STUDIES IN SAMUEL No. 55

2 Samuel 14:1-15:12

January 20, 2002

Text Comment

Remember where we are now: in the midst of the narrative of that judgment against David pronounced by the Lord in 12:10-12. Calamity has already befallen David: his infant son has died, his eldest son has been murdered by another of his sons, Absalom, who is now in hiding with his maternal grandfather, the king of Geshur. But there is more to come.

v.1 Joab is a complex figure in this history. In many ways he is a bad man and he does get his comeuppance at the end when he is executed by Solomon. But, through this material, he seems to care more about the fortunes of the state than David did and seems to know better what must be done. We will see this again at the end of the Absalom revolt when David is emotionally paralyzed and Joab acts to get the ship righted. At any rate, Joab's concern will backfire. He does not anticipate Absalom's rebellion and did not support it, staying with David throughout.

As will become clear as we move through the chapter, Absalom is clearly the heir apparent to the throne and that is what makes it important to Joab to get him back to Jerusalem and on track in regard to the succession. Absalom was David's third son, Amnon being the first, but the second son disappears from the record and must either have died or in some other way have been disqualified by this time.

v.2 Why this particular woman is never explained. Clearly the idea for what follows is Joab's, how much the woman contributes to the ruse and its success is hard to tell. She obviously does a good job as an actress.

v.4 Though Absalom would later suggest that the king was inaccessible to the ordinary Israelite (15:3), fact is, it was possible for the ordinary citizen to gain an audience with the king.

v.6 One brother killing another recalls Cain and Abel, but, of course, applies directly to Absalom and Amnon.

v.7 You get the point here: there is a clash of duties. Some wanted to execute justice on the murderer, but she wants to preserve the name and the issue of her late husband. That obligation was also enshrined in the law of Moses. Clearly the gist of the woman's parable also confirms that Joab saw Absalom as the rightful heir to David's name and throne.

In the woman's story, "the whole clan" may be an implied reference to the rest of the sons of David, the other heirs apparent, who, we may assume, wanted Absalom punished. It is entirely possible that David was as slow to act in bringing Absalom back precisely because his other sons did not want Absalom returned to the capital. "Get rid of the heir" sounds suspiciously like a direct reference to what David's other sons may well have been thinking and saying.

v.8 The king agrees to issue a ruling favorable to the widow's interests, of course, not realizing, as before with Nathan's parable, that he had spoken against his own course of action.

v.9 This way of speaking is probably to be taken as a Middle-Eastern way of asking to continue to speak. [Gordon, Com, 267]

v.11 The crafty woman gets the king to swear by the Lord's name to effect the proposal that he has made to save her son.

v.14 Now the woman turns the tables. If the king has shown such concern for her son, why then not for his own. The saying in v. 14 is something a "wise" woman would know to use, which suggests that Joab may have chosen this woman precisely to be sure that once she was in conversation with David she would know how to thrust and parry. And what does she say? Death may be irreversible, but banishment is not. God disciplines with a view to restoration, he is merciful, even in punishment. She may, of course, be making here a veiled reference to the way in which the Lord treated David himself, sparing his life when he deserved to die for his crimes.

v.17 Vv. 15-17 have often been thought to belong after v. 7 and to be here through a copyist's error. But, probably they are where they were originally, and we find the woman returning to her ruse because she never had any intention of giving the ruse away. She returns to her story to cloak her exhortation to the king in terms that would evoke sympathy from him.

v.20 It is possible that Joab had already tried to persuade David to bring Absalom back and so David recognized Joab's thinking in the woman's argument.

v.24 David got the last word. He was not fully reconciled to his son and still wanted to exact some punishment for his killing of Amnon, for whom David seems to have had a great affection.

v.26 Plainly Absalom is a narcissist, the fate of many youngsters who grow up in indulgent homes without adequate discipline.

v.27 Only the daughter is named, and she because she was named after Absalom's sister, Tamar. Now, what we have is the makings of a powerful politician. He was handsome, charismatic, he was a family man. We will learn in the next chapter that he knew how to work the crowd. But we also know that these things went to his head and he became both conceited and very ambitious.

v.30 Absalom is not one to take "no" for an answer. Mafia style, he presents Joab with an offer that he can't refuse. [Alter, Com, 281. We know now that Absalom is a man willing to trade violence for advantage.

v.32 Absalom obviously does not think that he did anything wrong.

v.33 That we read "the king" rather than "David" kissed Absalom may indicate that this was more a royal act than one of paternal affection. David may still not be reconciled to his son; not really.

15:1 Clearly Absalom had been overtaken by conceit. But, he was also very deliberately laying plans to seize power. All this pomp and circumstance was a laying claim to royal status. Remember, it was years between Amnon's rape of Tamar and Absalom's revolt. A lot of preparation went into the revolt.

v.3 Aggravating the citizenry's sense of grievance is a favorite tactic of politicians. It has been wondered whether the reference to "Israel" in vv. 2 and 6 suggest that he also played on inter-tribal rivalry and the suspicion of some that David's own tribe, Judah, received preferential treatment.

v.5 He probably kissed babies too, but the dispensing with formality is an old politician's trick - "Just think of me as a family friend." If Absalom had seen the movie he might have said, just think of me as Jimmy Stewart in Mr. Smith goes to Washington. Absalom was a typical demagogue.

v.6 A sub-text of this narrative is that there had grown to be significant dissatisfaction with David's rule on the part of a number in Israel. No doubt this stemmed from the usual complaints; taxes, forced regulation of trade, etc. Absalom capitalizes on this breach between king and people. "The rebel prince plays on the alleged shortcomings of his father's administration." [Gordon, Com, 270] We in the US know how common it is for politicians to tell the people what they want to hear!

What is surprising is that Absalom's obvious intentions were not nipped in the bud. But then David's irresolution is a general theme of this material.

As to the phrase, "stole the hearts", since heart also represents the intellect, the idea of being "duped" may also be in the narrator's mind. [Gordon, Com, 271]

v.9 Once again David fails to understand what is happening and contributes to his own misery. Hebron was the first town to welcome David as king after the death of Saul.

v.11 The two hundred men who had no part in the plot serve to deflect suspicion. Presumably, once in Hebron, Absalom counted on them to be caught up in the insurrection. [Alter, Com, 285]

v.12 Obviously spade work had been done. Ahithophel, a very important figure in David's administration, was already on board with the coup.

Now, I appreciate that it is somewhat artificial to take just this much of the narrative of David's judgment and Absalom's rebellion. It is, of course, one piece of history and it is the history as a whole that teaches the lessons. As we said last Lord's Day evening, there are several themes that are prominent in this material: the severity of the Lord's judgment, even of his children, the inadequacy of David's great repentance after his sin with Bathsheba and against Uriah because it was not followed by a full obedience to God's commands, the poignant demonstration the entire history provides in the mystery of God's ways with his people, and, supremely, the greatness of God's forgiveness, lavished as it was on a man who had so much to answer for! And all of those lessons are reinforced in the part of the story that we just read.

I want to pay attention, therefore, to a detail of this teaching that, otherwise, we would surely pass over without comment or with but a comment. I said last Lord's Day evening that David showed himself guilty of the two great parental and, perhaps especially paternal, sins. He failed to discipline, to restrain, to punish his children, his sons especially. We saw that in Amnon, we see it supremely in Absalom in this narrative. His failure to discipline them, just as we might expect given the teaching of Proverbs, caused them to grow up spoiled, selfish, and bereft of tender conscience.

"He who spares the rod hates his son, but he who loves him is careful to discipline him." [13:24]

"Discipline your son, for in that there is hope; do not be a willing party to his death." [19:18]

"The rod of correction imparts wisdom, but a child left to himself disgraces his mother." [29:15]

"Discipline your son, and he will give you peace; he will bring delight to your soul." [29:17]

"Punish him with a rod and save his soul from death." [23:14]

David did none of this and his sons disgraced him and lost their souls. David hated his children in the truest sense, however much he may have been fond of them - and he was fond of them, as we will see from his reaction after the death of Absalom.

At the recent meeting of presbytery we found out that one of our men had run afoul of the authorities in Saskatchewan for spanking his child. Two little girls, one of them his daughter, were talking one day in the hallway of their Christian school and the conversation turned to spanking. And she said that she didn't like it when her father spanked her. That conversation, overheard, was then reported by the principle to the authorities, who promptly sent a social worker to the house. Fortunately, she was able to tell that the girl was a happy and well-raised child, who certainly showed no evidence of being abused, and that the family was well-ordered. But the upshot is that he is forbidden by order of the government to spank his daughter. In Saskatchewan it is not yet illegal to spank a child, but it is illegal to spank a child with an implement, with anything else than one's hand. It would be illegal, for example, to use the rod or switch, such as is mentioned in Proverbs.

Now, it always happens when societies move away from the law of God, that they get more and more foolish and less and less wise and discerning. They constantly do what moral fools are always doing, viz. throwing out the baby with the bath water. They cannot distinguish between child abuse and discipline and, as a result, they consign generations of children to an upbringing that is certain to harm them profoundly.

Even such a question as what to use in discipline the so-called experts can't any longer answer wisely. I would certainly recommend the rod over the hand for spanking, especially for a father. Not absolutely, of course, but as a rule. What you want is something that will give maximum sting with the least weight. You want the punishment to hurt so that it will be effective, but you don't want the child to be hurt. You are trying to bless the child not curse him or her. There is too much weight behind a father's hand. But one of those long wooden spoons with a narrow handle produces a real sting but no harm, just what children need.

And why this form of discipline in the Bible? Because children need to learn in ways that are powerfully felt and immediately realize the badness of sin and disobedience. The parent's task is to teach their children to fear sin, to hate sin, to want to avoid it, to love obedience and always to know the difference between what follows sin and what follows obedience. Children need to be made to feel time after time, when they are young, the direct and unhappy connection between crime and punishment, misbehavior and consequence. The reality of the wrong of sin is dinned into them by that pain. By the fear of that pain in the prospect, by the stinging at the moment, by the recollection of it afterward. Their natural propensity to sin will not be overcome by half-measures, it must be driven out in ways that are effective in a child's life, and the stinging pain of a wooden spoon is something a child understands very well and can learn from very easily.

Timeouts and other manipulative behavior, recommended nowadays by the so-called experts, fails, usually utterly fails, to make the connection, the sacred connection, the all-important connection that the Bible teaches us must be made in the training of our children: the connection between misbehavior and its consequence in God's moral universe. There are other problems with those methods, of course. Spankings, when properly administered, are swift, sure, decisive, and, once the punishment is over and there have been hugs and kisses given and received, leaves the child happy and well disposed, able to resume life enjoying the forgiveness that must also be fundamental experience of a Christian child and a fundamental part of the training of a Christian child. These other methods tend to leave children sullen and unimproved. The great reality of sin and forgiveness has not been experienced in that way so suitable for children. Nothing is learned of God's wrath, and nothing is learned of his forgiveness either.

The rod is the most appropriate instrument of correction for a child because it is what he can feel and understand, what makes a great impression on him, what strikes to his heart. Later it won't. He will have to be persuaded. But when he is young, the conscience can be trained by that which teaches him to fear evil and to approve what is good. The rod is punishment, discipline, matched to the intellectual and moral capacities of the child.

And so we read in Proverbs:

"Blows and wounds cleanse away evil, and beatings purge the inmost being." [20:30]

"Do not withhold discipline from a child; if you punish him with the rod, he will not die. Punish him with the rod and save his soul from death." [23:13-14]

You see, the Bible is not talking about behavior modification, it is talking about the purification of the sinful soul. It is only when people stop taking the sinfulness of the soul seriously that they begin preferring time-outs. Sin cannot be waited out, it has to be driven out. And the rod does that best for the young. Remember, the advantage of the switch is that the lesson is swiftly and powerfully learned but no harm is done. We are loving our children, remember, when we discipline them, we are not harming them! Let us all be clear about that. We know very well the difference between proper discipline for love's sake and child abuse. We can tell the difference very easily and we have no sympathy whatsoever for those who abuse children!

In any case, it is this training of the conscience that is the great task of parents and that is what makes discipline so important in the nurture of children. The Bible says that it is and untold generations of human beings have discovered that it is. Later, when they are adults, when the connection between those things - between sin and punishment - is not nearly so easy to see and feel, their consciences will have been well trained to recognize and feel the connection, even when it cannot be easily seen.

David neglected to do this for his sons and he, alas, and many others, reaped the whirlwind. However, David also committed the other great paternal sin against his children, his sons especially: he exasperated them.

Paul in Colossians 3:21 writes, "Father's do not embitter your children, or they will become discouraged." He seems to suggest that this is a particular failing of fathers and that men, in particular, must be on guard against the tendency to embitter their children.

How is this done: by being too harsh, too condemning, too critical, by setting a standard that they cannot reach and refusing to forgive failure, and, just as well, by a father's failure to love his children with his words, to be affectionate, interested, understanding of their lives and challenges and struggles, by showing them in word and deed the measure of his commitment to their happiness and their holiness, and by admitting to them in a heartfelt way that every sin they struggle with he struggled with himself, by rejoicing before them in the forgiveness of sins that he has needed so terribly and received so graciously from the hand of God. A Christian father is to love his wife as Christ loved the church and he is to love his children in that same self-sacrificial, same unmeasured way.

But you men know how averse you are to this. You know how inclined you are to silence when you ought to be speaking to your children, you know how often your anger runs away with you. Your conscience accuses you often enough of failing to show a proper interest in your kids, a true affection for them, to let them know how much they mean to you. You know how much more you ought to be talking about the Lord to them and what it means to live for him and how it is to be done and about the lessons the Lord has taught you.

Keeping your son at arm's length for three years is the very last thing a Christian father should do; but that is precisely what David did. And, then, when that breach was repaired, he did not draw his son to himself, did not love him again, did not talk with him about life and about God and about what must come next. He did not tell Absalom that it was his own failure to deal with Amnon's sin that contributed to his son's sin. He did not tell Absalom that it was his own failure as a parent that had made Amnon what he became. He did not thank Absalom for caring for Tamar as he, her father, should have cared for her. He did not repent before his son and weep for his sins before his son. He did not tell Absalom that he loved him and that, therefore, he wanted above all else to put right the wrongs that he had done when he neglected his boy as he was growing up. He did none of this. Instead, David treated his son as a stranger. The results were predictable. Absalom is a classic example of the undisciplined and unloved son, embittered at his father. And, unfortunately for David and for Israel, Absalom was a man of sufficient gifts and talents to make his father pay dearly for his son's bitterness.

No Christian can doubt the rightness of discipline, for God the Father disciplines his children. He even describes his discipline of his children by comparing it to the discipline of children by their father (Hebrews 12:5-6). It is the work of love to punish children so as to teach them the true way of life. And their native sinfulness requires punishment. There must be a real sting to counteract the pull and the pleasure of sin.

But, no Christian can doubt either the love and affection of God for his children, the tenderness of his feeling for them, and so the love and affection that fathers, as God's stewards, must show their children. And mothers too, of course.

Alexander Whyte, with keen insight, said this about a father.

"A child's father is much more than his mere father to him. His father is both his father and his God to every child. A little child cannot rise above his father, he cannot see beyond his father. To every child his father is the man of all men to him on earth or in heaven. There is nothing his father cannot do for him, if he pleases. There is no strength, no resource, no nobleness, no wisdom, with which every child's own father is not endowed. The young heart that will yet rise to the love and the adoration of its father in heaven, for a long time knows him only by his paternoster name. And in all this 'earthly fathers learn their craft from God.' For God, for a long time, clothes every father on earth with all his own attributes and prerogatives and duties and dues. The divine throne, the divine sceptre, the divine sword, are all as good as made over into every man's hand into whose house a little child is born." [The Walk, Character, and Conversation of our Lord Jesus Christ, 68]

"Behold the goodness and the severity of God," Paul commands us. "One thing God has spoken, two things have I heard: that you, O God, are strong, and that you, O Lord, are loving." [Ps. 62:11]

That is what every Christian must learn: to love and to fear the Lord. That is what every Christian child is to be taught from the beginning in every Christian home: to love and to fear the Lord. It is the sacred calling of every parent to instill that love and that fear in the heart of their children. Discipline, instruction, and example, all bathed in tender affection are the means of that godly nurture.

It is what Absalom did not receive; Amnon either. The failure to nurture his sons in these ways was a grave fault laid directly at the feet of David in this material. We are to take warning as parents from this history and we are to come away from it with our parental commitment redoubled. We will not fail to discipline our children. We will not embitter them by failing to love them in heart, speech, and behavior. We will not fail to nurture them in the faith of Jesus Christ. We will not fail, for fear that our children will turn into narcissistic, egotistic, villains such as Absalom became or, more likely, just narcissistic egotists who live for themselves just as if Jesus never lived and never died.