David’s Wound

2 Samuel 18

Immanuel – 9/17/23

When God first made covenant with Abraham, one of His eternal promises was, “I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing” (Genesis 12:2). Then, when God covenanted that one of David’s sons would reign upon an eternal throne, He built that Davidic Covenant upon the Abrahamic Covenant: God promised David: “I will make for you a great name, like the name of the great ones of the earth” (2 Samuel 7:9).

Abraham did not strive for a great name, nor did David; and both men were deeply flawed characters – especially David. We know their names today, not because of something they achieved for themselves, but purely because God made good on His promises. He made their names great.

But what God gave through a promise, Absalom thought he could build for himself. Unwittingly, he was attempting to construct a great name upon the ruins of Babel: his heart gripped by that ancient vanity. “Let me make a name for myself.” (Genesis 11:4)

As we saw last week, Absalom was incredibly vain, filled with ambition, and he despised his father, David. He stole the hearts of the people and he stole the throne. A family was broken and the monarchy was under threat, but vanity has a bad habit of chasing things it cannot catch. Absalom couldn’t see it, but he was working against a far greater force.

Even as David mournfully withdrew from Jerusalem, he cast a net of espionage over the city. One of his secret agents was the royal counselor, Hushai. Ahithophel had betrayed David and defected to Absalom, Hushai only pretended to do the same.

2 Samuel 17 is all about how Hushai, David’s plant, defeated the counsel of Ahithophel. In so doing he saves David’s life and sets up Absalom for a spectacular failure. But behind Hushai, working against Ahithophel, working against Absalom, was the sovereign hand of the Almighty God.

For the LORD had ordained to defeat the good counsel of Ahithophel, so that the LORD might bring harm upon Absalom. -2 Samuel 17:14

The great life that Absalom planned to build for himself through rebellion and vanity and pride; upon him did the Lord plan harm. Even while Absalom mustered the military might of Israel, it was hardly enough to overcome the unseen power working against him.

For God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble. -1 Peter 5:5

Though David had his severe failings, he was still a man after God’s own heart. Humility pierced his heart. Humility was going to pierce his heart again. He was always going to win.

Read vs 1-2a

In chapter 17 we see that Absalom had appointed Amasa to lead Israel’s army – Joab’s nephew. On the other side David created three divisions. Joab, David’s right-hand man and well-seasoned military commander would lead the first division. Joab’s brother Abishai, one of David’s mightiest men, led a second division. And Ittai the Gittite, who only recently pledged his loyalty to David (as we saw last week), would lead the third division.

Absalom’s forces would be concentrated under a generic Joab. David and his men had the experience and are deployed in a well-crafted, time-tested, three-pronged strategy. Right from the start, the narrative trumpets David’s advantage.

When the sovereign will of God and the skill of men unite, there can be only one outcome. But we must wait for that climactic outcome, for David has further ideas.

Read vs 2b-5

David wanted to ride out with his men, to be in a position of command, of control. But everyone in his camp knew that he was the prize. If David fell all was lost. Absalom’s claim to the crown would be uncontested.

Vanity would have put up a fight. Pride does not relax its grip of control. But in humility David says, “Whatever seems best to you I will do.”

(This forces you to ask, did David stay in Jerusalem for similar reasons back in chapter 11, back when he was gazing from his rooftop? Perhaps.)

But there stands David at the side of the city gate, halfway in the city and halfway out. It’s like he’s caught between worlds: wanting to go, having to stay. And from this place of uncertainty, David issues a command in the hearing of his entire army, “Deal gently for my sake with the young man Absalom.”

“Deal gently with Absalom, not for his sake, but for my sake. Even though he deserves vengeance, treat him well for me, for the sake of your king.” Verse 5 says all the people heard David issue this command, his only command.

David, like all humans, is a complex person. He, and all Israel, need Absalom to be decisively defeated. David knows justice must be exacted upon his vain and rebellious son. And yet he cannot stop being a father. Absalom is still his son, his precious son. He can’t help himself, “Deal gently with Absalom.”

Stuck between worlds, David stands by the gate as the army marches off to war, off towards his son, away from his control. He is king, and so he must stay. But he is a father, and his heart wants to protect his son – rebel though he is.

And in this pregnant moment, as the climactic battle is about to break, two wills collide. David desires to deal gently with Absalom; but as we saw from chapter 17, Yahweh was planning to bring him harm.

Read vs 6-8

For three chapters this battle has been building. It’s over in three verses. Absalom’s forces are decimated. The forest of Ephraim, to the east of the Jordan River, is said to have devoured more men than the sword.

It reminds me of Lord of the Rings, and the forest that devoured the orcs at the battle of Helm’s Deep – a forest of Ents, ferocious walking trees. I wonder if Tolkien found inspiration in 2 Samuel 18.

But the forest of Ephraim was filled with no mythical creatures, just the brooding wrath of God. Perhaps David’s divided forces could easily outmaneuver Absalom’s concentrated mass. Perhaps David’s more experienced troops used the terrain and cover of the forest to mount repeated surprise attacks.

It would seem they caught Absalom by surprise.

Read vs 9

The battle took three verses, Absalom’s death will take nine.

Back in chapter 17 Hushai, David’s secret agent, counseled Absalom that he should be at the front and center of his army. Hushai was crafty, he knew that Absalom was no warrior, no commander; and he also knew that such an idea would play on Absalom’s vanity. Now here is Absalom, front and center. His army defeated and he all alone in a hungry forest.

And as verse 9 says, Absalom happened to meet the servants of David. To Absalom it was chance, to David’s servants it was chance, but it was no chance. The unseen hand of God was drawing them together. His plan governs all.

Absalom is surprised and in terror he flees on his mule. Somehow his head is caught in the branches of an oak. Chapter 14 tells us that he had long and lush hair, and Sunday School lessons have taught us that his hair got tangled in the trees, but nothing in the text says this. His neck could be lodged in the fork of a branch. He could be unconscious.

Either way, he’s caught and off runs his mule, leaving him dangling between heaven and earth. Not able to escape, he’s caught between life and death. How ironic that at his end he is just like his father – stuck between worlds. Neither can stay there long.

Read vs 10-13

A certain man, a random soldier, stumbles across the suspended son of David. Like a good soldier, he immediately reports it to his commanding officer, Joab.

Of course this news comes first to Joab, Israel’s bulldog. During the last civil war, Joab didn’t hesitate to murder Abner in cold blood. He unquestioningly had Uriah killed upon David’s request. He’s a hard man, a hatchet man. Will he deal with anyone gently? For Joab it’s a black-and-white world, Absalom is the enemy.

He is incensed that this “certain man” did nothing when he found Absalom: “What, you saw him!” “You didn’t kill him? I would have given you a reward.”

But the man knows better, and his world is a little more nuanced than Joab’s. He is also a man of conviction; for with great courage, he confronts Joab and reminds him of David’s words. All the money in the world wasn’t enough for him to defy his king. It could not have been easy to speak like this to Israel’s bulldog.

Even if the man feared Joab, he knew that David would find out. He sees everything. He would find out the truth. And would Joab really back him up in that moment of questioning?

We see it all the time today: In the face of a strong well-reasoned argument, many people will just walk away; not wanting to deal with it, calling it a waste of time. They know they’ve lost the argument. That’s exactly how Joab responds to this courageous unnamed man.

Read vs 14-15

While Absalom was hanging from the tree, Joab heartlessly thrust three javelins into the heart of David’s son. Though we haven’t seen it yet, aiming at Absalom, Joab struck David’s heart. I don’t know why three javelins, but I do know this is the third of David’s sons to die.

The Hebrew doesn’t necessarily mean Joab stabbed the organ of the heart, but can simply indicate the javelins went deep into the center of Absalom’s abdomen or torso. Such an understanding seems right since Joab’s armor-bearers, absent of all gentleness, savagely finished the job.

Read vs 16-18

Absalom is dead. Joab is a hard man, but he is no fool. It does Israel no good for Israelites to go on killing Israelites. He blows the trumpet and ends the fighting.

They then take the cursed traitor and throw his body into a pit: no ceremony, no honor, no gentleness. In life he was a curse and in death they regard him as cursed. They heaped stones upon him in the same way Joshua heaped stones upon the accursed king of that wicked city, Ai (Joshua 8:29). Absalom: the son of the king now regarded as a vile, detestable enemy. He has been utterly swallowed by the forest.

The man who sought to make a name for himself built no tower to heaven, but was reduced to two sad heaps of rocks: one in a forest and one in the King’s Valley. Two gravestones. And when anyone in Jerusalem would look upon the pile Absalom wanted, wouldn’t they inevitably wag their heads and remember the cursed son of the king. The name he wanted so badly for himself, mocked and accursed.

This also is a grievous evil: just as he came, so shall he go, and what gain is there to him who toils for the wind?

I have seen everything that is done under the sun, and behold, all is vanity and a striving after wind. -Ecclesiastes 5:16,1:14

How appropriately we can apply Solomon’s words to his older brother!

At this point the narrative compels you to look at David. What will he do? How will he react? Though he has been vain and treacherous and murderous, you feel sympathy for Absalom because of his father’s love. The story telling is masterful, and it masterfully delays resolve.

Instead of resolve, the story pivots to two messengers.

Read vs 19-30

Joab remembers what has happened to other messengers delivering news of royal slayings to David. Ahimaaz comes from a significant family, and perhaps he doesn’t want to risk Ahimaaz to a potentially volatile king. Indeed, there is no reward to be had, but maybe he will find punishment. So he sends a Cushite instead – someone from the region of modern day Sudan. He was an expendable foreigner.

Yet Ahimaaz persists, wearing down Joab with the words, “Come what may, let me also run.” Joab relents and two runners now bear messages for David. Though the Cushite left first, Ahimaaz finds a fast way. And in verse 24, just as Ahimaaz is coming into view of Mahanaim, we finally return to David. And there he is still, sitting between the gates…sitting between the gates.

It’s a heart-breaking scene. He sees Ahimaaz running and hope swells in his heart, “It’s Ahimaaz! He’s a good man! Surely, he brings good news!” But standing between the gates you wonder if doubt swells with David’s hope. “It’ll be good news, right? Lord, let it be good news.” David is hoping for justice and gentleness, that the rebellion has been put down, but that the love for his son will have spared Absalom’s life.

Ahimaaz arrives and joyfully, worshipfully, proclaims the news he was so excited to deliver: David’s throne is restored, justice wins, the kingdom holds! But David almost brushes it aside, aching for news of his son. Ignoring everything else, he asks only one question, “Is it well with the young man Absalom?”

Suddenly, come-what-may Ahimaaz cannot find the words. He knows Absalom is dead. Joab told him directly in verse 20. He answers David strangely, almost incoherently. He cannot speak the hard news.

We all know that delivering the hard news is hard. Telling people they are enemies of God, rebellious sinners deserving His just wrath, is hard news. For the good news to be good, revealed in all of its glory and awesome grace, the bad news must be delivered! So when we come to it, do we stumble and mutter and fall into silence? If so, you will just be brushed aside for someone unafraid to speak.

Ahimaaz becomes utterly irrelevant after he fails to deliver the hard news of the king’s son, and he’s brushed aside. “Stand over there, another messenger comes.”

Read vs 31-32

Unafraid, the Cushite delivers the tidings of war. Again, good news for the king. Again, David has only one question, the same question: “Is it well with the young man Absalom?”

The Cushite is no fool. Without using Absalom’s name, without saying he is dead, the Cushite answers David with disarming wisdom. He indicates that Absalom was an enemy, a rebel, and that he received the justice he deserved. Immediately David understands. His plea for gentleness has failed. His love was not enough. His son is dead.

There is now nothing to hold David in tension. His son is dead. Flooded with emotion and leaving the gate, David is no longer caught between worlds. For a moment it feels as if his world has collapsed.

Read vs 33

Three times David names his son. Five times he weeps, “my son!” The king has entirely melted into the father. No one else dares speak. There is no comfort. There is no rescue. There is only barren grief.

All that could have been, all that once was. There were troubles but there was once so much potential, all that now buried beneath a heap of rocks. One man’s vanity now another man’s agony, agony, all is agony. And knowing that all this is somehow a cascading effect of his own evils, David cries to God, or to the wind, “Would that I have died instead of you, O Absalom, my son, my son!” David’s grief further bloodied by his own guilt.

Justice has demanded that David’s son be cursed, and all the love stirring in his heart could not save his beloved son from the grave.

But David had another son, a greater son. There was no vanity in this Son, He was gentle and lowly (Matthew 11:29) and sought no name for Himself. Like David, He was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief (Isaiah 53:3). He committed no evil and no justice needed to be exacted from Him. But He was grieved by our rebellion and its consequences. Seeing our plight, stuck between heaven and earth, He greatly longed to deal gently with us.

So what does this Son of David do? He tangled Himself in our mess and hung in our place.

Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree.” -Galatians 3:13

He was pierced for our transgressions; He was crushed for our iniquities; upon Him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with His wounds we are healed. -Isaiah 53:5

In love and anguish David wished that he could die in place of his son. Little did David know, that in love and anguish his Son would die in place of him, and me, and you.

And all the mournful love in David’s heart could not lift that stone heap and raise his dead son. But the wonderous love of the Almighty Father is enough, and the stone rolled away, and the Son of God rose in glorious light: Justice paid, sin defeated, death slain, love overcoming.

Going to the tree, Jesus, the Son of God, became a curse to remove our curse. There is forgiveness for rebels. There is gentleness for those who deserve harm. There is life through death. All things are being made new.

And now, He who humbled Himself so low, who had not a shred of vanity, the Father has exalted Him and given the name that is above every name, so that at His name every knee should bow and every tongue confess, that Jesus Christ is Lord (Philippians 2:5-11). And all the promises of God now find their yes in the name of Jesus Christ (2 Corinthians 1:20)!