King David

Last weekend I went to a friend's church, Temple Bible Church. The sermon series they're in the middle of is a series on David's life and this message was on II Samuel 12-18. These are the chapters covering the aftermath of the incident with Bathsheba, Amnon and Tamar, Absalom and Amnon, Absalom's conspiracy, and Absalom's death. Now, that's quite a bit of material to cover in one sermon, so the pastor, Stephen Cheung (pretty amazing speaker), concentrated mainly on Absalom's death. I enjoyed this sermon. It was very thought-provoking and kept my focused attention even though I was exhausted. Here are my thoughts on the message.

David's sin against Uriah and Bathsheba made ripples that spread through his whole life, reaching far into the future. God, when David confessed and repented, told David this through Nathan: "Now, therefore, the sword will never depart from your house, because you despised me and took the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your own.... Out of your own household I am going to bring calamity upon you." (II Samuel 12:10-11, NIV) This calamity began with David and Bathsheba's first child, who lived only seven days after birth. But it didn't stop there. Some time later--the NIV isn't clear how much time--David's son Amnon fell in lust with Tamar and raped her. In the Bible, Tamar is described as "the beautiful sister of Absalom son of David". Perhaps Absalom and Tamar were full siblings and not half; I don't really have the motivation to study this in THAT much detail. In any case, Absalom and Tamar were close. Absalom comforted her and thereafter she lived in his house. Absalom was very, very angry at Amnon. "Absalom never said a word to Amnon, either good or bad; he hated Amnon because he had disgraced his sister Tamar." (13:22)

Chapter 13 verse 21 says that David was furious when he heard the story of Amnon and Tamar, but he didn't discipline Amnon. He couldn't bring himself to punish his son, whom he loved, even as his king. Because of this, I think, Absalom started to hate David. First he was angry with Amnon, and then he was angry with David for not doing anything. Two years after the rape, Absalom killed Amnon and fled the kingdom. His anger with David turned into bitterness, and then hatred. Meanwhile, David still loved Absalom, even though he'd killed Amnon. "The spirit of the king longed to go to Absalom." (13:39) Joab, sneaky little thing, David's right hand man, saw that David still loved Absalom. So he devised a plan to bring Absalom back to Jerusalem. The plan worked, and Absalom had his chance. He returned to Jerusalem and saw his opportunity to build up a following so he could overthrow David. I'm not sure exactly how much time passed--it was years at the very least--but eventually Absalom did attempt to overthrow David and the country was thrown into a civil war.

During this time, Joab (the same sneaky little man) was the commander of David's army. They went out to war and David gave the men this instruction: "Be gentle with the young man Absalom for my sake." (18:5) As it was with Amnon, David still loved his son. Even though Absalom was trying to kill him and take his throne, even though Absalom had nothing but hatred for David, David still loved him, and tried to protect him. So, with that instruction, the men ride off and do battle in the forest of Ephraim.

Absalom had a huge head of hair, which I imagine was a pain sometimes. While he was riding through the forest on a mule, his hair got caught on the branch of an oak tree and he stayed there, while that dumb mule kept going. Now this begs the question: why on earth couldn't Absalom get himself undone? His hands were free, weren't they? So why couldn't he reach up and untangle himself? And where were his men? Why didn't they do anything? After they were done laughing, of course.

Pastor Cheung noted in his sermon that in Hebrew, the word used to describe Absalom as he was caught in the tree was not the Hebrew equivalent of the word "midair." It was a bit more poetic than that: "suspended between heaven and earth." Is this suspension more than purely physical? He was suspended between heaven and earth. Between life and death. Between separation from his father and reunion. Might he have repented? How would life have turned out for him if he had lived? He didn't. This hair-catching incident was the last time he would ever be frustrated with his hair. David's men found him hanging in the tree and ran back to Joab, their commander, not sure what to do. "Joab! Joab! We found Absalom hanging in a tree, of all places, not even doing anything, not trying to free himself, just hanging there. This is a perfect time to kill him and end this war, but the king said to deal gently with him. I don't think killing him is 'dealing gently with him.' So what should we do, Joab?"

Well, Joab had only one motivation in this war: loyalty to King David's throne. He said, and I quote from II Samuel 18:11: "What! You saw him? Why didn't you strike him to the ground right there? Ten I would have given you ten shekels of silver and a warrior's belt." He then killed Absalom, because his men just didn't feel right about killing someone with whom the king said to deal gently.

The war was over. The usurper was dead and David was king once again. However, when David found out about it, he didn't rejoice. He didn't say, "Oh sweet! I get my kingdom back and that ungrateful little brat will never try to kill me again!" Absalom was still his son, and he mourned deeply for him. Because the king was in mourning, the entire kingdom had to be in mourning, even though they had no such emotional ties to the man who tried to overthrow their king. When Joab came back, he was absolutely disgusted with David's behavior. Chapter 19 begins with Joab rebuking David.

“Today you have humiliated all your men, who have just saved your life and the lives of your sons and daughters and the lives of your wives and concubines. You love those who hate you and hate those who love you. You have made it clear today that the commanders and their men mean nothing to you. I see that you would be pleased if Absalom were alive today and all of us were dead. Now go out and encourage your men. I swear by the LORD that if you don’t go out, not a man will be left with you by nightfall. This will be worse for you than all the calamities that have come on you from your youth till now.”

And David listened to Joab. He got up, he washed his face, and went out to celebrate and encourage his men.

This passage confuses me. As a matter of fact, Joab in general confuses me. He certainly wasn't very respectful to David, ever. Remember, he tricked David into summoning Absalom a couple years ago, so this isn't the first time he's manipulated the king. What gives him the freedom to act this way? Why does David put up with it? I just don't know.

But that's a side note.

Remember, all this happened because of David's sin with Bathsheba. Why? He repented, didn't he? So that should make it all better, right?

No. Not necessarily. You can't stop the ripples in a pond from spreading by reaching in and retrieving the rock you threw. It doesn't work like that. You have to deal with the consequences of your actions, good and bad. That isn't to say that it was pointless for David to repent. He should have, and it's good that he did. But these bad things still happened as a result of the sin.

His life didn't come back together after he repented for sinning with Bathsheba and sending her husband out to die. All those loose ends weren't tied up in a pretty bow just because he said "I'm sorry" and wrote a couple Psalms and was forgiven. There wasn't a "fix" for his mess because that's not the point. The point of repentance is not to make everything better. Our personal healing should not be the ultimate goal of our walk with God. We still have to suffer and hurt and be broken. The point is not to be a perfect person with a perfect life. The point is to be with God. The point is to be saved from our depravity and to tell others how they too can be saved.

I'm oversimplifying, and I can't express myself exactly as I'd like, but that's the general gist of my thoughts on the message last Sunday. I have more thoughts, but I won't share them in this post because it's already a monster post. I may follow up with a part two, or I may not. It depends on whether I'm motivated. And now I have to go do the dishes, so farewell. Much love.
ZB