Rebellion of Absalom
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of the son, the Lord permitted events to take their natural course, and
did not restrain Absalom. When parents or rulers neglect the duty
of punishing iniquity, God Himself will take the case in hand. His
restraining power will be in a measure removed from the agencies of
evil, so that a train of circumstances will arise which will punish sin
with sin.
The evil results of David’s unjust indulgence toward Amnon were
not ended, for it was here that Absalom’s alienation from his father
began. After he fled to Geshur, David, feeling that the crime of his son
demanded some punishment, refused him permission to return. And
this had a tendency to increase rather than to lessen the inextricable
evils in which the king had come to be involved. Absalom, energetic,
ambitious, and unprincipled, shut out by his exile from participation
in the affairs of the kingdom, soon gave himself up to dangerous
scheming.
At the close of two years Joab determined to effect a reconciliation
between the father and his son. And with this object in view he secured
the services of a woman of Tekoah, reputed for wisdom. Instructed by
Joab, the woman represented herself to David as a widow whose two
sons had been her only comfort and support. In a quarrel one of these
had slain the other, and now all the relatives of the family demanded
that the survivor should be given up to the avenger of blood. “And so,”
said the mother, “they shall quench my coal which is left, and shall
not leave to my husband neither name nor remainder upon the earth.”
The king’s feelings were touched by this appeal, and he assured the
woman of the royal protection for her son.
After drawing from him repeated promises for the young man’s
safety, she entreated the king’s forbearance, declaring that he had
spoken as one at fault, in that he did not fetch home again his ban-
ished. “For,” she said, “we must needs die, and are as water spilt
on the ground, which cannot be gathered up again; neither doth God
respect any person; yet doth He devise means, that His banished be not
expelled from Him.” This tender and touching portrayal of the love of
God toward the sinner—coming as it did from Joab, the rude soldier—
is a striking evidence of the familiarity of the Israelites with the great
truths of redemption. The king, feeling his own need of God’s mercy,
could not resist this appeal. To Joab the command was given, “Go
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therefore, bring the young man Absalom again.”