2 Samuel 18:33 - Homiletics

( MAHANAIM .)

David's lament over Absalom.

"Would that I had died in thy stead, O Absalom! my son! my son!" In a little court between the inner and the outer gate of the fortified city wall, where (in the early morning) he stood and watched his brave soldiers going forth to battle ( 2 Samuel 18:4 ), sits the aged king at eventide ( 2 Samuel 19:3 , 2 Samuel 19:7 ), awaiting tidings from the battlefield. The watchman, "from the roof of the gate at the wall," calls out to him that he descries, first one man "running alone" (not with others, as in flight, 2 Samuel 18:25 ), then another, and, as the foremost approaches nearer, says that he thinks his running is like that of the swift footed Ahimaaz ( 2 Samuel 17:17 ). On the arrival of the news of victory ("Peace!"), the first words of David (like his last, 2 Samuel 18:5 ) are of Absalom; "Is there peace ( shalom ) to [is it well with] the young man Absalom?" and, perceiving his deep concern, Ahimaaz dares not reveal the whole truth ( 2 Samuel 18:20 ). Again; the king makes the same inquiry of the Cushite, who (with less sympathy, but greater fidelity) utters the wish that as the young man, so might all the king's enemies be! "And the king was much moved (greatly agitated with grief), and went up to the upper chamber of the gate, and wept; and thus he said, as he walked (to and fro): My son Absalom! my son! my son Absalom!" etc.

"Is it so far from thee

Thou canst no longer see

In the chamber over the gate

That old man desolate,

Weeping and wailing sore

For his son who is no more?

'O Absalom, my son!'

"Somewhere at every hour

The watchman on the tower

Looks forth, and sees the fleet

Approach of hurrying feet

Of messengers, that bear

The tidings of despair.

'O Absalom, my son!'

"That 'tis a common grief

Bringeth but slight relief;

Ours is the bitterest loss.

Ours is the heaviest cross;

And forever the cry will be,

'Would God I had died for thee,

O Absalom, my son!'"

(Longfellow.)

"Absalom afflicted his father more by his death than by his life". This expression of intense and absorbing grief (in which all joy of victory is swallowed up, 2 Samuel 19:2 ) is indicative of—

I. PARENTAL AFFECTION from which it springs. Five times the afflicted father cries, "My son!" ( B'ni ) ; thrice, "Absalom!" A father's love (especially in such a fervid soul as David's) is:

1 . The natural, instinctive, spontaneous effect of the relationship which subsists between him and his child. It is the closest relationship of life, and is mercifully joined by the Creator and Father of all with a great and peculiar affection; which, nevertheless (whilst it is intensified and exalted by a proper appreciation of its object, as "the offspring of God") requires to be regulated by intelligence and piety.

2 . Deeply rooted, enduring, indestructible. It is not eradicated by a son's estrangement ( Luke 15:12 ), wilfulness, manifold transgressions, or even open rebellion. It makes large allowances, has much patience and forbearance; "believeth all things," etc. ( 1 Corinthians 13:7 ), "covereth all sins "( Proverbs 10:12 ). It feels persuaded that he has "some good thing in him," And cannot endure the thought of his entire abandonment, "Not only the question itself ( 2 Samuel 18:29 ), but the very terms of it, breathe the tenderness of David's feelings. Absalom is 'the youth,' as if his youth were a full excuse for his conduct" ('Speaker's Commentary').

3 . Pitiful, sympathetic, self-sacrificing ( Psalms 103:13 ). "My son, my beloved, my beautiful Absalom! miserably slain, and now lying dead! Would that I had died for thee!" ( 2 Samuel 24:17 ; Exodus 32:32 ; Romans 9:3 ).

"Thou seest the braided roots that bind

Yon towering cedar to the rock;

Thou seest the clinging ivy twined

As if to spurn the whirlwind's shock;—

Poor emblems of the strings that tie

His offspring to a parent's heart;

For those will, mouldering, yield and die,

But these can never, never part."

II. DISAPPOINTED EXPECTATION AND HOPE . All through the course pursued by Absalom, David doubtless cherished the hope that:

1 . He might see the error of his way, and, constrained by his father's affection, repent of his sins. He may have supposed him penitent at the time of his return ( 2 Samuel 14:23 ), and that his reconciliation ( 2 Samuel 14:33 ) would be followed by filial love and obedience.

2 . He might fulfil the anticipations formed at his birth, strengthened by the brilliant promise of his early youth, and apparently justified by his more recent diligence and religious zeal ( 2 Samuel 15:2 , 2 Samuel 15:8 ). The love of a parent often blinds him to the many defects and malicious designs of his son. Until this moment David hoped ( 2 Samuel 18:5 ) that:

3 . His life, at least, might be spared and his destruction averted. All is suddenly extinguished; his "sun is gone down while it was yet day;' and the remembrance of its brightness remains only to deepen the gloom of the succeeding night.

III. PERSONAL COMPUNCTION . Had the righteous judgment of God overtaken Absalom because he had "risen up against him" ( 2 Samuel 18:31 )? Was David himself, then, blameless? He could not but remember that:

1 . He had despised the commandment of the Lord, and rebelled against the Divine King of Israel.

2 . He had contributed by his own conduct to the misconduct of his son. "The worst ingredient in this cup of anguish would be, I think, the consciousness in David's heart that, if he had himself been all he ought to have been, his son might not thus have perished (W.M. Taylor).

3. He was now suffering the chastisement of Heaven, of which his son's death was a part. "Absalom's sin and shame had two sides—there was in it the curse that David's sin brought on David's house ( 2 Samuel 12:10 ), the misdeed of the father's that is visited on the children ( Exodus 20:5 ); and not less, Absalom's own wickedness and recklessness, which made him the bearer of the family curse. David looks at Absalom's deed not on the latter side, but on the former (for his own guilt seems to him so great, that he looks little at Absalom's); hence his deep, boundless compassion for his misguided son" (Kurtz). "The heartbroken cry, 'Would God I had died for thee!' was not only the utterance of self-sacrificing love, but the confession that he himself deserved the punishment which fell upon another" (Kirkpatrick).

IV. IRREPARABLE LOSS AND SEPARATION . "As that young man is;" his life "as water spilt upon the ground," etc. No cries nor tears can restore him to his father or "the land of the living" ( 1 Samuel 25:29 ; 2 Samuel 4:11 ; Psalms 26:9 ; Psalms 49:8 ). Whatever David may have thought of his condition in Sheol, no parent can contemplate the death of a rebellious and impenitent son without heart rending grief, arising from the fear of his exclusion from the presence of God, sharing the doom of the Lord's enemies, and endless separation from the fellowship of saints. "All hope abandon, ye who enter here!" (Dante, 'Inferno,' 3.).

REMARKS .

1 . It is possible, under circumstances most favourable to goodness, to become exceedingly bad.

2 . One of the greatest evils in the world is that of disobedience to parents ( 2 Timothy 3:3 ).

3 . The love of on earthly parent toward his children is a shadow of the eternal Father's love to men. "He is affected with fatherly love towards the whole human race. Inasmuch as we are men, we must be dear to God, and our salvation must be precious in his sight" (Calvin, on Ezekiel 18:4 ).

4 . The Divine sorrow over men when they fall into sin and ruin, as revealed in the holy tears of Jesus, indicates their final state in "the world of infinite mourning."—D.

HOMILIES BY G. WOOD