The Pulpit Commentary - 2 Samuel 18:14-18
( THE WOOD OF EPHRAIM .) The end of Absalom. After a long course of flagrant and persistent wickedness, Absalom (at the age of twenty-seven) met his deserved doom. There is not in all history a more signal instance of retribution. In it we see punishment following crime, in the way of natural consequence, and corresponding with it in the manner of its infliction. The sinner reaps as he sows. "But Justice hastes t' avenge each impious deed: Some in day's clear and open light; ... read more
The Pulpit Commentary - 2 Samuel 18:14
Three darts; Hebrew, three staves (see 2 Samuel 23:21 ). The weapons of the ancients were of a very inferior kind, and stakes sharpened at the end and hardened in the fire were used by the infantry, until the increasing cheapness of iron made it possible to supply them with pikes. Joab's act was not one of intentional cruelty, but, picking up the first weapons that came to hand, he hurried away to kill his victim. His thrusts with these pointed sticks were brutal, and inflicted mortal... read more