Absolom
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Hello and welcome to Halting Toward Zion, the podcast where we limp like Jacob to the Promised Land and talk about life, the universe, and everything along the way. I’m your host, Bryan Broome, filling in for Emily Maxson, and I’m joined today by Greg Uttinger.
Today we’re continuing our march through ancient church history and discussing the consequences of David’s sin with Bathsheba and what comes about as a result. Greg, why don’t you start us off.
We were just talking before the podcast about how long this story is, because it begins in 2 Samuel 11 and pretty much goes toward the end of the book. This is a long, long story with lots of details that would do justice to any TV soap opera. Unfortunately, this is real and involves one of God’s most precious servants, which makes it all the more distressing and sobering for us.
Most people know the story, at least in its broad outlines. It’s a time of war, but David has stayed behind in the palace. He gets up off his bed in the middle of the day – what was he doing there? – and looks out the window and sees a young woman. She’s washing herself and it’s unclear whether that’s a bath or whether she’s doing some kind of ceremonial purification. It doesn’t matter. He shouldn’t have looked. He should have turned away.
Instead he asked, “Who is this?” and a palace servant says, “This is Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam, the wife of Uriah the Hittite.” In other words, this is the granddaughter of one your mighty men, and the wife of one of your mighty men. Whatever you’re thinking, you probably shouldn’t do it.
There’s a line from Fantastic Mr. Fox. “If what I think is going on is going on, it better not be.”
Exactly, but the servant didn’t have the courage to push any further. David sends for her and commits adultery with her.
Backing up here a second, she’s the granddaughter of one of his mighty men, one of his elite bodyguard warriors, the wife of another, and something this doesn’t say here but we learn elsewhere is her grandfather is a man named Ahithophel, who was one of David’s chief counselors, who speaks with impeccable wisdom on all occasions.
David is managing to alienate a lot of people here. I guess his assumption is no one will know, which has got to be one of the stupidest assumptions anyone can ever make in these matters. Then of course the other stupid assumption is, “and of course she won’t get pregnant.” Well, she gets pregnant and sends and tells David.
Bathsheba is a full generation younger than David, and perhaps more. David is around 50. She may be around 20. She grew up in and about the palace with her dad and the man who became her husband. She knew David as her king, her hero, the Lord’s messiah, the anointed one, the savior of Israel, and when he calls and says, “It’s alright, I’m a prophet. I know these things, trust me,” Nathan the prophet will compare this to taking your neighbor’s little ewe pet lamb and killing it and eating it.
Certainly Bathsheba is responsible for her sins, but God’s judgment throughout is pointed at David. He did great evil, two capital crimes before we’re done, because when she says, “I’m pregnant,” David calls her husband back from the front, tries to get him drunk so he’ll go and sleep with his wife, but twice it doesn’t work so he sends a message to his field commander and says, “Arrange for his death,” and Joab his general does so. Lest we misunderstand, the writer says the thing that David had done displeased the Lord.
The prophet Nathan comes and does his little parable and David does repent. To his honor and to the glory of God he repents, but this begins a series of tragedies. The penalty for theft was four-fold restitution. When Nathan had done his parable of “It’s just like taking this guy’s little lamb and sacrificing and eating it,” David is outraged, thinking the prophet is talking about someone else, and says,
The man that hath done this thing shall surely die, and he shall restore the lamb fourfold because he did this thing, and because he had no pity.
“Okay David, you just pronounced your penalty. You killed one and you’re going to lose four,” and before the story is over – and it actually does bleed into 1 Kings – he’s going to lose four sons. First of all, the baby dies.
Not us alone. There’s collateral damage. Sometimes it’s harder when we see our children suffering for our sins than if we had to suffer ourselves. We don’t want our sins to touch our children, but the process has begun.
Not too long after (2 Samuel 13) David has two older boys. One is named Absalom by one wife, and the other is named Amnon by another wife. David has multiple wives. This is wrong and he knows it, and the law said don’t do this, but he’s done it because kings did those things.
That’s exactly what Israel was told would happen when they accepted a king other than the Lord. “They’re going to take your young men for chariot riders and they will multiply unto themselves wives and hoard gold and silver.” Even though David is the man after God’s own heart and he is an archetype, so to speak, of Christ, a shadow, he is still part of the consequence for Israel that they rejected the Lord as their king.
So he has these wives, and of course as in all harems there’s competition, jockeying for power and favoritism, so these boys already don’t like each other a whole lot. Absalom has a sister named Tamar, a beautiful and apparently sweet girl. Amnon, her half-brother, has developed an insane lust toward her.
He confesses this to his friend, a cousin named Jonadab, and Jonadab is throughout this whole story sort of like the serpent in Eden. He’s called a very subtle man and that should be a hint. He keeps coming up with great plans that are horrible. He says, “You know what? Why don’t you pretend you’re sick and your dad will come visit you, and then you can ask that Tamar be the one to nurse you.”
But David completely doesn’t catch it and agrees to it and sends Tamar to be slaughtered in her own way. Amnon gets her alone, tries to seduce her, and then flat-out rapes her. She goes home and Absalom, her brother, sees what’s happened and tries to comfort her, but at that point he’s decided, “Well, that’s it for Amnon then. He’s dead.”
He waits a couple years, probably to come of age, and throws a great feast and he tries to get David to come and all the king’s sons. David is busy and puts him off and is just the slightest bit curious, “Why do you want all the king’s sons there?” but he doesn’t follow through. He doesn’t pursue.
Absalom instructs his servants, “When Amnon is merry and drinking, kill him. I’ll give the signal, you kill him,” and they do, then Absalom runs away, and David is very, very upset. And yet in the midst of all of this he doesn’t do much of anything.
It’s an example of how you can’t let your familial connections prevent justice. If you’re in a position of authority to mete out justice, you can’t let blood relation hold sway. We see this I think somewhat often in church discipline situations. I’m not even an elder or a deacon or in any kind of church leadership position and I have heard more stories than I can count of things like this.
I am an elder and I’ve had to work through things like this, and of course I can give no details. With regard to our Christian school I’ve seen this as well, people who will press for the letter of the law and for justice when it’s someone else’s kid, but the moment it’s their kid, “Oh no, mercy! Oh no, school rules don’t apply. It happened off-campus.” This is not helping anybody.
It even is something to consider not even when you’re just talking about blood relation within the church, but also just someone within the church at all and making excuses for them, because it doesn’t work.
Well, the testimony was already lost is the thing. You just add to it if you don’t address it and you don’t involve the civil authority when it actually warrants it, obviously.
In cases of child molestation – and unfortunately I am aware of them, not in my current church but in other places and times – I have seen that as an excuse. “Well, the guy’s sorry. He cried a lot. No need to destroy him further. No need to tarnish the reputation of his family. His family will be humiliated when this comes out. The church and their testimony and the reputation of Christ will be damaged. Let’s just sweep it under the carpet. I’m sure he’s sorry and I’m sure it will never happen again.”
“Let’s just quietly move him from this parish to a different one and everything will be fine, as long as we don’t acknowledge it.”
Yeah, the failure to deal with sin. In some ways that’s what this discussion is about. I think it becomes clear in this one line. David got angry. He should have done a whole lot more. We could ask ourselves why. We’ve suggested some reasons here. I would throw on top of that a rather obvious suggestion, is that David looked back at his own sin. He had committed adultery. He had virtually raped Bathsheba.
That’s what I was thinking of as well, is that it becomes very hard for someone to punish others for the same sin that they are guilty of, which is one of the reasons that a requirement for eldership is to be a man above reproach. It’s not the only reason why that’s in there, but it’s one of them.
Yeah. No one said the job of being an elder or a magistrate or judge or whatever is an easy one. Sometimes it is necessary to recuse oneself and back off and say, “I’m too close to this.” In every cop show I’ve seen lately there’s always, “You have to back off. You have to put yourself off-duty on this because you’re too close.”
No, you really don’t. Someone else could do this. You can trust the people you work with. You may be the listed as the star in the credits, but your character really shouldn’t be doing this. Somehow it’s kind of enobling that you stay there and fight it out because you’re closer to things. You can give evidence. You can give testimony. You can help find out the truth and you can console those who have been hurt, but there’s a time for the judges to step back. Or if they’re not going to, then they have to follow through.
If David is not going to exercise judgement here, then he could back off and say, “Elders, this is outside my purview. It’s too close to home. I turn him over to you. Next highest on the chain of command, investigate and come to a solution. Whatever it is, I’ll back you. I’m trying to get my house in order.”
It’s not the ceding of authority. It’s that, “I can’t be the one to make the decision, but your decision will bear the weight of my authority behind it.
Exactly. But this problem of guilt feelings based upon a once upon a time real guilt – “I broke the law. I’ve since repented. It’s covered by the blood of Christ, but I still have that consciousness that once I did this, and if I did this how can I hold someone else accountable?” – it’s a very hard thing, but the fact is life is hard. Responsibility is hard. Being a father is hard. Being a king is hard. Being an elder or a pastor is hard. You either have to be willing to follow through or you have to have the wisdom to turn it over to someone else and then stay out of the way and quit kibbitzing. Stop trying to take it back.
I’ve seen that, too. “Why don’t you guys take care of her? Oh, I changed my mind because I don’t like what you’re doing. I’ll take it back and we’ll…”
The story goes on. Absalom has fled back to his grandfather’s kingdom, because his mom was the daughter of a king elsewhere, and David misses his son.
So Absalom fled and went to Geshur and was there three years. And the soul of king David longed to go forth unto Absalom, for he was comforted concerning Amnon, seeing he was dead.
I’m not sure what to make of that. He really misses Absalom and wants to go to him, but again doesn’t do anything. And Amnon? Well, he’s dead.
Eventually Joab, the general who was responsible for the murder of Uriah directly, the one who ordered him into battle where he would get killed, sees that David is sad and there’s a strain in the family. He’s a cousin in all of this.
I won’t go through the whole story, but he arranges for a reunion eventually. He kind of sort of almost but not quite tricks David into admitting that David has gone too far, and David’s solution is, “Alright, fine, bring him home, but we’ll do exile in town. He can be in town close, but he won’t see my face,” which is not much of a solution.
Eventually Absalom pushes for true resolution so he says, “Let him come. I want to see him. If I’m worthy of death, he should kill me. Otherwise, this needs to end.” Out of the mouth of babes and murderers.
Probably Absalom’s defense is – or my guess, it’s what I would go for, for lack of any other – “I hated his guts, so I killed him.”
That doesn’t work. Probably he’s claiming the right of kinsman redeemer, avenger of blood. “He raped my sister and therefore…” but a single rape was not in and of itself a death penalty. You could argue that this one was because it wasn’t seduction, it was violent, and that’s probably what Absalom claimed. And if that’s so, then he should have had his day in court. He could argue his case, and the king or a judge should pass sentence in terms of such logic.
The kinsman redeemer rule – did that apply to anything? I thought it was only for accidental death.
See, that’s the thing. He would have to argue it in court and say, “But look, we can extend the principle.” It’s certainly not open and shut. In fact, the one precedent we have is Levi and Simeon going into the town of Shechem and slaughtering everybody because one boy had raped their sister.
No, God did not give his sanction to that either. Probably the reason that David avoided it is because as a parent, as an elder, as someone who loves your friend and your family, you stay up late thinking of all the rationales, trying to rationalize a solution. Figure out the solution you want and then try to explain it in terms of God’s law.
We can be very creative. I think I’ve been guilty of this more than a few times, of walking through things and, “Well, this, this, this, and this.” But time comes along and says, “That’s the stupidest exegesis and logic I’ve ever heard.”
Kind of on that same train of thought, I was just thinking earlier today about how it’s easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into heaven. People didn’t like that so they were like, “Well, there was a gate called the Eye of the Needle,” which never existed. They just came up with something.
You don’t even need to say you can’t be rich, because the passage isn’t saying that. It’s just that riches were an apparent sign of blessing to the Jewish people. Anyway, I’m getting off-track but it’s the same kind of idea. You can come up with any kind of ridiculous argument you want. It doesn’t mean that it’s right.
But it is interesting that Absalom pushes for some kind of resolution, and David gives in and invites Absalom to come see him.
And when he had called for Absalom, he came to the king and bowed himself on his face to the ground before the king, and the king kissed Absalom.
And it came to pass after this, that Absalom prepared him chariots and horses, and fifty men to run before him. And Absalom rose up early and stood beside the way of the gate, and it was so that when any man that had a controversy came to the king for judgment, then Absalom called unto him, and said, Of what city art thou? And he said, Thy servant is of one of the tribes of Israel.
And Absalom said unto him, See, thy matters are good and right, but there is no man deputed of the king to hear thee. Absalom said moreover, Oh that I were made judge in the land, that every man which hath any suit or cause might come unto me, and I would do him justice! And it was so, that when any man came nigh to him to do him obeisance, he put forth his hand, and took him and kissed him. And on this manner did Absalom to all Israel that came to the king for judgment, so Absalom stole the hearts of the men of Israel.
So Absalom gets restored to favor. He got what he wanted, and you know what? It didn’t satisfy. “Dad was a jerk. Dad’s a rotten king. Look how he bungled everything.”
“Israel deserves a better king than David. It deserves, well, me!” and so he develops a very subtle plan to usurp the throne. He hangs out at court, and when people come away from a court decision, one party is usually going to be dissatisfied. So whenever it was someone not from the tribe of Judah, which was very loyal to David, but one of the other tribes of Israel, Absalom would go up to them.
As the king’s son, people would normally do him homage, but he does homage to them, kisses them, greets them, asks about what’s going on and says, “Oh, you’re so right. Your cause was so just. It’s rotten that there’s nobody qualified to judge you. If someone were deputed to handle cases like this they’d do a better job than this. Oh, that I were judge in Israel [he doesn’t say king]. I would make this right.”
Meanwhile, he’s hired chariots and horses and foot runners to put on an outward show, and he does this for some time. It says he stole the hearts of the men of Israel, a very deliberate plan. Eventually when he’s ready and when he has people in place in the conspiracy, including Bathsheba’s grandfather, Ahitophel, he announces his kingship, and word reaches David.
And there came a messenger to David, saying, The hearts of the men of Israel are after Absalom. And David said unto all his servants that were with him at Jerusalem, Arise, and let us flee.
At this point David had a choice. He was in Jerusalem and Absalom had announced his succession elsewhere. David could have stayed, fortified Jerusalem, and fought it out. He might have won. He could have summoned Judah to his side and it might have worked. It would have been a horribly bloody civil war and Jerusalem might have suffered severe damage or siege, but David looks on this as in some sense his fault.
Now, Absalom is the one who’s rebelling. Absalom is the one who’s trying to topple the monarchy. Absalom is the one who’s disregarding God’s covenant with David, so it’s not strictly speaking David’s fault, but David failed to set in motion things that would stop this. He had not dealt with his family, so David flees.
He’s taking with him those he needs and those who are most loyal to him. Interestingly, his Philistine bodyguard, the people who had come to faith in the God of Israel while he was in the land of Philistia, they want to go with him. The priests want to go, and this I think is a key moment in David’s decision.
As palace folk are flocking out of the gates and going down over the Brook Kidron and across the Mount of Olives – a familiar journey later – the priests come with the ark and David says, “No. No no no. You take it back. I will go into exile. The ark stays here with God’s people, and if God is pleased with me, one day he’ll bring me back to see it again, but I will go into exile and the ark will remain.”
This is major that it happens as he crosses the Brook Kidron and goes up the Mount of Olives, which is probably where the cross stood. It’s where Isaac had been offered centuries before. Here he lives out again the image of Christ. He takes upon himself exile for a crime that was not his, so that God’s presence can continue with his people. This is true humility.
Not to mention he’s sort of imaging the scapegoat that is sent into the wilderness as well.
Absalom arrives with his army and his followers and assumes control. One of the last people who wanted to go with David and was not allowed to is a man named Hushai. He seems to be an older guy. He’s certainly not a warrior because David says, “If you came with me you’d only be a hindrance. You stay here and pretend to be on Absalom’s side. Maybe you can defeat the counsel of Ahithophel, because Ahithophel is a brilliant man. He’s going to tell him stuff that’s just absolutely going to destroy us. Maybe God will use you to do something,” so he agrees.
When Absalom arrives, Hushai goes up and says, “God save the king. God save the king.”
Nay, but whom the LORD, and this people and all the men of Israel choose, his will I be, and with him will I abide. And again, whom should I serve? Should I not serve in the presence of his son? As I have served in thy father's presence, so will I be in thy presence.
We can read between the lines there a little bit. “Whoever God makes king?” Yeah, we know who God made king.
Now, Absalom had it all figured out to this point, and he really has not made a mistake anywhere. He did bank on David running away probably, but at this point he suddenly is like, “Okay, wow. I’m in charge. I got what I wanted. What do I do now, guys?” and he turns to Ahithophel and Hushai, and Hushai isn’t ready for this one. He doesn’t have an immediate answer.
Ahithophel says, “Oh, it’s easy. Your father left some of his concubines behind to tend the house.” Again, a concubine is not a mistress. These were lawful wives who came in without dowries, so they were originally poor girls that David romanced and took into his harem. They are legitimate wives, insofar as bigamy is legitimate. He had sworn to take care of them.
Ahithophel says, “Well, pitch a tent on the roof of the palace and go have sex with your father’s concubines in the sight of all Israel,” and he does.
And the counsel of Ahithophel, which he counselled in those days, was as if a man had inquired at the oracle of God.
Because what he’s doing is driving a wedge so that no one can hope for reconciliation. After this, reconciliation is impossible.
Also it’s him completely getting his revenge for his granddaughter’s defilement, but he doesn’t have to be the one to dirty himself. “We’ll have this guy do it.”
I think you just hit it. David used Bathsheba. He’s using Absalom. He’s manipulating Absalom as well as tarnishing and raping these poor girls who’ve been left behind.
So that’s done. The division is sealed. There’s no way either side can go back from this one. Ahithophel now puts forward his counsel, because again Absalom is like, “Wow, okay, did that.” Before he could ask, “What next?” Ahithophel tells him what’s next.
Let me now choose out twelve thousand men, and I will arise and pursue after David this night and I will come upon him while he is weary and weak handed and will make him afraid. And all the people that are with him shall flee and I will smite the king only. And I will bring back all the people unto thee. The man whom thou seekest is as if all returned, so all the people shall be in peace.
He says, “Give me 12,000.” I think that suggests probably he has in mind 1,000 from each tribe – share the guilt. Get everybody involved so no tribe can say, “Hey, we had nothing to do with it.” Let’s get everybody involved, at least symbolically. He says, “I’ll lead this strike force.”
There was none of this, “This is what you should do.” He says, “Give me command. I can do this,” and he is very perceptive. “All we need to do is take out David. We don’t have to kill anybody else. No one else will get hurt. And we’ll go now before he has a chance to entrench himself anyplace. We’ll go, we’ll get him, and then it’s all over because they’ll have no shepherd, no leader, no king, and they’re going to have to submit to the new order, so that’s it. This needs to happen right away. David does not need any more time.”
Absalom and the elders say, “That sounds really good,” but Absalom says, “Well, let’s talk to Hushai here. Let’s see what he has to say,” so Hushai has to think on his feet real fast. Ahithophel’s response was real quick and pointed. Hushai kind of meanders for a while and he spends a lot of time flattering Absalom.
For, said Hushai, thou knowest thy father and his men, that they be mighty men [he’s dropping in key words here that resonated] and they be chafed in their minds, as a bear robbed of her whelps in the field [again very clear rhetoric here] and thy father is a man of war and will not lodge with the people.
“You’re not going to get him. He won’t be where you expect. If you attack you may get some women and children, but he’s going to be in some pit someplace, so this isn’t going to work.”
Behold, he is hid now in some pit or in some other place. And it will come to pass, when some of them be overthrown at the first…
…because you’re walking right into the Green Beret of Israel, or the Navy Seals or Army Rangers or whatever you want to call it. Even if you outweigh them by thousands, there’s going to be a slaughter up front from them, and people will be afraid. When you know what you’re going up against, and sure enough you walk right into a blender and blood’s going everywhere, the psychological damage will be severe. People will run away and word will circulate that your followers have been routed. We don’t want that.
Whosoever heareth it will say, There is a slaughter among the people that follow Absalom. And he also that is valiant, whose heart is as the heart of a lion, shall utterly melt for all Israel knoweth that thy father is a mighty man, and they which be with him are valiant men. Therefore I counsel that all Israel be generally gathered unto thee, from Dan even to Beersheba, as the sand that is by the sea for multitude, and that thou go to battle in thine own person.
So shall we come upon him in some place where he shall be found, and we will light upon him as the dew falleth on the ground, and of him and of all the men that are with him there shall not be left so much as one. Moreover, if he be gotten into a city, then shall all Israel bring ropes to that city, and we will draw it into the river…
As a kid I often wondered, “Wow, could they really do that?” No, of course not. He’s just getting hyperbolic in his rhetoric here. “We’ll grab ropes and drag the city to a river!” until not a stone be found there.
And Absalom and all the men of Israel said, The counsel of Hushai the Archite is better than the counsel of Ahithophel. For the LORD had appointed to defeat the good counsel of Ahithophel, to the intent that the LORD might bring evil upon Absalom.
Then Hushai sends messengers by the priests’ sons to go warn David. Meanwhile, Ahithophel looks at this and says, “Huh, well, okay. We’ve lost. That was our one shot.” He goes home, sets his affairs in order, and hangs himself.
The psalms that describe the event are taken by the New Testament writers to be prophecies of Judas and his betrayal of the Lord’s great Messiah. “We went to the house of God together. We had sweet fellowship, but let his office be taken by another.”
The priests’ sons reached David to warn him, and they manage to get across Jordan to a place where they can dig in and get ready for battle. They find a city that will hold them and then the battle commences, and I won’t go through all the details of the battle except for this – the men who are with David are stronger and better than the militias of Israel. They’re professional soldiers and God has blessed them.
So the people went out into the field against Israel, and the battle was in the wood of Ephraim, where the people of Israel were slain before the servants of David, and there was there a great slaughter that day of twenty thousand men. 8For the battle was there scattered over the face of all the country, and the wood devoured more people that day than the sword devoured.
Every time I read that to my students they say, “The wood devoured? Wait. What do we have, Ents?” It’s not explained.
I think about how rough the footing is in a forest. If you’re running in heavy armor, you’re carrying an extra 30-40 pounds of armor and a weapon as well, and if your foot hits a root that’s sticking up from the dirt and you go head-first into a tree with all that extra weight behind you, you’re not going to survive that.
You’ll sit there and die slowly as blood oozes into your brain. In the midst of this, we have one example of how the wood dealt a serious blow. Absalom decides to escape and he’s riding on his donkey and he goes under the thick boughs of a great oak.
We’re told earlier that he had very long hair. It’s not clear whether it catches his hair, because he should have had a helmet on. But whether it catches his helmet or his hair, he gets stuck in the boughs of the tree, and as the donkey goes away he gets pulled off the donkey and lifted up between heaven and earth. So here is the king’s son hanging on a tree between heaven and earth. Joab’s shield bearers see this and come and tell him, and he goes and has them kill him and then he adds to it.
And ten young men that bare Joab's armour compassed about and smote Absalom and slew him.
Joab himself threw three darts into Absalom’s heart, so he’s dead – as my girls would say, “D-e-d, dead.” It’s over.
There’s more that goes on beyond this, but one last little thing. It seems little, but the text spends a lot of time with it. Joab now knows the war is over because it worked both ways. If Absalom dies then the war is also over, and he’s dead. He needs to tell David, so he sends a messenger whose name is Cushi, which means black, for whatever reason. These are sad messages, and apparently he was a messenger designated for bad news.
We get little prefix messages in our phone calls like “scam likely.” My girls think, “Oh, it’s Mr. Likely again,” Scam Likely. Apparently the messenger you sent was a tip-off to the kind of message you would be getting, so if you saw the guy in the distance you would know “black sails, white sails.” Black means it’s not going to be so good.
“Well, you don’t have any tidings. You’re a good man. You bear good tidings and these aren’t good tidings, so some other day.” And the other messenger takes off.
“All right, fine, go,” so he goes and he outruns the other messenger and gets to David first. And when he bursts into the camp the king says, “Is everything okay?” and he says, “All is well,” in the English text. What he says is “shalom,” peace, and he announces that the battle has been won. David wants to know, “Is Absalom alive?” and Ahimaaz avoids answering.
The enemies of my lord the king, and all that rise against thee to do thee hurt, be as that young man is [he’s dead].
The king is much moved and goes up and cries and weeps, “O my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom!” The poets have done a lot with that.
We run into Ahimaaz later. He marries one of Solomon’s daughters and he ministers in Zebulun and Naphtali, Galilee of the Gentiles. He’s a priest who comes to bear witness that the war is over, that there is shalom, there is peace, because the king’s son is dead, slain on a tree, and therefore Israel can be reunited. And like the one he foreshadows, he will do a lot of priestly work and governing work in Galilee of the Gentiles.
It is. Why does God put all this in? Why do we care about a footrace? Because there’s more going on here. We’re used to the positive images of Jesus, but we need to remember that when he died he was the worst of sinners, not by his own sin but by that which was imputed to him. All the sins of the world, our sins, were placed upon him. At that moment he died a sinner, as Absalom died a sinner. Unlike Absalom, he came back alive.
There’s a passage in the Old Testament where it specifically says, “Cursed be everyone who hangs on a tree,” and I can’t remember the original context.
That was Deuteronomy, and Paul quotes it in Galatians. That’s very much the point, this idea that hanging on a tree you’re separated from heaven on the one hand and earth from the other. You are a person out of time and place. You are pulled away from all the solaces of everything. It is a sign of complete rejection. And on top of that, the tree is supposed to be man’s life, and here it becomes man’s death, so on all counts it ain’t a good thing.
Things continue to go bad, because while David is pouting and trying to figure out how to get back, another would-be usurper comes in. He has to be dealt with, and there’s fallout from that that’s not so great. Then when David is on his deathbed a fourth son revolts and he has to be put down eventually by Solomon. It’s a long history that comes, first of all, of course, from David’s own sin with Bathsheba, and then by his failure to deal with the sins in his own family.
We’ve seen in the last generation or so a lot of emphasis in Reformed circles and Presbyterian circles at least, and things that impinge on that, a renewed interest in the place of fathers and leadership of men, patriarchy sometimes it’s called. There is a biblical doctrine of the headship of fathers and male leadership, but it can be taken to extremes. It can be corrupted.
If you want to play that card, gentlemen, then God places a great deal of responsibility on you. If you’re going to be a father, you don’t just get the benefits. You don’t just get to sit back with your beer and your cigar and talk theology or whatever, while letting your house decay and letting your children go wild. You are responsible.
That’s where it begins, a personal relationship with your kids, getting to know them, working with them, teaching them one on one, earning their respect, not assuming it, modeling the faith before them day after day, holding them accountable and letting them hold you accountable. It does not put you beyond the criticism of your wife and kids. A man steps up and owns that and says, “I was wrong. I have sinned. I will fix it, and if necessary I will go public with my own sins.”
This is what male leadership is supposed to look like, and David failed. But in the crucial moment he took upon himself the character of Christ. He took upon himself the judgement rather than blaming Absalom, although Absalom was certainly at fault. He leaves and accepts the exile and follows the path that Christ will eventually take over the Brook Kidron to the Mount of Olives and beyond into exile. In that, then God is finally ready to begin working with him, but even so it’s a long journey and there’s no perfection and there’s no undoing what circumstances have set in motion.
We can be sorry for our sins and God can forgive us, but that does not automatically remove all the earthly consequences for what we get. It is well that we understand this and not pretend that grace simply wipes it all away. “Well, I told God I was sorry. That fixes everything, right?” Nope.
That sounds a lot like whenever villains in TV shows or movies turn good and immediately go off and kill someone else and then pretend, so to speak. Everyone goes, “Well, we have to accept that because she said she’s sorry.” It’s like, “You murdered 12 people, sir.”
That’s another thing we should talk about sometime, the modern existentialist idea of a hero. You define yourself moment-by-moment by your choices. Past choices are irrelevant if your current choices reject them, so you are who you are now. If right now you’re choosing to do the good thing, then you’re a good person now. The past is gone, the present is all that matters.
I don’t know how many TV shows I’ve seen where this kind of thing is happening, and you’re absolutely right. There’s super-hero movies and all kinds of things where, “Well, we’ll just forget that you obliterated a planet in times past, but it’s alright because you mean well now.”
That’s not the biblical doctrine of repentance. Biblical salvation comes because Jesus bore our sin. He bore our penalty. The penalty was not washed away. It wasn’t that God’s love just so overwhelmed the situation that he could do without justice. God executed his justice against his own son, and therein is our salvation.
In the meantime, within history there is still the matter of discipline and consequence and growth. We need sometimes to be spanked. We need to be disciplined. We need to be chastened. It’s to be better partakers of his holiness that Jesus is there for us.
Amen. I think that’s the perfect place to wrap up then. We’ll move on to recommendations. Greg, do you have anything?
I recommend sacred concerts for teenagers. My kids, as most of you know, have gone through Christian school, and they’re out and beyond and moving into other things, but I’m still a Christian school teacher and a bunch of my students last night went to a musicale performance put on by an organization of Christian schools.
We’ve been doing this on and off for years as a school, and it always presents some problems. Is everybody going? Just the choir? How many people in the choir? It creates some logistical nightmares on occasion, but it’s worth it because here our kids get to go and rub shoulders with other kids who probably have more intense formal choir programs than we do.
Ours is a small school with a wonderful director who works well with them, but he has a million other things to do, most of which are not choir. We require choir. There was a point in planning out our future curriculum when we had to look at what the USC schools were requiring. They wanted a fine arts requirement and we had to decide, “Well, it can be drama or it can be choir,” and for a number of reasons I said it shouldn’t be drama.
Some of those reasons were selfish, but one of them was positive. God commands his people to sing. He never commands them to act. Singing is a divine appointment, a divine responsibility and privilege, so every one of our kids should have some instruction in singing.
So to have these kids go through this and be in choir not because they earned it by some kind of contest, but because it’s a responsibility before God to learn to sing, and then go and hang out with kids who are more privileged, who do have more training, who probably did earn a place in the honors choir, and be exposed to all sorts of music, not just the pop stuff they hear on the radio but classical and jazz and gospel and black spirituals, and to hear it in the mouths of other kids their own ages who come from different backgrounds and different experiences I think is a very wonderful thing.
It also puts a huge responsibility on the people who organize this, because this can be done as a sacred concert, a worship service, or it can be turned into an entertainment display. That’s not on the kids, it’s on the directors and the organizers.
It’s a hard thing because our kids maybe don’t have a category for a sacred concert, and some of these directors don’t seem to either, and yet. We went last night and it was a wonderful thing to hear God praised by a whole bunch of teenagers all singing together, because all the choirs in the end are brought together and everybody sings.
I think all the years I was in choir, yeah. I really remember the first one. That one still sticks in my head. Honestly, the first one of anything sticks in your head more. I was remembering the song that we did, and that we all came back together and sang was this beautiful arrangement by Hayden of “The Heavens are Telling the Glory of God.”
They ended up picking soloists, and I am still bitter I was not chosen, but not really still bitter, I just remembered it now for the first time in however many years, and this beautiful interweaving of soloist work for each voice sang, “The day that is coming speaks the day.” Newer translations put it like, “Day to day pours forth speech, and night to night reveals knowledge,” and no one in that choir knew what that meant, is what I’m getting at, but it’s a very beautiful piece.
Mine, oddly enough, actually ties in at least referentially to what you were talking about. There’s a wonderful choral piece by the composer Eric Whittaker which I first heard at that first musicale. It’s a much shorter version because the full version of this piece is 18 or 21 minutes long. It is that text, when David heard that Absalom was slain and he went into his chambers and wept. It goes for 21 minutes, which oddly enough probably tracks what it felt like for David and for his attendants and all that.
It is gorgeous. It’s an intensely beautiful piece of music and it’s written like someone weeping. It’s not like, “Oh no, my son!” for 21 minutes. There are significant-length portions in the center and that repeat throughout where it’s a lot quieter. “My son, my son, my son…” and then it goes back into wailing, because that’s what happens when you’re in grief. It’s not static or it’s not always dynamic. There’s this roller coaster and loopedy-loos that you go through when you’re grieving.
That piece just captures it perfectly, so that is my recommendation. It also ties into the fact that we were talking about Absalom. It’s a beautiful, beautiful piece.
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