Even though King David experienced victory in the battle for the King, he was overwhelmed with sorrow because his enemy was none other than his own son Absalom. Today on Truth for Life, Alistair Begg walks us through the immediate aftermath of David's triumph and the turmoil spawned by his conflicting messages and emotions. So the victory that day was turned into mourning for all the people, for the people heard that day, The king is grieving for his son.
And the people stole into the city that day, as people steal in, Who are ashamed when they flee in battle. The king covered his face, and the king cried with a loud voice, O my son, Absalom, O Absalom, my son, my son. Then Joab came into the house to the king and said, You have today covered with shame the faces of all your servants, who have this day saved your life and the lives of your sons and your daughters and the lives of your wives and your concubines, because you love those who hate you and hate those who love you. For you have made it clear today that commanders and servants are nothing to you.
For today I know that if Absalom were alive and all of us were dead today, then you would be pleased. Now therefore arise, go out and speak kindly to your servants, for I swear by the Lord, if you do not go, not a man will stay with you this night, and this will be worse for you than all the evil that has come upon you from your youth until now. Then the king arose and took his seat in the gate, and the people were all told, Behold, the king is sitting in the gate. And all the people came before the king. Now Israel had fled every man to his own home, and all the people were arguing throughout all the tribes of Israel, saying, The king delivered us from the hand of our enemies and saved us from the hand of the Philistines, and now he has fled out of the land from Absalom. But Absalom, whom we anointed over us, is dead in battle. Now therefore why do you say nothing about bringing the king back? And King David sent this message to Zadok and Abiathar the priests. Say to the elders of Judah, Why should you be the last to bring the king back to his house when the word of all Israel has come to the king? You are my brothers, you are my bone and my flesh. Why then should you be the last to bring back the king?
And say to Amasa, Are you not my bone and my flesh? God do so to me and more also, if you are not commander of my army, from now on in place of Joab. And he swayed the heart of all the men of Judah as one man, so that they sent word to the king, Return both you and all your servants. So the king came back to the Jordan, and Judah came to Gilgal to meet the king and to bring the king over the Jordan. And Shimei son of Gerad the Benjaminite from Bahurim hurried to come down with the men of Judah to meet King David. And with him were a thousand men from Benjamin. And Ziba the servant of the house of Saul, with his fifteen sons and his twenty servants, rushed down to the Jordan before the king.
And they crossed the ford to bring over the king's household and to do his pleasure. And Shimei son of Gerad fell down before the king, as he was about to cross the Jordan, and said to the king, Let not my lord hold me guilty or remember how your servant did wrong on the day my lord the king left Jerusalem. Do not let the king take it to heart, for your servant knows that I have sinned.
Therefore, behold, I have come this day, the first of all the house of Joseph, to come down to meet my lord the king. Abishai the son of Zeruiah answered, Shall not Shimei be put to death for this? Because he cursed the Lord's anointed. But David said, What have I to do with you, you sons of Zeruiah, that you should this day be as an adversary to me? Shall anyone be put to death in Israel this day?
Or do I not know that I am this day king over Israel? And the king said to Shimei, You shall not die. And the king gave him his oath. And Mephibosheth the son of Saul came down to meet the king.
He had neither taken care of his feet nor trimmed his beard nor washed his clothes from the day the king departed until the day he came back in safety. And when he came to Jerusalem to meet the king, the king said to him, Why did you not go with me, Mephibosheth? He answered, My lord, O king, my servant deceived me. For your servant said to him, I will saddle a donkey for myself that I may ride on it and go with the king, for your servant is lame. He has slandered your servant to my lord the king, but my lord the king is like the angel of God.
Do therefore what seems good to you. For all my father's house were but men doomed to death before my lord the king. But you set your servant among those who eat at your table. What further right have I then to cry to the king? And the king said to him, Why speak any more of your affairs?
I have decided. You and Zeba shall divide the land. And Mephibosheth said to the king, O let him take it all, since my lord the king has come safely home. Now Barzillai the Gileadite had come down from Rogalim, and he went on with the king to the Jordan to escort him over the Jordan. Barzillai was a very aged man, eighty years old. He had provided the king with food while he stayed at Mahanaim, for he was a very wealthy man. And the king said to Barzillai, Come over with me, and I will provide for you with me in Jerusalem. But Barzillai said to the king, How many years have I still to live that I should go up with the king to Jerusalem?
I am this day eighty years old. Can I discern what is pleasant and what is not? Can your servant taste what he eats or what he drinks?
Can I still listen to the voice of singing men and singing women? Why then should your servant be an added burden to my lord the king? Your servant will go a little way over the Jordan with the king. Why should the king repay me with such a reward? Please let your servant return, that I may die in my own city near the grave of my father and my mother. But here is your servant Chimham.
Let him go over with my lord the king, and do for him whatever seems good to you. And the king answered, Chimham shall go over with me, and I will do for him whatever seems good to you, and all that you desire of me I will do for you. Then all the people went over the Jordan, and the king went over. And the king kissed Barzillai and blessed him, and he returned to his own home.
The king went on to Gilgal, and Chimham went on with him. All the people of Judah, and also half the people of Israel, brought the king on his way. Then all the men of Israel came to the king and said to the king, Why have our brothers the men of Judah stolen you away and brought the king and his household over the Jordan and all David's men with him? All the men of Judah answered the men of Israel, Because the king is our close relative.
Why then are you angry over this matter? Have we eaten at all at the king's expense, or has he given us any gift? And the men of Israel answered the men of Judah, We have ten shares in the king, and in David also we have more than you.
Why then did you despise us? Were we not the first to speak of bringing back our king? But the words of the men of Judah were fiercer than the words of the men of Israel." Amen. Well, we continue in these studies in 2 Samuel and chapter 19.
It's once again a challenge to us both in relationship to its length and its content. We remind ourselves that when Paul writes in Romans 15 concerning all the things that have been written in the past, that they were written for our good, that through the endurance and the encouragement of Scripture, we might have hope. And one of the ways in which, when you read the Old Testament, you find yourself being pointed forward to Jesus is because what you find there looks so much like Jesus. Other times, when you read a chapter, you're pointed towards Jesus because of the contrast, because what is discovered there actually doesn't look like what we find in Jesus. And 2 Samuel 19 would be of the latter kind, because chapter 19 of 2 Samuel is about the return of the King.
The King, of course, is David the King. And what we're going to discover is that in his return to Jerusalem, everything does not work out perfectly. Of course, we recognize that when Jesus the King returns, everything will be perfect. All things will be settled, justice will be restored, truth will be absolutely established, and wrongs will be righted, and nations and races that are divided through the pilgrimage of life will find themselves unified on that day. And so it is that as we read this this morning, you might be helped just by having that in the back of your mind.
Chapter 19, of course, begins after chapter 18 without any chapter break in the original text. The triumph of victory—for victory it has been, for the forces of David—has been overshadowed by tragedy. If you like, the surgery that has taken place in excising the rebel forces has been successful, but it has left behind scar tissue, which is going to prove to be problematic. Or, to think of David being reinstated and with his crown being put back on his head, as it were, metaphorically, it still glistens in the sun, but not with the same splendor that was there at the beginning of his kingdom. It is now tarnished, and life is going to go on.
But it will not go on ever in the same way. Now, it is in light of that that we are going to try and summarize, or at least make an attempt at, these forty-three verses by, first of all, acknowledging that the king is grieving, secondly, recognizing that the people are arguing, and then, thirdly, recognizing that three lives identified for us are changing. So first of all, then, in verses 1–8, it was told, Joab, behold, the king is weeping and mourning.
Well, of course, this is understandable. Death brings great sadness. We have seen David in the face of death since we began following his story. We saw what happened at the death of Saul and Jonathan, his son, when David penned a quite remarkable elegy. When the child of Bathsheba dies, David is speaking of how the child will not return to me, but I will go to him. And he is confronted there by his own mortality. When Amnon is killed, when that happens, David's response is anger.
And so there's all kinds of responses to death. But here, you will notice, there are no words. There are no words.
There's no elegy here. All that we have is David reduced to a kind of stammering repetition, a grief-filled repetition of his son's name. Oh, my son Absalom! Oh, Absalom! My son!
My son! Now, we need to recognize that Absalom is a rebel. Absalom is opposed to the king, opposed to the Lord's anointed. Absalom is a usurper, and Absalom is now dead. What could be worse for David than this? Because, you see, to die opposed to the king, to the Lord's anointed, is to go to a lost eternity. And David says, Oh, Absalom! He doesn't respond to him as his enemy, as his rebel, as the usurper.
He responds to him as a father. For what could be worse than to be confronted by just this? Let me just pause and reaffirm what the Bible says concerning these things. Jesus is the King. Unless we bow to Jesus as King, embracing him as Lord and Savior in time, we will face him as our judge in eternity with absolutely nothing to say in our defense. The prevailing sentiment at this point in Western culture is that whatever death means, all bets are off. Death is the great equalizer. No matter the distinctions that have existed in time, social status, and so on, everything will be eradicated—including whatever our response was to the message of the gospel. Do not believe that. It is a lie that will take you down to hell if you believe it.
Oh, Absalom, my son, my son! Now, leaders lead. And the flavor of his response to this great tragedy bleeds into the community and causes the people to adopt the same posture, so that in verse 3 the people, we're told, stole into the city as people steal in who were ashamed when they flee in battle.
But they had won the battle. So why would they respond in this way? Why, instead of chants of victory, is there a silence more fitting to defeat? Well, because David has covered his face. He's none prepared to look out on things. He can't see what's really going on.
He has been wailing so loudly that he can't really hear what's going on. And as we see at the beginning of the chapter, Joab has been told. And Joab realizes that somebody needs to intervene, and of course, Joab, being the person that we've discovered him to be, finds it relatively easy to go and confront the king and rebuke him. And you have his statement as it comes there from verse 4b and into 5, Joab came into the house of the king.
Now, I'll leave you to read it on your own, but essentially, what the text tells us is this, if we paraphrase it. Joab goes to David, and he says to him, Listen, there's one thing for you to cover your face, but you've covered something else, and that is that you have covered your people with shame. The people who risked their lives for you, the people who were out there in that battle, who have come back expecting a victory parade, and instead, what have they received?
David, this is not right. If you show such affection to Absalom your son, who actually was your enemy, then you create the impression that you're turning your friends into your enemies and your enemies into your friends. And I'm gonna tell you, he says, you're sending a message out to your commanders and to the leaders of the troops that they don't even matter to you. You're sending the idea that if Absalom were still alive and we were all dead, then you would be perfectly happy. And clearly, what he's doing is he's exaggerating here in order to waken, as it were, David out of this great sadness. If you fail in this, he says, when you waken up in the morning, you won't even have an army, and things will be worse than anything that you've ever known right up until now throughout your entire life.
Wow! So what happened? Well, the king arose and took his seat in the gate. And the people were told, The king is in the gate.
In other words, we're back in business with David as the king, and all the people came before the king. That gate, of course, has appeared more than once—most recently, perhaps, in chapter 15, when Absalom takes his place in the gate, at the entry to the gate, so that he can meet the people, so that he can say to the people, you know, David, who knows what he'll do for you, but if you stick with me, things will be much better. Remember that great political posture that he takes? He was in the gate. Well, he was in the gate with a big story. Then he was hanging in a tree with no story.
And then he was buried under a pile of stones. Oh, Absalom! Well, the people now are in a different position. They had all heard what David had said to the commanders, Deal gently with Absalom.
That hadn't happened. They had heard that David was grieving, and they began to mourn with him. They heard that he was back in the gate, and so they all came before the king. I just watched part of a documentary—I think it was on the death of Lady Diana—and I was struck by the fact that leadership brings both privileges and burdens. Because in the death of Lady Diana, Her Majesty the Queen was at Balmoral in Scotland. And the response of the nation was, Why doesn't she come down here and grieve with the rest of us? They had no way of knowing whether she was grieving or not, but that was the position.
And I thought to myself, You know, there is no place to hide from that kind of scrutiny. The people will always know what the duty of the leader is. And David was unable to bear either the burden or the privilege in this situation. I guess that's one of the reasons that tonight, when we come together to pray, we will pray for those who are in authority over us. We will pray for the leaders of our nation. We will pray for those who are entrusted with privileges and responsibilities and burdens that most of us will never actually experience.
But of course, that won't stop us from having our opinions and claiming that we know. Now, halfway through verse 8, the scene switches. The sad picture fades, and up onto the screen comes the broader picture of what's happening throughout the land. And all the people, verse 9, were arguing.
Let me try quickly to summarize it for us. Absalom, as we know, had stolen the hearts of the people. They had followed him. But he's now dead. And so, in verses 9 and 10, they're in a quandary, because they had rejected the true King, they had gone with the potential King, he was gone, and therefore, a number of them were saying, It's time to reverse our decision. We've got nothing here now.
That was a futile exercise. Let's get back to the one who is the true King. And clearly, some people were challenging that as well. Now, all of this had reached the ears of David. You see that down in verse 11, actually, towards the end of verse 11. The word of all Israel had come to the King. So David hears that the northern tribes—those are the ones who had sided with Absalom—are having this discussion about the future. He then dispatches Abiathar and Zadok, whom we've already met, to go to the people of Judah and to say to them, Well, hey, what's going on with you folks? Why should you, verse 11, be the last to bring the king back to his house? So he sends word to Judah. Remember, he is from the tribe of Judah. And he says, Why are you not at the front of this parade?
Go and ask them. After all, he says, You are my brothers, and you are my bone and my flesh. Why then would you be the last to bring the king back? And so what is he doing? Well, he is actually stitching together in his mind these arguing factions—both Israel and Judah—seeking to bring them together on the same page. And he adds to this very politically, I suggest, in verse 13, where he says, Say to Amasa, Are you not my bone and my flesh? Now, that ought to cause you to pause for a moment, if you've been following the story, because Amasa was the commander of the armies of Absalom. Joab was the commander of the armies of David. Now, says David, go to Judah and say, Listen, let's have Amasa as the commander in place of Joab. And what happened? Well, we're told that he swayed the hearts of the people, or he won them over. And they were united as one man, and they brought the king over the Jordan. Okay?
So far, so good. That's bookend number one. You're listening to Alistair Begg on Truth for Life, and we'll hear more about the return of the king on Monday. We often hear from people who have found Truth for Life online and discovered our mobile app or our podcast. If you've partnered with us prayerfully or financially, you need to know your support is what makes this global outreach possible, and we are grateful for your faithfulness.
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Whisper: medium.en / 2025-01-24 06:30:15 / 2025-01-24 06:39:10 / 9