As David's story unfolds, we see this once highly celebrated king in the throes of steady demise. The heartbreaking story of his decline, which extends beyond himself to his family and his kingdom, is more than just a tragic historical narrative.
Today on Truth for Life, Alistair Begg points out how it's a warning to each of us about the corrosive effects of our sin. And in chapter 13, and beginning our reading at the twenty-third verse and reading through to the end of the chapter, to Samuel 13 and verse 23. After two full years, Absalom had sheepshearers at Baal Hazor, which is near Ephraim, and Absalom invited all the king's sons. And Absalom came to the king and said, Behold, your servant has sheepshearers. Please let the king and his servants go with your servant. But the king said to Absalom, No, my son, let us not all go, lest we be burdensome to you. He pressed him, but he would not go, but gave him his blessing. Then Absalom said, If not, please let my brother Amnon go with us.
And the king said to him, Why should he go with you? But Absalom pressed him until he let Amnon and all the king's sons go with him. Then Absalom commanded his servants, Mark, when Amnon's heart is merry with wine, and when I say to you, Strike Amnon, then kill him. Do not fear, have I not commanded you?
Be courageous and be valiant. So the servants of Absalom did to Amnon as Absalom had commanded. Then all the king's sons rose, and each mounted his mule and fled. While they were on the way, news came to David, Absalom has struck down all the king's sons, and not one of them has left. Then the king arose and tore his garments and lay on the earth, and all his servants who were standing by tore their garments. But Jonadab the son of Shimeah, David's brother, said, Let not my lord suppose that they have killed all the young men, the king's sons, for Amnon alone is dead.
For by the command of Absalom this has been determined from the day he violated his sister Tamar. Now therefore, let not my lord the king so take it to heart as to suppose that all the king's sons are dead, for Amnon alone is dead. But Absalom fled, and the young man who kept the watch lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, many people were coming from the road behind him by the side of the mountain. And Jonadab said to the king, Behold, the king's sons have come out, as your servant said, so it has come about. And as soon as he had finished speaking, behold, the king's sons came and lifted up their voice and wept, and the king also and all his servants wept very bitterly. But Absalom fled and went to Telmah the son of Amahihud king of Geshur, and David mourned for his son day after day.
So Absalom fled and went to Geshur and was there three years. And the spirit of the king longed to go out to Absalom, because he was comforted about Amnon since he was dead. We recognize that we will not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. Grant now that we may hear your word and in listening to your voice be transformed by it. For we pray in Jesus' name.
Amen. Perhaps like me, you're able to remember a time when we listened to or watched what was called the news. In fact, if you listen to NPR, as I do from time to time, at certain points around the day, it plays a little jingle from the UK, and then it simply announces things very much in that way. This is London, and this is the news.
There's something very sort of reassuring about it until they start with the actual delivery of the material. Because in those days, to a certain degree at least, the news could be either good or bad, dull or sad. But it was the news. This was before fake news. This was actually before something that I think is even worse, called breaking news.
You know, like, why does it have to be breaking? I mean, did the media think that we are so dumb that we just need that breaking thing going up there to pay any attention to it at all? It's the breaking news.
So I say to myself, I wonder how it would go in 2 Samuel 13, something like this. Reports are just coming in of a brutal murder at a large gathering out in the country. The victim is known two years ago to have raped a family member. This is apparently a revenge killing, carried out by friends of the rape victim's brother. Rumors are circulating of more than one death. This, at the moment, is unconfirmed. There will be more details in our next Breaking News bulletin.
Of course, this wasn't breaking news. This actually was not remotely fake news, but it is part of the biblical record of what is happening in the kingdom that we've been discovering for some months now—namely, David's kingdom. And what we've been learning most recently is that the Bible presents all of its heroes, warts and all.
There's no airbrushing of the portraiture. We are left to see David not only as that young man ascending the throne, but now as an increasingly aging man with his kingdom tumbling into ruin. And as we observe this, we are made painfully aware of the damaging and the corrosive effects of sin—that the implications and applications of man's rebellion against God is undeniable. Now, last time, in dealing with the difficult verses of the first half of the chapter, we sought simply to follow the narrative rather than to try and superimpose an outline on it. Having done that in the first half, I want to do it again in the second.
And so, as I say, if you have your Bible open, you ought to be able to follow very straightforwardly all that is there for us to consider. You will notice that our reading begins with the phrase, after two full years. After two full years. Two full years of what for Tamar? Two full years living distressed and ruined in her brother's house.
We know that because Absalom had taken her in after this violation. And so, every morning and every evening, for two full years, the implications of what had unfolded in her life were undeniable to her. Two full years for David's anger to smolder. You remember that David's reaction to the news was that he was very angry.
And anger has a way of smoldering and rising and ebbing and flowing, but you can imagine that even after this time, still that anger lingers. And two years for Absalom to nurse his hatred of Amnon, his brother. Because as we saw at the end of our study last time, he would not speak to Amnon. And presumably, he has chosen never to speak to Amnon, because his hatred continues. Now, it is at that point that for Absalom, a plan that he has had in mind for some time, opportunity knocks.
That's what I wrote in my notes, just to guide me. Opportunity knocks here in verse 24. It knocks in the form of an annual event, an annual event called the sheepshearing.
We've seen this before. I'm not going to rehearse to it, but you will remember that it was in this context that we were introduced to Abigail and her husband, Abigail, who would become one of David's wives. Way back, actually, in the book of Genesis, there is another incident, rather similar to 2 Samuel 13, that fascinatingly also takes place within the context of the sheepshearing. Now, as we read this, are we to assume, as we come just on the text, that Absalom is putting together an event, seizing the opportunity of the event, to let go of things in the past, let the bygones be bygones? Is what he's trying to do simply bring people together for a time of reconciliation and a time of celebration?
Well, of course, we know that that is not the case. And in verse 24, he invites his father along with all the king's sons. You will notice as you read through the text that that phrase comes a number of times—"all the king's sons." And we've said before that repetition in our reading of Old Testament narrative is there in order that we might pay attention to it. It doesn't mean we should divert from where we are, but simply recognizing this—that the future of David's kingdom lay in all the king's sons. If anything were to happen to all the king's sons, then David's kingdom is kaput.
And so it is mentioned in this way a number of times. He invites his father, along with the whole entourage, to come. David decides, no, he doesn't want to. You see there, he just says, I think it would be a burden to you. What kind of burden would it be?
Well, maybe just the numbers, perhaps expense involved, I don't know. Absalom decides to press him on it. And he says, no, I'm not going to go, but I'll give you my blessing.
Then Absalom comes to probably what is the real issue here. I don't know whether he uses the invitation to his father in the hope that his father will not come, but certainly his real interest is in verse 26. Then Absalom said, If you're not going to come, then please let my brother Amnon go with me.
And of course, it's almost inevitable that David would reply as he did. Why should he go with you? Why should he go with you? Why are you singling him out? Well, it's a fair question, isn't it, in light of the feud that had gone on now for some two years between Amnon and Absalom? It would be a strange thing. I thought you didn't speak to him.
I thought you folks had no relationship with one another. Why would you want him to come to this event? He couldn't possibly—that is, David—be unaware of Absalom's hatred of his brother.
Well, you notice that in verse 27 Absalom actually just dodges that question by pressing him. Maybe he said something like this, Listen, Father, I'm inviting all the king's sons. If Amnon didn't come, he'd be the odd man out.
No, I think it's important that Amnon is there. And so we're told that David relents. He was pressed, and he led Amnon, and all the king's sons go with him.
Now, let's just pause and recognize that David is building a bad track record on this front, isn't he? Once again, he is manipulated by his son, by one of his sons. He had previously been manipulated into putting Amnon and Tamar together in the one place. And now he is doing the very same thing in putting Absalom and Amnon together in the one place.
Remember, Jonadab says, you know, Get your father David to tell Tamar to go and see Amnon. So David is inculcated in the process. Now, once again, he wants to make sure that somehow or another David is party to this.
And it is questionable whether the actual original text means he let him go or he actually sent him. Whichever way it is, once again, you see that something is happening to David. Something that is disheartening is happening to him. What is happening to David? Well, we remember the twenty-seventh verse of chapter 11, that the thing that David did displeased the Lord. That David is now no longer living, as it were, under God's smile. He's living under God's frown. That God in his mercy had accepted David's expression of repentance.
But as we've said routinely, God did not then prevent the consequences from David's sin from being set aside. And so what we see is that he is a weakened person. He's no longer resolute. He's easily manipulated. He's either unwilling or unable to take control.
In short order, he's not living to a good old age. Maybe he doesn't listen to anybody. Maybe now he's peerless. Maybe now he's friendless. Maybe now he just doesn't really care what any of his wives have to say. Maybe he's just tired.
Maybe he's just fed up. But how different he is from, for example, Caleb. You remember Caleb, one of the two spies, Caleb and Joshua, that go in to see what's going on in prospect of the entry into the promised land? Twelve men went to spy in Canaan, ten were bad, two were good, and Caleb was one of the two good men. You say, Well, that was quite super, wasn't it?
Yes, and you find him later on, still a super soul. You can read it for yourself in Joshua 14, where Caleb says, I was forty years old then, and the LORD has kept me alive. And I'm still as strong today, and it may be that the LORD will be with me. It was wonderful.
I was, I am, I am, I look to him. So the question is, are we gonna go the David route, or are we gonna go the Caleb route? We're gonna allow ourselves to be jaded, disappointed, disenfranchised, lose our zeal, lose our verve, say to ourselves, Who cares? It's all over now. Nothing left to say, just our dreams and the orchestra playing. Oh, I hope not.
I hope not. That's what it says, he let him go. And what happens? Well, in the same way that when he sent Tamar to Amnon, he couldn't know the disaster that was about to unfold, and when he allowed Amnon to go to the sheepshearing, he couldn't know what was about to unfold. Tragically, if you look at verse 28, I wrote in my notes, Like father, like son. Like father, like son. Then Absalom commanded his servants, Mark, when Amnon's heart is merry with wine. Remember that?
With Uriah? What did he do? Try to get him drunk.
Hey, let's party. See if he could ease the slopes. That's the same thing here. Maybe father and son had even talked about how that unfolded.
I don't know. And David had given clear instructions on that occasion, hadn't he? He said to the guy Abner, Take care of it up there. Just one, two, three dead. What do you find in the text?
Exactly the same. Strike Amnon, then kill him. Do not fear. Have I not commanded you? Be courageous and be valiant.
Amazing, isn't it? This is a murder we're talking about here. This is not a launch into battle.
This is not Joshua chapter 1, be strong and very courageous, for the LORD your God is with you wherever you're going. No, this is where you're going to kill my brother. Isn't the perversity of the human heart and mind so amazing?
I mean, our capacity for deceit is phenomenal, as I suggested to you the last time. When, in that horrible act of violation, Amnon uses language that is endearing, that is sort of sensitive, at the same time while he is physically overpowering the girl—I mean, it's horrendous. And now, what does Absalom do? He uses the language of honor. Be strong. Be courageous.
I'm the heir to the king. I've told you, get about your business. And what happened in the previous incident, the first half of the chapter? Five minutes after, Amnon hated Tamar. And you look there in verse 29b, and essentially five minutes after the servants had done what Absalom told them to do, they made a run for it. Then all the king's sons arose, and each mounted his mule, and he fled. Now, it is in that context, then, in verse 30, that the news comes to David. The watchman on the gates is aware of the fact that news is coming of what has been taking place.
And the word that comes is that Absalom has struck down all the king's sons, and not one of them is left. Well, this turned out to be fake news, and whoever reported it was ill-informed. Perhaps—and I've noticed that when people are given an opportunity with the microphone to describe what happened—I think there is a sort of inherent tendency not just to say, Well, the truck ran through the light and banged into a lamppost. But now is your one moment to explain it was coming at a ferocious speed. It skidded to the left.
It skidded to the right. Just say what it said. We don't need all that. And I think this fellow presumably has his moment.
And so he decides, I'll just embellish it a little bit. What news is there in one murder? Let's let it be known that all the king's sons are dead. The newspaper that we had in Yorkshire when I was a boy was… You know, it couldn't find a scoop to save its circulation.
I mean, we used to have headlines in the local newspaper that said, like, A tree fell in the river. You know, it was like, Whoa, this is good stuff! But the fact that David actually reacts immediately and dramatically, as he does—"Then the king rose, tore his garments, lay on the earth," his servants did the same thing—that speaks to the fact that he was aware of the feud between his sons. He'd questioned Absalom, probably when he did, suspicious of his motives. But now he doesn't actually question the reporter. You say, Well, would he? Well, yeah, actually, I think he would.
And I'll tell you why. Because if you remember the beginning of 2 Samuel, and David hears the news of Saul's death, and the young man who told him, 2 Samuel 1.6, said, By chance I happened to be on the mountain, and so on. And David actually presses the man and says, Are you really God that's accurate?
Well, here we have it. The news comes to him that there has been a complete loss of his entire lineage. You're listening to Alistair Begg on Truth for Life, and we'll hear more of David's story on Monday. Now, in addition to studying along with us on Truth for Life, we think it's vital for you to have personal time in God's Word. And we have some suggestions to help you get started. First, on our website, you'll find an easy-to-use daily Bible reading plan that presents four passages of Scripture each day. And over a year, you'll have read through the entire Bible. In fact, you can even have these passages read aloud to you.
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