Verse 14
14. I may not tarry I have no time to lose in thus talking with thee, and am not thus careful to obey the king in this matter. Absalom’s life, says Clarke, “was quadruply forfeited to the law. (1) In having murdered his brother Amnon; (2) In having excited an insurrection in the state; (3) In having taken up arms against his own father, (Deuteronomy 21:18; Deuteronomy 21:21;) (4) In having lain with his father’s concubines. Leviticus 18:29. Long ago he should have died by the hand of justice.” But we cannot, with Clarke and others, denounce this act of Joab as a cowardly murder, base and disloyal. True, he disobeyed the king, but he felt it a duty to disobey. He was too much of a warrior and statesman to think that the rebellion could be successfully subdued without the death of Absalom, and he afterwards vindicated himself before David with a severity of rebuke which the king dared not gainsay or resist. 2 Samuel 19:1-8.
Yet alive Compare note on 2 Samuel 18:10.
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