows death.
The stroke which David feared fell upon him at last. In spite of all his desire to save his rebellious son, and his commands to each of the generals to "deal gently" with him for his sake, he had been slain. When the father learnt the unwelcome truth from "the Cushite" (Revised Version), he was overwhelmed with grief; and retiring to "the chamber over the gate" he burst out in the pathetic lamentation, "O my son Absalom!" etc., and continued crying with a loud voice, "O my son Absalom! O Absalom, my son, my son!". (2Sa_19:4) These loud demonstrations of grief were in a high degree impolitic, as Joab soon convinced him, (2Sa_19:5-8) but they were the natural outburst of his tender heart and his unquenchable love for his worthless son. He had grieved sorely in the expectation of the death of his infant child; (2Sa_12:16, 2Sa_12:21, 2Sa_12:22) much more must he grieve over this young man, on whom his heart had been set for so many years, and for whom he had done and borne so much. Moreover, Absalom had died suddenly, and by violence, and in sinful war against his father unrepentant, unforgiven. David might even, in his passionate grief, reflect on himself as the occasion, however innocently, of his death, since it arose from the measures he had taken in defence of himself and his throne. Still more bitter would be the reflection that, by his foolish fondness, his evil example, his laxity of discipline, his refraining from merited punishment of his son"s earlier sins and crimes, and his neglect to crush his treasonable practices at their commencement, be had greatly contributed to the formation of his evil character, and to his untimely and miserable end.
I THE SORROW OF PARENTS BEREFT OF GROWN-UP CHILDREN. It is composed of various elements.
1. Sorrow of natural affection. Which cannot always give account of itself, but is implanted by the Creator for most important purposes, is increased by years of exercise and mutual endearments and services, and often survives when these have ceased, and parental love is requited with ingratitude, neglect, injury, or deadly hostility.
2. Sorrow of disappointed hope. Parents picture to themselves a career of prosperity and honourable activity for their children, and try to ensure it by the education and start in life which they give them. Or they may have looked to their son to be the prop of their own old age. How can they but sorrow bitterly when all their hopes are scattered by death?
3. Their sorrow may be increased by painful fears. It may be a sorrow uncheered by hope, because over the death of one who lived and died in sin.
4. Self-reproach may, as in the ease of David, accompany and embitter the grief. The highest parental duties those which have respect to the souls of children may have been neglected. The home may have been, through parental indifference and worldliness, if no worse, a quite unfit place of preparation for holy service on earth or entrance into heaven. The sorrow arising from the consciousness of this cannot be assuaged by remembrance of the education given to prepare for this world"s business, or the accomplishments imparted to render life refined and agreeable.
5. The sorrows of bereaved parents are increased and from time to timerenewed by observing the happiness of other parents whose children are continued to them, and are living in habits of piety, rectitude, and benevolence.
II CONSOLATIONS FOR SUCH SORROW. These are to be found in:
1. Profound submission to the will of God. The death we mourn, however it comes, was his doing who has the right to dispose of us and ours according to his pleasure; and who is infinite in wisdom and goodness Father." "Thou didst it"; (Psa_39:9) "The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away". (Job_1:21)
2. Assurance of his fatherly compassion. That he sympathizes while he chastises. (Psa_103:13)
3. A good conscience. Happy the fathers, the mothers, who have the consoling reflection that they did their best to fit their departed children for this world or the. next.
4. In the case of the death of godly children, the assurance of their blessed existence and happy commencement of nobler careers than those cut short by death. The assurance also of future reunion where "there shall be no more death". (Rev_21:4)
In conclusion:
1. Let parents think of their children as mortal; and be concerned so to train and influence them as to fit them for both living and dying.
2. Let children live in view of a possibly early death. Seek safety in Christ. Let life be a constant following of him. Dread to have life shortened and death made terrible by sins and vices. Let your parents have the consolation of knowing, should you die young, that you are "not lost, but gone before. G.W.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain And the king was much moved, and went up…
2Sa_18:33
And the king was much moved, and went up to the chamber over the gate and wept.
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The wail of a broken heart
1. The first picture shows a glimpse of the battlefield, and brings before us three men, each in different ways exhibiting how small a thing Absaloms death was to all but the heart-broken father, and each going his own road, heedless of what lay below the heap of stones. The world goes on all the same, though death is busy, and some heart-strings be cracked. The three men, Ahimaaz, Joab, and the Cushite (Ethiopian), are types of different kinds of self-engrossment, which is little touched by others sorrows. The first, Ahimaaz, the young priest who had already done good service to David as a spy, is full of the joyous excitement of victory, and eager to run with what he thinks such good tidings. The word in 2Sa_18:19, bear tidings, always implies good news; and the youthful warrior-priest cannot conceive that the death of the head of the revolt can darken the joy of victory to the king. He is truly loyal, but, in his youthful impetuosity and excitement, cannot sympathise with the desolate father, who sits expectant at Mahanaim. Joab is a very different type of indifference. He is too much accustomed to battle to be much flushed with victory, and has killed too many men to care much at killing another. He is cool enough to measure the full effect of the news on David; and though he clearly discerns the sorrow, has not one grain of participation in it. The Cushite gets his orders; and he, too, is, in another fashion, careless of their contents and effect. Without a word, he bows himself to Joab, and runs, as unconcerned as the paper of a letter that may break a heart. Ahimaaz still pleads to go, and, gaining leave, takes the road across the Jordan valley, which was probably easier, though longer; while the other messenger went by the hills, which was a shorter and rougher road.
2. The scene shifts to Mahanaim, where David had found refuge. He can scarcely have failed to take an omen from the name, which commemorated how another anxious heart had camped there, and been comforted, when it saw the vision of the encamping angels above its own feeble, undefended tents, and Jacob called the name of that place Mahanaim (that is, Two camps.) How chilling to Ahimaaz, all flushed with eagerness, and proud of victory, and panting with running, and hungry for some word of praise, it must have been, to get for sole answer the question about Absalom! He shrinks from telling the whole truth, which, indeed, the Cushite was officially despatched to tell; but his enigmatic story of a great tumult as he left the field, of which he did not know the meaning, was told to prepare for the bitter news. The Cushite with some tenderness veils the fate of Absalom in the wish that all the kings enemies may be as that young man is. But the veil was thin, and the attempt to console by reminding of the fact that the dead man was an enemy as well as a son, was swept away like a straw before the fathers torrent of grief.
3. The sobs of a broken heart cannot be analysed; and this wail of almost inarticulate grief, with its infinitely pathetic reiteration, is too sacred for many words. Grief, even if passionate, is not forbidden by religion; and Davids sensitive poet-nature felt all emotions keenly. We are meant to weep; else wherefore is there calamity? But there were elements in Davids agony which were not good. It blinded him to blessings and to duties. His son was dead; but his rebellion was dead with him, and that should have been more present to his mind. His soldiers had fought well, and his first task should have been to honour and to thank them. He had no right to sink the king in the father, and Joabs unfeeling remonstrance, which followed, was wise and true in substance, though rough almost to brutality in tone. Sorrow which hides all the blue because of one cloud, however heavy and thunderous, is sinful. Sorrow which sits with folded hands, like the sisters of Lazarus, and lets duties drift, that it may indulge in the luxury of unrestrained tears, is sinful. There is no tone of It is the Lord; let Him do what seemeth Him good, in this passionate plaint; and so there is no soothing for the grief. The one consolation lies in submission. Submissive tears wash the heart clean; rebellious ones blister it. Davids grief was the bitter fruit of his own sin. He had weakly indulged Absalom, and had spared the rod, probably, in the boys youth, as he certainly spared the sword when Absalom had murdered his brother. But there is another side to this grief. It witnesses to the depth and self-sacrificing energy of a fathers love. The dead sons faults are all forgotten and obliterated by deaths effacing fingers. The headstrong, thankless rebel is, in Davids mind, a child again, and the happy old days of his innocence and love are all that remain in memory. The prodigal is still a son. The fathers love is immortal, and cannot be turned away by any faults. The father is willing to die for the disobedient child. Such purity and depth of affection lives in human hearts. So self-forgetting and incapable of being provoked is an earthly fathers love. May we not read in this disclosure of Davids paternal love, stripping it of its faults and excesses, some dim shadow of the greater love of God for his prodigals--a love which cannot be dammed back or turned away by any sin, and which has found a way to fulfil Davids impossible wish, in that it has given Jesus Christ to die for his rebellious children, and so made them sharers of his own kingdom? (A. Maclaren, D. D.)
Anguish of parents at the perverseness of children
1. I would call to this subject the attention of every sinner, who has a pious parent, or parents, still living. I wish to show such persons how much anguish they occasion their parents by neglecting to prepare for death. Every Christian parent in Davids situation would feel, in some measure, as David felt. Every Christian parent feels a similar concern for the souls, the eternal interests of his children.
(1) In the first place, they are distressed by apprehensions that you may be led astray by vicious companions, or become the slaves of some vicious habit, or embrace false and destructive sentiments respecting religion. They have cause to entertain such apprehensions. They have often seen the children of even pious parents fall a prey to these evils.
(2) But, in the second place, they are much more distressed by fears that you will perish forever. They believe what God has said respecting the future state of those, who die in their sins. They know the terrors of the Lord. They know that unless you repent you will perish. They know that unless you are born again you cannot see the kingdom of God. How must they feel when such reflections as these crowd into their minds: Perhaps this child, whom I have so often caressed and nourished, over whom I have so often wept, and for whom I have cared and laboured so much, will continue an enemy of the God who made him. In short, could you know all the sorrows which your parents have suffered since your birth you would find that a great part of them have been occasioned by anxiety for you, for your immortal interests; and that to the same cause is to be ascribed a great part of their daily sorrows. The distress which you thus occasion them is further aggravated by the reflection that if you perish your doom will be peculiarly terrible. You have enjoyed peculiar privileges. You have been dedicated to God, you were early taught to know His will, you have often been entreated, admonished, and warned, you have enjoyed the benefits of religious example, and have been preserved from many temptations to which the children of irreligious parents are exposed.
(3) In the third place, if you persist in neglecting religion, the distress which your parents now feel may be raised to the highest pitch, by seeing you die without hope. Then they will feel as David felt, and wish like him that they could have died for you. But to return to those whose parents are still living. You have heard a little, and words can toll but little, of the distress which you occasion your parents by neglecting religion. And now permit me to ask, will you continue to occasion them this distress? And O that the God at whose feet those prayers have been poured out may render these considerations efficacious to your salvation.
2. I proceed now to press the subject upon the attention of pious parents.
(1) In the first place, you may learn from it that no parents, whose children are not all pious can be certain that they will ever become so, or certain that he shall not be called to weep over some of them, wishing that he had died in their stead.
(2) From this subject, Christian parents may learn, in the second place, the fatal consequences of neglecting their duty to their children. David, though a great man, was guilty of this neglect. It is said of Adonijah, another of his sons, that his father had not at any time displeased him, saying, why hast thou done so? and there seems to be abundant reason to believe that he indulged his other children in the same injudicious and sinful manner. (E. Payson, D. D.)
Absaloms death
A loud cry always arrests attention. All understand the language of sorrow in any age or race. The sobs of a little child, or of a strong man, affect mightily those that chance to hear. The roughest and most hardened can rarely resist the appeal of tears, and often turn to brush away their own. The Esaus and Rachels and Davids and Marys are kin to the multitudes, for whom
Never morning wore
To evening, but some heart did break.
Grief is a leveller, even as death is. It ignores distinctions, and makes great and small bold to ask of the other its cause, and proffer such aid as may be. So this pathetic lament from the chamber over the gate of Mahanaim impels us to inquire who the mourner is, and for whom or what does he weep. After the Ruler, the Father issues his orders. He would slay the treachery, but spare the traitor. While every retainer might be put to the sword or flight, and every weapon be struck from his hand, the king gives all the captains charge to deal gently for my sake with the young man, even with Absalom. It were to him no victory if the dead body of his son be brought back in triumph; it were utter defeat. Such commission always hampers. A faint stroke, the world has seen, prolongs the struggle, and imperils the end sought. Rebellion must be stamped out of hand and heart, or, like the hydras heads, its shoots forth again as often as cut off. You say you are praying, writes Abraham Lincoln, for the war to end. So am I, but I want it to end right. God only knows how anxious I am to see these rivers of blood cease to flow; but they must flow until treason hides its head. While the opposing forces have met in the woody, tangled mountain passes, the eager king and father takes his seat between the city gates to wait for tidings. The hours drag wearily away. His fortunes are perhaps already determined, or may be at the moment wavering in the balance. One word from him, one swing of his sword, one leap from the crag, might decide them, were he only at hand. How ready are we to say, there was a great tumult, but I knew not what it was. The blow must not fall in all its stunning power at once. Let the victim, at least, have time to kneel to receive it. And so as he stood aside, the blunt and careless Ethiopian comes up and confirms the first announcement, and exults over the slaughter of the foe and son alike. It is the one dreaded word, converting the brief joy into a volume of sorrow. Thus it ever is. What the friend is studying to soften, and by hints prepare the bereft to imagine, the telegraph, the paper, some stranger or little child declares, in its plain and overwhelming measure. There is no averting of facts nor any defence against their meaning. What we have loved and trusted, when taken away, can neither be made to appear as though it still is ours, nor the loss be breathed in modified degree. No generous nature can interpose to break the shock. When it comes, it is with full force, as the cyclone bursts upon the town. We may be given grace and patience, but not exemption from grief. To such trial every life is subject. From such distress none can always escape. Some day it must be told David, Absalom is dead. And who can bear to look upon that stricken father, or listen to his agonising cries, or hear that convulsive utterance, O Absalom, my son, my son! Around the wall, and near the gateway at Mahanaim, the people clustered, gazing up at the window whence the sounds of anguish came. With low voices they talked together of the singular conduct of the king. Would he rather have had his armies routed and at this moment be preparing for a siege? Would he have chosen that the infidel son should madly and successfully assault himself and blot out what remained of his realm? Was not the issue the very best possible for the nation? Ought they not all to sing psalms of thanksgiving unto the Most High, whose right hand had found out all his enemies and swallowed them up in His wrath. Yes! but there is a secret which these observers have not discovered, and it is buried deep m that fathers heart. Now and then he had almost disclosed it in these days of adversity. Zadok might have divined it, when he answered, If He thus say, I have no delight in thee; behold, here I am, let Him do to me as seemeth good unto Him. Aishai, burning with indignation at the imprecations upon his master, might have suspected it, when David replied: Let him curse, for the Lord hath bidden him. And these friends might have found that their ruler was under just condemnation of heaven. He was but paying, in some form, the heavy penalty for his sins. (Monday Club Sermons.)
Davids grief for Absalom
Next to the calamity of losing a battle, a great general used to say, is that of gaining a victory. The battle in the wood of Ephraim left twenty thousand of King Davids subjects dead or dying on the field. It is remarkable how little is made of this dismal fact. Mens lives count for little in time of war, and death, even with, its worst horrors, is just the common fate of warriors. Yet surely David and his friends could not think lightly of a calamity that cut down more of the sons of Israel than any battle since the fatal day of Mount Gilboa. Nor could they form a light estimate of the guilt of the man whose inordinate vanity and ambition had cost the nation such a fearful loss. But all thoughts of this kind were for the moment brushed aside by the crowning fact that Absalom himself was dead. The elements of Davids intense agony, when he heard of Absaloms death, were mainly three.
I. There was the loss of his son, of whom he could say that, with all his faults, he loved him still. A dear object had been plucked from his heart, and left it sick, vacant, desolate. A face he had often gazed on with delight lay cold in death. An infinite pathos, in a fathers experience, surrounds a young mans death. The regret, the longing, the conflict with the inevitable, seem to drain him of all energy, and leave him helpless in his sorrow.
II. Absalom had died in rebellion, without expressing one word of regret, without one request for forgiveness, without one act or word that it would be pleasant to recall in time to come, as a foil to the bitterness caused by his unnatural rebellion.
III. In this rebellious condition he had passed to the judgment of God. What hope could there be for such a man, living and dying as he had done?
IV. Two remarks.
(1) With reference to grief from bereavements in general, it is to be observed that they will prove either a blessing or an evil according to the use to which they are turned. All grief in itself is a weakening thing--weakening both to the body and the mind, and it were a great error to suppose that it must do good in the end. Not only does it depress the mourner himself, and unfit him for his duties to the living, but it depresses those that come in contact with him, and makes them think of him with a measure of impatience. It is not right to obtrude our grief overmuch on others, especially if we are in a public position. Let us take example in this respect from our blessed Lord. Was any sorrow like unto His sorrow? Yet how little did He obtrude it even on the notice of His disciples! And how many things are there to a Christian mind fitted to abate the first sharpness even of a great bereavement. Is it not the doing of a Father, infinitely kind? Is it not the doing of Him who spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all? Hear Him saying, What I do, thou knowest not now, but thou shalt know hereafter.
(2) Grief that may arise to Christians in connection with the spiritual condition of departed, children. When the parent is either in doubt as to the happiness of a beloved one, or has cause to apprehend that the portion of that child, is with the unbelievers, the pang which he experiences is one of the most acute which the human heart can know. (W. G. Blaikie, D. D.)
A fathers remorse and a fathers forgiveness
The story of Absaloms rebellion is the most exciting drama in the Bible, and one of the guiltiest and saddest tragedies in human history. It is given to us in some of the most powerful word-pictures which have ever been painted. Clear, strong, and lifelike do the leading figures stand out.
I. In this cry of anguish there was the torture of self-accusation. The sting of death is sin. The sting of that death to David was Absaloms sin, and alas! his own sin too. We never know What the end of a sin may be. We never know how far the consequences will reach, or whom they will affect. We cannot whitewash the black pages by repenting of the deeds. David had repented in sackcloth and ashes. He had been forgiven. But there in his children were the deadly fruits, and he would rather have laid down his life than brought this evil upon them. There are things which God forgives us, but which we can never forgive ourselves. There is no misfortune that is crushing unless some memory of guilt is behind it. The poet says, A sorrows crown of sorrow is remembering happier things. Nothing of the kind. A sorrows crown of sorrow is the feeling that we have brought it on ourselves.
II. We may take it as a type of the divine fatherhood and of its unlimited forgiveness. David is called the man after Gods own heart, and that word staggers us when we remember some of his doings. But the word does not come amiss here. We feel that it is true in such scenes as this. Kneeling in his chamber and uttering that impassioned cry of pity, burning love, and forgiveness, we can see indeed something of Gods own heart. In this great tribulation he is as one washed and made white, and his face is like the tearful Christs, Godlike. His love for this guilty, iron-hearted son was passing strange; it was almost more than human. It was a love which gave a kiss for every blow, turned a forgiving face to every insult and stripe, and prayed for the criminal who was crucifying it. All this is what we rightly call Divine. It is a broken light of God. It is the image of His Fatherhood. And through Jesus we preach to everyone a fatherly God, a tearful God, a cross-bearing God, a God whose pity is beyond all our measurement, whoso forgiveness is greater than mans greatest sin. (J. G. Greenhough, M. A.)
Absaloms funeral
I. That gods dearest children are exercised with near and piercing crosses in this life. It may seem to be no good congruity to say that David wept, that King David mourned. For Christians to mourn being poor, or princes being wicked, it is no strange matter: but when a man hath God for his friend in heaven, and a kingdom on earth too, what should trouble him? Yet for such a one the Lord hath crosses, and those sharp, those near, those cutting. Here are griefs, in his familiars shall I say? nay, in his kinsfolks, his father, his wives, at Ziklag, his children, his Absalom. What might be the cause that Gods best children are so sped? Is it their religion? Is it their profession? Not no, it is because they are set with corruption, and therefore must be purged: for Gods best children will sometimes venture on noisome meats, and hurtful poisons, they will feed on the grosser sins, they will drink in every puddle, I mean iniquity, and when the child hath so done, what should the father do? If David will lie and commit adultery, and fall to murder innocents, what can God do less for David than scourge him thoroughly? Is it not better he should lose his sin than God his child? So, then, one cause why the Lord doth thus lay load on his children here is, because they defile themselves with gross sins, and therefore must have much washing. As God lays many crosses on us, so we may thank ourselves for many too: not only in that we do deserve them, but in that we work them out of our own bowels: for many we draw upon ourselves by riot, idleness, unthriftiness, rage, etc., and the most we make more heavy (that are heavy enough already) through our own folly, and that is whilst we rake into our wounds, looking no higher, and what with unbelief and impatience, do double the cross on ourselves.
(1) Is this so, that Gods dearest children have and must have such great piercing crosses in this life? Then must all who would be known by that name make account of such, and prepare for them. Such is our folly when the sun shines, we never think of a dark night, and when the morning is fair we never fear a storm, and therefore are sometimes taken without our cloak, as it were. Such, also, is our conceit of ourselves, and confidence in worldly helps, that we hope they will not see us want, or ii they fail, yet we think to shift better than others can, and to live by our wits. Hence it is that we are almost grown to Babels conclusion.
(2) Is this so, that the dearest of Gods children have great and near afflictions in this life? Then this must teach the wicked to leave judging abroad, and to look homeward: they are on horseback, they, when Gods children are underfoot; it is their joy to see the faithful grieve, they cannot hold but roll it out; these be the fellows these preachers so much magnify, these the happy ones, these go away with all the comforts, they cannot do amiss, they; but, by your leave, such a judgment hath befallen one, such a plague another, and which of them escapes better? And this they get by running to sermons; and thus they triumph. But stay a while, and pause better on the matter: Are Gods children thus wounded? What shall become of His enemies? Are the righteous thus paid? How much more the sinner?
(3) Is this the estate of the most godly and best beloved in this life? Then, as this must teach us to think never the worse of ourselves or others for outward crosses (which, like hail and snow, do light upon the best gardens, as well as on the wild waste; and like blustering winds will spare no more princes children than the poorest beggars) sith thus we cannot conclude unless we will either challenge Gods love, or the best Christians truth.
II. That Gods best children are apt to grieve too much and to exceed in passion for outward things: as in mirth, when once we are in, we are apt to forget ourselves; so in sorrow, when once we yield unto it, we are in danger of surfeting upon it.
1. Now, this being so, that the best of us all are subject to immoderate sorrow for outward things, we must not only learn to bear with one another in this our common frailty, but further, every one for himself must fence and mound his heart against, these absurd passions and excessive griefs.
2. Do Gods best children exceed sometimes in sorrow for outward things? Then must we not be altogether discouraged, though we find our worldly grief more than our spiritual sorrow; for this is a thing that may befall the best; they may be immoderate in the one, when they are boo short in the other: the best have many tears to bestow upon some outward things, when they cannot without much travail weep for their many sins.
III. That Gods children, who bear some crosses with great wisdom and moderation, are sometimes foiled in other some, and fail in health. Who could behave himself better than David in the matter of Shimei? Who worse, in the case of Nabal? How sweet his carriage in many passages between Saul and him? How admirable his behaviour in one childs death? How absurd in others? Nay, how diversely affected with the cause of one and the same Absalom? What gracious speeches did he once utter when he fled from Absalom? What a bead-roll have we here at his death? Who could more forget himself than here he doth, thus to take on at such a time, in such a place, on such an occasion? How far was this from policy? How far unlike his carriage in other places?
1. What might be the cause that these so worthy champions are thus sometimes foiled. First, it pleaseth God sometimes to set on a cross, and make it stick by a man, either because the same party would look besides former crosses, or kick them off too lightly; or else because he would let him see himself, and know what he is of himself.
2. Sometimes we have not denied ourselves in some particular last, and then if a cross light there it soon enters and hats deep, because we ourselves do give a sting unto it.
1. Let us not suffer it to pass without some use, though we be briefer. Learn hence at least a double point of wisdom: the first respects our brethren; them we must too lightly censure for their weakness and tenderness in some crosses, though light; sith that cannot be light, which God will make heavy; such that may be light to one which is a mountain to another; sith those our brethren may manfully bear far sorer crosses than ourselves, though humbled in some particular.
IV. What though Absalom can forget David, yet David cannot forget him. What though he be a very ungracious imp? Yet he is my child.
1. Do kind and godly parents so love their children that you may sooner find too much carnal than too little natural affection in them? Then shall they never make it good to their own or others souls, that there is any goodness in them who bear no affection to their own children.
2. Here is somewhat for children also. Is the affection of godly parents such that they cannot chose but love their children; and out of their love grieve at their unkindness, weep for their impiety, mourn for their sorrows, and take to heart their follies?
3. Here is a word of instruction and consolation for all sorts, both parents and children, high and low: Is the love of an earthly father (if godly) so great? Does he take so much to heart the unkindness of his children? Is he so sensible of their griefs? So wounded with their sorrows? What, then, is the affection of our heavenly Father towards us? How tenderly doth he take disobedience at our hands? and therefore how great should our mourning be for our great and many contempts? How ought we to pour forth ourselves in tears, and to lament with a great lamentation. (R. Harris, D. D.)
Mourning for Absalom
I. For even a fond parent, it is very weak to grieve more for a loss than foe the crime which brought it on. This wild outcry of David is essentially mistaken in its sentiment. That lie was patient was evident enough; but that he saw Gods hand avenging wrongs done against God, and launching the retributions of the Divine law upon an offender who had defied God, nowhere appears. The utterance of grief he makes assumes only soreness and pain. Absalom was his favourite; this downfall had come suddenly; the catastrophe was remediless. His boy had died in the act of rebellion against his father and his king. But not even a word of sorrow or shame or humiliation passes his lips. Sometimes mourning reaches so supreme a height of personal grief as that it is mere egotism and tends towards sheer selfishness.
II. It is better to live honestly for ones children than just to wish to die for them when their retribution comes. The fact is, we miss the proper feelings of the occasion here in Davids form of expression. His language is extravagant; it was very rough to tell those soldiers, who had imperilled their lives again and again that clay to sustain his kingdom, that he wished a gracious providence had taken his life instead of that of the chief rebel they had fought. Think how almost brutal it was to say that he would have died happy if only Absalom were alive again! With that creature for a king, what would have become of the kingdom? A mere sense of personal bereavement moved him. He became unmanly, unknightly, and inconsiderate. But our main trouble must be found with the absence of every sort and measure of self-examination in David; he sends not one glance of his eye backwards over those vast mistakes of the past which he had committed in rearing that child. He makes no allusion to an offended God, except to point his reckless asseveration with the mention of his name. One would think that the king must have had, even in these successes, some misgiving now and then; something like those thoughtful acknowledgments which history records in the dying utterance of William the Conqueror: Although human ambition rejoices in such triumphs, I am nevertheless seized with an unquiet terror when I think that, in all these actions of mine, cruelty marched with boldness. We wish David had lived always for Absaloms instruction and mourned a little less for his defeat.
III. Public duties should check the indulgence of noisy personal griefs. We all admit that the human feeling of the king in an instance so severe is pathetic and poetic. But at that time an awful field of blood was wild with cries of desperate pain from the dying and around the dead. Twenty thousand of Israels loyal soldiers lay on the plain of battle; and all that David seemed to care about it was that his boy Absalom was killed likewise. Once we saw in the palace at Amsterdam a bas-relief representing the sternness of the ancient Brutus. Everybody recalls the classic story of the Roman ruler whose two sons, Titus and Tiberius, were among the conspirators that planned the overturning of the government. He sat in judgment upon the enemies that had threatened the realm; or did he hesitate to do the justice they deserved upon all alike. He caused those two sons to be scourged with rods, in accordance with the law, and then beheaded by the lictors in the forum, and he neither turned aside his eyes nor shed any tears over them, for they had been false unto their country and had offended against the law. And then the well-known dictum of his was pronounced, which these patriotic Dutchmen have perpetuated in their kings judgment hall: A man may have many more children, but never can have but one country, even that which gave him birth. David certainly had very little of that firm justice which made Lucius Junius Brutus historic.
IV. The death of an infant child may quite possibly become a greater comfort to its parents than the rebellious life of another child who grows up to be a pain and a shame for ever. The counsel was long ago given to bereaved Christians by one who understood what it was to be in mourning: Do not ask that the enveloping cloud be ever entirely taken up from your home; it never will be; but it may become so luminously transparent that you can see bright stars through it. When Davids little child in earlier times was stricken with death, he fell down heavily sorrowing over the affliction before the Lord; but he said, in wise and strong confidence of a submissive faith, I shall go to him, but he will not return to me. But now he could only pour out hopeless wails of grief; for Absalom appeared to have no future in which he could expect or in which he wished to share. Many of us have seen in Westminster Abbey a beautiful alabaster cradle, with an infants face just showing itself from beneath a coverlet wrought in delicate stone apparently spread over the figure. It is the tomb, as the inscription relates, of Sophia, daughter of James I., who died when only three days old, in 1607, and to that brief record is added this verse for an epitaph:
When the archangels trump shall blow, and souls to bodies join,
Millions will wish their lives below had been as short as thine.
V. There is a sad meaning in the words too late. Most of us wish we could live parts of our lives over again, to make some corrections. Especially we think of the example we set or the words we speak or the deeds we do in the presence of our intimates, perhaps even of our children. David does not help the case much with any behaviour of his in this story. But we begin to feel, I am sure, that his wrong-doing had something to do in the formation of Absaloms character and in the fixing of Absaloms doom. For we carry in mind the truth of the old couplet:
Who saws thro a trunk, tho he leaves the tree up in the forest.
When the wind casts it down, is not his the hand that smote it?
But there comes a moment in which one feels that all regrets arrive too late for any good to come forth from them: no hope now! (C. S. Robinson, D. D.)
Davids lament over Absalom; or, the tears of parental love
I. The force of parental love. Whatever could have induced David to have mourned the death of such a son as this? All might have expected, that day, that the news would have fallen like music on his ears. There are two circumstances which might have induced men to have expected this.
1. The corrupt character of Absalom. In the short, strange life of Absalom, we discover several most depraved and morally repulsive attributes of character. There is revenge (see 2Sa_13:28-29); there is vanity (2Sa_15:1); there is ambition (2Sa_15:4); there is meanness (2Sa_15:5); hypocrisy (2Sa_15:7-8). There is a tendency in such attributes as these to destroy all love for their possessor. Depravity in a wife is adapted to quench the love of a husband; depravity in a monarch is adapted to quench the love of his people; depravity in a son is adapted to destroy the love of the father. Yet Davids love was too strong for this--it clung to the monster.
2. The filial rebellion of Absalom. He was not only corrupt in his character, but he was a malignant opponent to his father, the man whom he ought to have loved and obeyed. He had pledged himself to his fathers ruin. His last purpose was n purpose to deprive his sire of his throne, his happiness, his life. David had no greater enemy in Israel than Absalom. This force of parental love indicates two things:--
(1) That there is still something Divine in man. Love is from God; and man, amidst all his depravities, still retains some small portion of this sacred thing. This strength of parental love indicates
(2) the love of the Infinite Father towards sinners.
II. The bitterness of parental love. What bitterness is in this cry, O Absalom, my son! etc. Two things would give bitterness to Davids feelings now.
1. The memory of his own domestic sins. The carnality, the favouritism, the false tenderness, the want of thorough discipline, which he displayed in his own family, were in themselves heinous vices, and prolific sources of domestic misery.
2. His fear as to his future state. Of where is my son Absalom. Can it be that my son is added to the number of the accursed? From this subject we learn:
(1) That good men may have most wicked children. Goodness is not hereditary.
(2) These good may, nevertheless, be responsible for the wickedness of their children. Home may be neglected, etc.
(3) That good men who neglect their children will one day, most likely, have to repent their conduct, etc. (Homilist.)
A remorseful lament
It is a terrible cry that comes out of the chamber over the gate of Mahanaim that makes the name of Absalom so well known and so full of the most terrible lessons to us. O, my son Absalom, my son, my son, Absalo! Would God I had died for thee, O Absalom, my son, my son! Yes, that is love, no doubt. That is the love of a broken-hearted father, no doubt. But the pang of the cry, the innermost agony of the cry, the poisoned point of the dagger in that cry is remorse. I have slain my son! I have murdered my son with my own hands! I neglected my son Absalom from a child! With my own lusts I laid his very worst temptation right in his way. It had been better Absalom had never been born! If he rebelled, who shall blame him? I, David, drove Absalom to rebellion. It was his fathers hand that stabbed Absalom through the heart. O, Absalom, my murdered son I Would God thy murderer had been in thy place this day. And the king covered his face, and the king cried with a loud voice, O my son Absalom, O Absalom, my son, my son! (Alex. Whyte, D. D.)
A lathers grief over rebellious son
About 1189 Richard, son of the great Henry II., joined the French king, Philip II., against his father. Three other sons were also rebels against their father, and only his youngest son, John, remained at his court. Philip and Richard took his castles, while Henry remained in a condition of unusual supineness. He was now broken in spirit He yielded almost without a struggle to the demands that were made upon him . . . Throughout these unnatural conflicts he had rested his hopes upon his beloved John, to whom he had required his seneschal to deliver his castles in the event of his death . . . He asked for the names of those barons who had joined the French king. The first name he saw was John. He read no more. The world and all its troubles and hopes faded from his view. He turned his face to the wall, and exclaimed, Let everything go as it will. . . . His great heart was broken. On the 6th of July, 1189, Henry II. was no more. (Knights Eng.)
David the afflicted man
It is not uncommon to read in the preface to works which good men have left as legacies to the church, that their lives, passed amid quiet scenes and in the routine of useful but common duties, furnished few materials for biography. Such tranquillity and monotony were not features of Davids life.
I. Davids afflictions. In the ills of poverty, the loss of children, the death of old friends, the numerous infirmities of age, troubles often gather around the prosperous in the decline of life, like clouds about a setting sun. Happy for them if these are sanctified. Alas for David! his home was the scene of his most painful trials. Who can fancy Davids feelings when he looked on Tamars tears, and listened, with grief and consternation on his countenance, to a story that filled the whole land with horror? But hardly has that earthquake-shock passed away when another follows. Tragedy on tragedy! The crime a father allowed to go unpunished her brother avenges. Biding his time, and when suspicion is lulled, drawing Amnon, the perpetrator of that monstrous wickedness, into his toils, Absalom gives the signal, and, smitten by his servants, his brother dies. He has to drink still deeper of the wine of astonishment. Hardly has time, the great healer, closed that wound, when Absalom, his favourite son, whom he had forgiven, inflicts a deeper one; commits a crime of yet darker dye. In reading how the Popes soldiers, to obtain speedy possession of their jewels, were wont to sever the fingers of Huguenot ladies from their bleeding hands, I have wondered at the savage cruelty; but what cruelty, or crime, to be compared with his who, to possess himself the sooner of his fathers crown, sought to sweep off his fathers head? We have seen many a sad sight; but none to be compared to this aged monarch, full of honours and of years, worthy of all filial love and public veneration, who had no subject but should have fought, nor child but should have died for him, flying with a few followers, under the cloud of night, to escape the sword of his own son. And when tidings came of Absaloms death, how terrible his grief!
II. The cause of his afflictions. It may seem a great mystery to some how so good a man should have been so sorely tried. But it is no mystery. He reaped as he had sowed. This retribution was still more painfully, and not less plainly exemplified in the unnatural and monstrous rebellion of Absalom. It may be traced to his sin in the matter of Bathsheba: It appears from one genealogy that Bathsheba was the daughter of Eliam, and from another that her father Eliam was the son of Ahithophel, the Gilonite, Davids counsellor. This near relationship between Bathsheba and Ahithophel throws a flood of light on Absaloms rebellion; for what more likely than that through means of that, Ahithophel sought vengeance for the wrongs which, in the double crime of adultery and murder, the king had committed against him and his house? Revenge is a strong passion in all, but especially in the bosom of eastern nations. If, like David, we are compelled to trace our sufferings to our sins, what a weight does that add to the load l Let us pray God that, while He forgives their iniquity for Christs sake, and takes away their guilt through his blood, he would not visit us for our sins. If we are to suffer, may it not be for sins, but for righteousness sake! A light load that--a fortune we should neither greatly dread nor deprecate.
III. The use and profit of his afflictions. When Queen Mary, by her marriage, was about to plunge herself and the kingdom of Scotland into dark and bloody troubles, Knox publicly condemned the step. For this she summoned the bold Reformer to her presence, complained bitterly of his conduct, and saying, I vow to God I shall be revenged, burst into a flood of tears. Waiting till she had composed herself, he proceeded calmly to make his defence: It was triumphant; but produced no other effect on Mary than to exasperate her passions. Again she began to sob, and weep with great bitterness. While Erskine, the friend of both, and a man of mild and gentle spirit, tried to mitigate her grief and resentment by praising her beauty and accomplishments, Knox continued silent--waiting with unaltered countenance till the queen had given vent to her feelings. Then explaining how he was constrained to sustain her tears rather than hurt his conscience, and by his silence betray the commonwealth, he protested that he never took delight in the distress of any creature; and that so far from rejoicing in her majestys tears, it was with great difficulty he could see his own boys weep when he corrected them for their faults. In this beautiful expression we see the feelings of every father; and in these a faithful, though feeble, reflection of the kind heart of God. In no case does He afflict His people willingly; and always for their good. And how His gracious purpose was accomplished in the Psalmists afflictions may be seen, for instance, in the sorrow, and even horror, with which he regarded his saddest fall. His bitterest enemies could not have exposed, nor his dearest friends lamented, it more than he did himself. Cast me not sway from Thy presence, and take not Thy Holy Spirit from me. Deliver me from blood-guiltiness, O God, thou God of my salvation! The greatest of all afflictions is an unblessed affliction. On the other hand, let the Holy Spirit, in answer to prayer, turn them into the means of our sanctification, and there are no greater mercies. How many, when they became poor in this world, have grown rich toward God! How many have found life in the death of dear ones! How many, by being brought to weep over a broken cistern, have turned their trembling steps to the fountain of living water! and when God sent storms to wreck their earthly happiness, how many on the broken pieces of the ship have reached the shore in safety! (T. Guthrie, D. D.)
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The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 18:33 David was not afraid to show his emotions…
18:33 David was not afraid to show his emotions openly, whether engulfed by rapturous joy (6:14-19) or crushed by sadness. His feelings for Absalom were real, not theatrical.
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.