And she answered, I am indeed a widow woman. 2 Samuel 14:5-20 The parable of the woman of Tekoa A London Minister. The contrast between this parable and the one preceding it is very great. The parable of the ewe-lamb was spoken of by a prophet inspired by God. This one was spoken by a theatrical persons at the instigation of a man of the world, one who, though thoroughly unprincipled, could read human character and discern human motives through a very small crevice. The parable of Nathan was the introduction to a scorching reproof of David's iniquity, the parable of the Tekoan is full of fulsome flattery. The prophet's parable was uttered to induce repentance in David; this one had for its end only the promotion of Joab's schemes of self-interest. I. THE ARGUMENT OF THE PARABLE. 1. That those who grant mercy abroad should first begin at home. The first reason which the woman urges why David should forgive his son is the willingness with which he would have forgiven hers. A king who is merciful to his subjects is inconsistent with himself if he is not forgiving towards the members of his own family. 2. That enmity ought to die before those who are at enmity die. "For we must needs die, and are as water spilt on the ground, which cannot be gathered up again" (ver. 14). If Absalom were to die before a reconciliation had taken place, the father's heart would be deeply grieved; and if he himself were to die before his son's return to favour he would go down to his grave mourning the estrangement. 3. The Divine Father's example in relation to His "banished ones." II. ITS IMMEDIATE AND REMOTE RESULTS. The immediate result was the recall of Absalom without outward reconciliation. "Let him turn to his own house, and let him not see my face" (verse 24). Evils arose from this half-measure. Joab was disappointed, and Absalom was irritated.LESSONS: 1. That the most worthless characters sometimes have the best pleaders. We find this the case occasionally in our law courts. Men with no character, but lacking nothing else, with money and influence in abundance, can have the benefit of the most skilful barristers to bring them out of the grip of the law. 2. That imaginary narratives of human life have most influence when they find a counterpart in our own experience. The power of a story may he very great even when it contains nothing in it that has any likeness to anything that has happened to ourselves. 3. That those who are conscious of having committed great sins are not fit to deal with other offenders. The sin of David included the crimes of both his sons, and the consciousness of this made him weak in purpose, and unsteady in his dealings with them. 4. To restore to favour unconditionally is a sin against the person forgiven. ( A London Minister. ) We must needs die, and are as water spilt on the ground. 2 Samuel 14:14 The instability of human things J. W. Cunningham, A. M. I. THE INSTABILITY OF ALL HUMAN THINGS. Most men talk wisely on the instability of the world. We are not weak enough to deny that which the history of every day compels us to admit. But our lives too often contradict our sentiments. Philosophers in opinion, we are, as to this point, children in conduct; and worship the very relics of that image of the world which we have previously stamped to dust, and trod under foot; II. THE COMPARATIVE EMPTINESS AND WORTHLESSNESS OF ALL HUMAN DISTINCTIONS. III. THE INACCURACY OF ALL HUMAN CALCULATIONS. It is astonishing to what a degree men are tempted to become the architects of their own plans of life, instead of consulting the models which are laid up for them in Scripture. Pride is always seducing us into a belief that we can choose and act better for ourselves and for others than our Heavenly Father would choose for us. But let our calculations be of the most profound nature, let them proceed upon the most unquestionable facts and principles, how soon does a single unforeseen circumstance confound them all! IV. THE VANITY OF ALL HUMAN HOPES. V. THE TRANSCENDANT VALUE OF REAL RELIGION. ( J. W. Cunningham, A. M. ) The necessity of death D. Delaney. I. MAN "MUST NEEDS DIE." 1. We "must needs die," because of God's unalterable decree; "In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die." 2. Moreover, we "must needs die," because of the diseases to which we are subjected in consequence of sin. Had man stood he never would have known anything of disease.(1) There are three views which we may profitably take of death. Contemplate it in the pains winch it inflicts. Troops of malignant diseases attend "the king of terrors;" fevers burn, consumptions waste, plagues depopulate, and diseases of every kind attack the human frame.(2) Contemplate death in the changes which it produces. The withering of the grass, the fading of the flower, the fleeing Of the shadows and the vanishing of the vapour are emblems used by the inspired writers to illustrate and impress upon us the nature of death. Oh! what an awful and indescribable change does it produce!(3) Contemplate death in the dissolutions which it effects. The body and the soul are closely and intimately united, though we cannot tell how spirit acts upon matter; the psalmist remarks "we are fear-fully and wonderfully made;" but when death comes, he dissolves the mysterious union, and then is brought to pass the saying that is written "The silver cord is loosed and the golden bowl is broken." 3. But let us now come to character; and I remark that the righteous and the wicked "must needs die." The wicked "must needs die," that he may fully prove the truth of God's threatenings. "Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil." The righteous "must needs die" in order to receive the reward of their doings. "Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God;" the Lord first gives grace, and then crowns it with eternal glory. II. THE FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE CF THE TEXT. The body, when the spirit tins fled, is compared to "water spilt on the ground, which cannot be gathered up again." This language may appear to some to argue against the doctrine of the resurrection; but the Scriptures do not contradict themselves. When water is shed upon the dry and parched earth it cannot be collected again in the same purity and quantity; but "the things which are impossible with men are possible with God." It is written, "Except a grain of wheat fall into the earth and die, it remaineth alone; but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit." And as sure as the harvest follows the first fruits, so surely shall the resurrection of the saints to life eternal, and the resurrection of the wicked to everlasting damnation come to pass. ( D. Delaney. ) Justice and mercy F. Ellaby. I. THE AFFECTING CONDITION OF MANKIND. 1. Their mortality. " We must needs die." Solemn and affecting truth! We live in a dying world, and behold! we die daily, and sometimes suddenly, in the twinkling of an eye. 2. The helpless and irretrievable circumstances in which we are placed. "We are as water spilt upon the ground which cannot be gathered up again." What a fearful figure this! and yet, how true! As to ourselves and our own natural powers, we are entirely lost, past all recovery, "as water spilt upon the ground." II. THE JUSTICE OF ALMIGHTY GOD TOWARDS MANKIND. "He respecteth not the person of any." He is an impartial dispenser and rewarder; he doeth justly, and loveth mercy, and is "no respecter of persons." As "in every nation he that feareth him, and worketh righteousness, is accepted with him." III. THE GRACE AND MERCY OF GOD VOUCHSAFED TO THEM. "Yet doth he devise means that his banished be not expelled from him." ( F. Ellaby. ) Death and banishment J. Wilcox, M. A. I. THE UNIVERSALITY OF DEATH. 1. "We must needs die." Well, why must we needs die? not only because the sentence has been denounced, but because without this charge we could not enter on the future state, when the trumpet shall sound and the dead be raised. 2. We must "needs die" also that we may attain a more perfect resemblance to Jesus than is attainable upon earth. Hence the apostle says, "We are buried with him by baptism unto death, &c." 3. There is yet another reason Why we must "needs die," that we may enjoy the glorious recompense prepared for those who believe in Christ. "This is not our rest, for it is polluted." Here we are "strangers and pilgrims." II. THE CONDITION TO WHICH SIN HAS REDUCED US. 1. Banished. And how affecting is the account recorded in Genesis 3 . respecting the banishment of our primogenitors from the beautiful paradise where they were placed. 2. Though they are "banished," they are "God's banished ones." O it is this that gives us courage, that emboldens us; that animates with hope the soul condemned in the court of conscience. But how are they His? "We are bought with a price," redeemed not with corruptible things such as silver and gold, but with the precious, atoning, cleansing, "blood of Christ." III. THE DIVINE PROCEDURE FOR MAN'S RECOVERY. Here we learn: 1. That though salvation is all of grace, yet are sinners saved by the intervention of means. 2. That the success of these means originates, not in the cunning of man, but in the power, wisdom, and goodness of God. ( J. Wilcox, M. A. ) An unexpected provision of mercy W. Cadman, M. A. In these words of the wise woman there was a great principle of truth, which was wrongly applied in this instance. David had no right whatever to interfere with the law of God. The law of God said that the murderer should die, and David had no authority to interfere with what God had designed. There was provision made that by fleeing to one of the cities of refuge Absalom might have his case legally investigated; and if there was any doubt as to his being the culprit he might be legally acquitted. David had power to interpose this legal examination, but he had not power to interfere with the due course of the law, as laid down by God Himself, except indeed there should be any doubt respecting the application of God's law to the present case, or except there should be any doubt as to Absalom's guilt. But we will not dwell further upon the immediate application of the words the principle contained in them is one of universal application. "We must needs all die, and be as water spilt upon the ground, which cannot be gathered up again." I. DEATH MUST BE CONSIDERED IN ITSELF AS AN EVIL, We have in this generally admitted truth an intimation or proof that there is a quarrel existing between man and his Maker, between the creature who is crushed sooner than the moth, and the Creator who is "the Ancient of days," the eternal and infinite God. Is it of no consequence that such a quarrel as this exists? Can we contemplate the reality of it, as evidenced by the death of our fellow-creatures, and our own liability to death, without serious thought taking possession of our minds, as to the necessity of reconciliation with God? The quarrel must be made up, or we are ruined for ever; the quarrel ought to be made up immediately, or we may be beyond the reach of reconciliation. II. THE UNEXPECTED PROVISION WHICH GOD IN HIS GOODNESS HAS MADE FOR OUR COMFORT AND PEACE. We read in the text, "Neither doth God respect any person: yet doth He devise means that His banished be not expelled from Him." You will see this rendered in the margin, "Because God hath not taken away his life, He hath also devised means that His banished be not expelled from Him," which intimates that, although a quarrel does exist between the sinner and his Creator, God does not proceed at once to determine the quarrel, seeing that He has made provision for that sinner's restoration and security; He has devised means by which the banished may be restored, and meanwhile preserved. Now, see this provision of God's goodness typified under the Jewish law. The manslayer who had unwittingly slain a brother or a neighbour was by the law expelled from society; but there was a provision made that if he fled to the city of refuge, and it should be proved there that he had not intentionally slain his brother or his friend, then at the death of the high priest he should be set at liberty, and allowed to return again to his family circle. You observe in this that God "devised means by which His banished might not be for ever expelled from Him." We see the same provision also in the case of the leper, See, again, how this provision is announced in the Gospel of Christ. All the typical institutions of the law were intended to shadow forth the great truths of the Gospel. The manslayer and the leper betoken the state of the sinner under the condemnation of the Divine law, and unfit, on account of his pollution, for the society of God and His angels. He is therefore considered in the eye of God as a banished person, who can never obtain admittance into the kingdom; but God has devised means by which the banished may be restored. The Lord Jesus Christ has come into the world and died for the sinner's guilt; He is now the great Refuge to whom, if the sinner flee, he shall be saved from the condemnation which he deserves. The moral and spiritual leprosy is thus cleansed; "the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us, from all sin." ( W. Cadman, M. A. ) Yet doth he devise means that his banished be not expelled from him. The king's son coming home from exile L. A. Banks, D. D. I. THE PLAN OF SALVATION BEGAN IN GOD'S OWN HEART, FULL OF LOVE FOR US. The idea has been sometimes presented that God was only willing to save men after Christ had died for us and paid our debt. But the whole plan of salvation, and the coming of Jesus Christ to die for us on the cross, began in God's own heart. II. SIN ALONE EXILED US FROM THE PRESENCE AND FAVOUR OF GOD. Absalom fled from his native land and from the presence of the king, his father, because he had not only sinned against David's love and fatherhood, but had broken the law of the land. It was his own deed which sent him into banishment. So it is not because God has ceased to love us and long for our salvation that sin makes us unhappy and that the sinner is the victim of remorse and fails to find peace; it is rather that man was made to find happiness in the presence of God and in the consciousness of harmony with him. III. IT IS POSSIBLE FOR THE SINNER TO THWART GOD'S LOVE, and make all the sufferings and death of Jesus Christ of no effect so far as he is concerned. Absalom did just that with those who sought so earnestly to save him. ( L. A. Banks, D. D. ) God's banished ones A. Maclaren, D. D. I. GOD'S BANISHED ONES. Strip away the metaphor, and it just comes to this — you cannot be blessedly and peacefully near God unless you are far away from sin. If you take two polished plates of metal and lay them together they will adhere. If you put half a dozen tiny grains of sand or dust between them they will fall apart. And so our sins have separated between us and our God. They trove not separated God from us. His thought, and His knowledge, and His tenderness, all come to every soul of man. But they have rent us apart from Him, in so far as they make us unwilling to be near Him, incapable of receiving the truest nearness and blessedness of His presence. That banishment is self-inflicted. God spurns away no man, but men spurn Him, and flee from Him. Many of us know what it is to pass whole days, and weeks, and years, practical Atheists. God is not in all our thoughts. Away down in the luxurious islands of the Southern Sea you will find degraded Englishmen who have chosen rather to cast in their lot with savages than to have to strain and work and grow. Those poor beach-combers of the Pacific, not happy in their degradation, but wallowing in it, are no exaggerated pictures of the condition, in reality, of thousands of us who dwell fat from God, and far, therefore, from righteousness and peace. II. GOD'S YEARNING OVER HIS BANISHED ONES. The woman in our story hints at, or suggests, a parallel which, though inadequate, is deeply true. David was Absalom's father and Absalom's king; and the two relationships fought against each other in his heart. The king had to think of law and justice; the father cried out for his son. The young man's offence had neither altered his relationship nor affected the father's heart. All that is true, far more deeply, blessedly true, in regard to our relation, the wandering exile's relation, to God. The whole preciousness of the Revelation of God in Scripture is imperilled unless we frankly recognise this, that His love is like ours, delights in being returned like ours, and is like ours in that it rejoices in presence and knows a sense of loss in absence. And it is you, you, that He wants back; you that He would fain rescue from your aversion to good and your carelessness of Him. III. THE FORMIDABLE OBSTACLES TO THE RESTORATION OF THE BANISHED. The words "banished" and "expelled" in my text are in the original the same; and the force of the whole would be better expressed if the same English word was employed as the equivalent of both. Now, note that the language of this "wise woman," unconsciously to herself, confesses that the parallel that she was trying to draw did not go on all fours; for what she was asking the king to do was simply by an arbitrary act to sweep aside law and to remit penalty. She instinctively feels that that is not what can be done by God, and so she says that He "devises means" by which He can restore His banished. If there are to be any pardon and restoration at all, they must be such as will leave untouched the sovereign majesty of God's law, and untempered with the eternal gulf between good and evil. God's law is the manifestation of God's character; and that is no flexible thing which can be bent about at the bidding of a weak, good nature. The motto on the blue cover of the Edinburgh Review , for a hundred years now, is true, "The judge is condemned when the guilty is acquitted." David struck a fatal blow at the prestige of his own rule when he weakly let his son off his penalty. And, if it were possible to imagine such a thing, God Himself would strike as fatal a blow at the justice and judgment which are the foundations of His throne if His forgiveness was such as to be capable of being confounded with love which was too weakly indulgent to be righteous. 2. Further, if there are to be forgiveness and restoration at all, they must be such as will turn away the heart of the pardoned man from his evil. The very story before us shows that it is not every kind of pardon which makes a man better. 3. If there are to be forgiveness and restoration at all, they must come in such a fashion as that there shall be no doubt whatsoever of their reality and power. IV. THE TRIUMPHANT, DIVINE SOLUTION OF THESE DIFFICULTIES. The work of Jesus Christ, and the work of Jesus Christ alone, meets all the requirements. That work of Christ's is the only way by which it is made absolutely certain that sins forgiven shall be sins abhorred; and that a man once restored shall cleave to his Restorer as to his life. God has devised a means. None else could have done so. We are all exiles from God unless we have been brought nigh by the blood of Christ. In Him, and in Him alone, can God restore His banished ones. In Him, and in Him alone, can we find a pardon which cleanses the heart, and ensures the removal of the sin which it forgives. In Him, and in Him alone, can we find, not a peradventure, not a subjective certainty, but an external fact which proclaims that verily, there is forgiveness for us all. ( A. Maclaren, D. D. ) Means for restoring the banished I. A GREAT AND UNIVERSAL OUTLAWRY proclaimed by God against us all, as members of a rebel race. We have all broken His law, wilfully and wickedly have we rebelled against the majesty of heaven; we are, therefore, in our natural estate, banished ones, expelled from his love and favour, waiting the time when the sentence of His wrath shall be fulfilled, and "Depart, ye cursed," shall flash its lightning flame into our spirits. The ever-blessed God has devised means by which we may be delivered from this state of exile; and the means are very similar to that which was alluded to by the woman of Tekoah, and precisely what occurred to the manslayer occurs to us. Now, what did happen to the man-slayer? First of all, as soon as he had killed a man inadvertently, knowing that the next of kin would be after him to avenge the death, he fled hot foot, as we say, to the nearest city of refuge; and when he had once reached the gates of that city he was secure. Even thus the Lord Jesus Christ was to us in days gone by a city of refuge, and we fled to Him. But though this is the grand means for restoring exiled man to communion with his God, yet through the depravity of our nature it would fail to be of any service to us, did not God further ordain means to make us willing to avail ourselves of it. In most cases it. is the preaching of the Gospel which restores the wandering. The preaching of the Word is God's great saving agency among mankind. But besides the vocal preaching of the Gospel, the printed word of God itself is a preacher through the eye. Many are brought to repentance and faith by sickness. So, too, with Christian influence. II. OUR SECONDARY BANISHMENTS. Alas! the people of God sometimes fall into sin; they grow careless, and they walk at a distance from their best friend, and then sin prevails against them; but the Lord has provided means for bringing them back from their wandering. "He restoreth my soul." The Holy Spirit, though grieved, wilt return, convince His servants again of sin, and lead them with weeping and supplication to their Saviour. There is another kind of banishment which is produced not so much by sin primarily as by despondency. III. A PRACTICAL LESSON TO BE GATHERED FROM ALL THIS. 1. The first application of that rule is this: there may be some one a father, a mother, or some other relative, who has been compelled, as he has thought, to deny and no longer to acknowledge a child or a brother. Great offences have at last brought anger Into your bosom, and, as you think, very justifiable anger. Oh, celebrate this day by a full forgiveness of all who have done aught against you! And do not merely say, "Well, I will do it if they will ask me;" that is not what God does, he is first in the matter, and devises means. Try. Consider. Devise means. "Would you have me lower myself?" Sometimes to lower ourselves is to make ourselves much higher in God's sight. The last application of the lesson shall be this: let every Christian devise means for bringing to Jesus those banished ones who surround Him. We must, as a Christian Church, be indefatigably industrious in seeking out the Lord's expelled and banished ones who live in our neighbourhood. ( C. H. Spurgeon . ) Exiles brought back T. De Witt Talmage. What do you mean by banishment? Well, it means being driven away, and wearing fetters. It means bitter absence from home. It means in some places, and on some occasions, an expatriation to Siberia to delve in the mines, and to be fastened in a chain gang. Yes, the whole race is banished. Our first parents banished from Paradise. The recreant angels banished from heaven. The whole family banished from peace. Where is the worldly man who has anything worthy of the name of happiness? What are those anxious looks of the brokers, of the bankers, of the merchants, of those men in the club house, of that great multitude of people who tramp up and down Broadway? Banished from God. Banished from peace. Banished from heaven. You are banished, "Yet doth God devise means by which the banished ones shall not be expelled from Him." Well, what are some of the means that "God has devised that the banished be not expelled from Him?" I. In the first place, THE FOOTPATH UP THROUGH THE RIFTS OF SKULL-SHAPED CALVARY. Constantine has designated that hill as the one on which Jesus died. Dean Stanley says there are on that hill shattered fragments of limestone rock cleft evidently of the crucifixion earthquake. And it is through that fissure of the rock that our path to pardon lies; through the earthquake of conviction, under the dripping crimson of the cross. II. Among the means that God has devised that the banished be not expelled from Him, I notice still further, SPIRITUALISTIC INFLUENCES. I do not mean any influence gone up from earth and etherialised, but the Divine Spirit. Some call Him the Comforter; it is best for my purpose that I call Him the soul-saving power of the nations. When that influence comes upon a man how strangely he acts. He cries. He trembles. He says things and does things that five minutes before he could not have been coaxed or hired to say or do. O it is a mighty spirit. III. Among the means that "God has devised that the banished be not expelled from Him, I notice, also, CHRISTIAN SURROUNDINGS. There is the influence of ancestral piety. Was there not a good man or woman in your ancestral line? Is there not an old Bible around the house, with worn cover, and turned-down leaves, giving you the hint that there was some one who prayed? Was there a family altar at which you used to bow? The carpet may have been worn out, and the chair may have been sold for old furniture, and the knee that knelt on the one and beside the other may never again be pliant in earthly worship; but you,remember — do you not remember? Ah! that Christian homestead, the memory of it to-night almost swamps your soul. ( T. De Witt Talmage. ) A foregleam of the Gospel U. R. Thomas. Expositors generally consider that the woman of Tekoah, in this appeal, alludes to the merciful Divine provision by which a manslayer might, at the death of the High Priest, return to his home from the city of refuge, to which he, red-handed, had fled from the red-handed avenger of blood. Doubtless David would understand more; and to us, Gospel in hand, the words mean more than to her or to David. They illustrate the great facts: I. THAT SINFUL MEN ARE MORAL EXILES. This is borne out: 1. By Scripture (1) in statement, (2) intimation, (3) parable; 2. By the experience of the sinful 3. By the confession of the penitent. II. THE GOSPEL IS GOD'S MEANS OF RECOVERING MORAL EXILES. "God was in Christ, reconciling the world to Himself." The Gospel: 1. Reveals clear way of return; 2. Supplies sufficient motive; 3. Pro-raises abundant help. ( U. R. Thomas. ) The restoration of God's banished ones G. J. Procter. These words occur in the course of a very wonderful piece of womanly pleading. With marvellous power, and with a woman's keen instinct where the heart is concerned, this otherwise unknown Tekoite pleads the cause of the ill-starred Absalom. Though Joab's was the mind that directed her, hers was the art which threw such a colour upon the cause she had to plead, that the king's soul was touched, and her suit was gained. It is not quite easy to see the force of the reasoning which links together these statements. Probably, instead of being logically connected, there is a gradation in thought, so that the closing phrase is the strongest, and intended to do the most effective work. The thing the woman wants is the restoration of the banished one; and she refers to the Divine clemency in order to provoke and to justify the human. I. HIS BANISHED ONES; WHO ARE THEY? In a sense we are all banished ones, since for the present our relation to the Infinite Father is obscured; even those who have in them the stirrings of the spiritual sonship, though they may say, "Now are we the sons of God," must yet add, "it doth not yet appear what we shall be." And those who have not entered into the light and sweetness of that recognised sonship are very far, as one may say, from their true home. Time would fail, even to epitomise the story of God's banished ones. The wanderings of David; Elijah's flight into the wilderness; the captivity of the tribes; and the story of the prophets, all illustrate the truth of our text. They are not God-deserted even in the strange land. The story of the outcasts is ever interesting. Look at the scattered flock through the persecutions, now of the Jewish, now of the Romish authorities. Come down to more recent times and read the story of the Waldenses, the Huguenots, and the Scottish Covenanters. These men also knew how God devises "means that His banished ones be not expelled from Him." Take away their outward freedom of worship; drive these men into the wilderness; let their bodies be incarcerated in foul prisons, or given up to torture or death; the spirit finds its way to the secrecies of Divine love, and summers in its smile. Though outcast, they are not expelled from Him. But come yet nearer home; individual life even now illustrates the truth. Take the case, not at all an uncommon one, of the compelled retirement and withdrawal of any one from all that had before seemed helpful, even essential, to the religious life. II. GO BACK TO THAT GARDEN-SCENE, TOLD US IN THE FIRST BOOK. When we come to that story, and hear how the man and woman were expelled the garden; if we were to read it thoughtlessly, we should say — How terrible a thing to lose so much; and now of course God is always angry. "So He drove out the man;" and he was banished, and, into whatever gardens he may have entered, he has not entered the garden of Eden since. All his life now is in some sense a groping after Eden. How strange — had we never read something like it out of our life-story and the story of men's lives from day to day — God seems to contrive against Himself. He banishes, "yet doth he devise means that His banished be not expelled from Him." One thing leads on to another; whither doth this banishment lead? Why, it leads to a thorn-covered earth; yes, but also to a thorn-crowned Saviour. It leads to much toil and bitterness of men's hearts, but it also leads to God's labour and Christ's travail of soul, of which He shall be satisfied. The way from Eden becomes (through God's devising) the way back to Eden; an Eden, we may say truly, where palms wave and laurels bloom, to wave over and deck the conqueror's brow. III. THE VARIED AGENCIES BY WHICH THIS GOOD THOUGHT AND FEELING OF GOD ARE CONVEYED TO HIS BANISHED ONES, What do I mean by this? But that all the varied network of Christian endeavour is proof of the priesthood of the whole Church of God. And it is this priesthood that needs more clear manifesting. The interlacings of what we call Divine and human effort may be in a few simple words set forth. When we come much into contact with men, I mean with that which betrays their inner life, while we find much in them that pains and perplexes us, we do not fail to find repeated and startling proofs of the truths of the Bible, and especially of the truth I am trying to unfold. Well, although in these and countless ways we see proof of the exigency and earnestness of God's love, it is for those who are enlightened from the Light Divine to stretch forth the torch and give a meaning to the vague and unexpressed cravings of the human heart after God. Among the God-devised means are those ties of kinship, of common humanity, which, being sanctified by the love and illumined by the light of God, are only rightly directed under the guidance of Him who came to seek and to save that which is lost. Lost, yet His! "His banished," though their natures be sodden through with the cruel damps of their long wilderness banishment. His, not to be passed over by Him. O think of it in the light of your neglect of them, and your neglect of Him too. The King and the Father unite in this, the restoration of the banished ones. ( G. J. Procter. ) The Tekoite and Divine devising F. Hastings. I. THOSE WHO ARE IN A STATE OF EXILE OR ALIENATION FROM GOD ARE SO BY THEIR OWN ACT AND WISH, NOT BY GOD'S. Like Absalom, who was vain, cruel, treacherous, selfish, heartless, ambitious and murderous, we have yielded to sin. Like him, conscious of guilt, but finding temporary security in the Court at Geshur, we have known we were sinful, but we have thought that any time would do to acknowledge it. We in this world are where God can reach am. Hope and restoration are possible here; but, alas; there is a state in which alienation can become eternal, in which hope and faith in Divine mercy are impossible. Banished now, alas, by our own act, by our own hardness and unbelief, we may be, we can be, certainly still further banished. God pities us but He cannot and will not compel us to love Him. A stream among the

Benson Commentary 2 Samuel 14:1 Now Joab the son of Zeruiah perceived that the king's heart was toward Absalom. 2 Samuel 14:1 . That the king’s heart was toward Absalom — That he longed to see him, and have him restored to his country; but was ashamed to show kindness to one whom God’s law and his own conscience obliged him to punish. He wanted, therefore, a fair pretence for it, with which Joab now furnished him. 2 Samuel 14:2 And Joab sent to Tekoah, and fetched thence a wise woman, and said unto her, I pray thee, feign thyself to be a mourner, and put on now mourning apparel, and anoint not thyself with oil, but be as a woman that had a long time mourned for the dead: 2 Samuel 14:2 . Joab sent to Tekoah — A city in the tribe of Judah, about twelve miles south of Jerusalem. And fetched thence a wise woman — One whom he knew to be fit for such an undertaking, having good sense and a ready utterance; and said, I pray thee feign thyself to be a mourner — Who put on no ornaments, nor used any ointment, but appeared in a sordid, neglected condition. She was to assume this habit to heighten the idea of her distress, that her circumstances as a widow, her mournful tale, her dress, and her person, might make one united impression on the king, and secure his attention. She tells the king that she had buried her husband; that she had two sons that were the support and comfort of her widowed state; that they quarrelled, and fought, and one of them unhappily killed the other; that for her part, she was desirous to protect the man-slayer, for, as Rebekah argued concerning her two sons, Why should she be deprived of them both in one day? But though she, who was nearest of kin to the slain, was willing to let fall the demands of an avenger of blood, yet the other relations insisted upon it that the surviving brother should be put to death, according to the law; not out of affection either to justice or to the memory of the slain brother, but that, by destroying the heir, (which they did not conceal to be the thing they aimed at,) the inheritance might be theirs. The whole design of her speech was to frame a case similar to that of David, in order to convince him how much more reasonable it was to preserve Absalom. But there was great art in not making the similitude too plain and visible, lest the king should perceive the intention of the woman’s petition before she obtained a grant of pardon for her son. — Bishop Patrick. 2 Samuel 14:3 And come to the king, and speak on this manner unto him. So Joab put the words in her mouth. 2 Samuel 14:4 And when the woman of Tekoah spake to the king, she fell on her face to the ground, and did obeisance, and said, Help, O king. 2 Samuel 14:5 And the king said unto her, What aileth thee? And she answered, I am indeed a widow woman, and mine husband is dead. 2 Samuel 14:6 And thy handmaid had two sons, and they two strove together in the field, and there was none to part them, but the one smote the other, and slew him. 2 Samuel 14:7 And, behold, the whole family is risen against thine handmaid, and they said, Deliver him that smote his brother, that we may kill him, for the life of his brother whom he slew; and we will destroy the heir also: and so they shall quench my coal which is left, and shall not leave to my husband neither name nor remainder upon the earth. 2 Samuel 14:7 . Deliver him, that we may kill him — Put him to death, as the law requires, Numbers 35:18-19 . We will destroy the heir also — Take away his life, although he be the heir, or the only one remaining of the family. And so they shall quench my coal which is left — Deprive me of the little comfort of my life which remains, and ruin the only hope of my family. Shall leave to my husband neither name nor remainder — Shall utterly extinguish my husband’s memory. The reader will easily observe that there is a great difference between the supposed case of this widow and that of David, however plausible their likeness may appear. For her son, she pretended, was slain in a scuffle with his brother, and his death, therefore, was not a premeditated murder, as was the death of Amnon. It also happened in the field, where there were no witnesses, whether he was killed wilfully: whereas all the king’s sons saw Amnon designedly and barbarously murdered. And in the last particular the difference is as great as in either of the others. For David’s family was not in danger of being extinguished, if Absalom had been lost also; David having many children, and also many wives by whom he might have more. 2 Samuel 14:8 And the king said unto the woman, Go to thine house, and I will give charge concerning thee. 2 Samuel 14:8 . The king said, Go to thy house, &c. — Notwithstanding the forementioned dissimilarity, the case was too like his own to suffer David to be unmoved; he soon felt her distress, and told her she might return to her house, and leave the care of her business to him; he would give proper directions about it. But not having yet obtained what she wanted, in seeming solicitude for her son, she added, O king, the iniquity be on me, and the king and his throne be guiltless — She means, either, 1st, If she had pressed the king to any thing in itself unjust, or in any way had misinformed him, or misrepresented the state of the case, she wished all the guilt of that iniquity, or misrepresentation, might fall upon her own head, and upon her family. Or, 2d, If, through the king’s forgetfulness, or neglect of her just cause, her adversaries should prevail and destroy her son, her desire was, that God would not lay it to the king’s charge, but rather to her and hers, so that the king might be exempted thereby. By her words, thus taken, she insinuates that such an omission would bring guilt upon him; and yet most decently so expresses herself as not to seem to blame or threaten him with any punishment from God on that account. This sense seems best to agree with David’s answer, which shows that she desired some further assurances of the king’s care. 2 Samuel 14:9 And the woman of Tekoah said unto the king, My lord, O king, the iniquity be on me, and on my father's house: and the king and his throne be guiltless. 2 Samuel 14:10 And the king said, Whosoever saith ought unto thee, bring him to me, and he shall not touch thee any more. 2 Samuel 14:11 Then said she, I pray thee, let the king remember the LORD thy God, that thou wouldest not suffer the revengers of blood to destroy any more, lest they destroy my son. And he said, As the LORD liveth, there shall not one hair of thy son fall to the earth. 2 Samuel 14:11 . Let the king remember the Lord thy God — In whose presence thou hast made me this promise, to stay the avenger of blood from causing any further destruction in my family. She intended to draw him thus distantly and insensibly into the obligation of an oath: and her address had the desired effect; for the king, to convince her of the integrity of his intentions, immediately answered, As the Lord liveth, there shall not one hair of thy son fall to the ground. 2 Samuel 14:12 Then the woman said, Let thine handmaid, I pray thee, speak one word unto my lord the king. And he said, Say on. 2 Samuel 14:12-13 . Then the woman said — Having gained this point, she begs leave to say one word more, which being granted, she immediately proceeds to expostulate with the king upon his own conduct, and unkindness to the people of God, in not pardoning his own son, and bringing him back from exile. Wherefore then — If thou wouldest not permit the avengers of blood to molest me, or to destroy my son, who are but two persons; how unreasonable is it that thou shouldest proceed in thy endeavours to avenge Amnon’s blood upon Absalom, whose death would be grievous to the whole commonwealth of Israel, all whose eyes are upon him as the heir of the crown, and a wise, and valiant, and amiable person, unhappy only in this one act of killing Amnon, which was done upon a high provocation, and whereof thou thyself didst give the occasion by permitting Amnon to go unpunished? The king doth speak as one that is faulty — By thy word, and promise, and oath, given to me for my son, thou condemnest thyself for not allowing the same equity toward thy own son. It is true, Absalom’s case, as we have observed, was widely different from that which she had supposed. But David was too well affected to him to remark that difference, and was more desirous than she could be to apply that favourable judgment to his own son which he had given concerning hers. 2 Samuel 14:13 And the woman said, Wherefore then hast thou thought such a thing against the people of God? for the king doth speak this thing as one which is faulty, in that the king doth not fetch home again his banished. 2 Samuel 14:14 For we must needs die, and are as water spilt on the ground, which cannot be gathered up again; neither doth God respect any person: yet doth he devise means, that his banished be not expelled from him. 2 Samuel 14:14 . For we must needs die — Some by one means, and some by another; death being the common lot of all men, Amnon must have died, if Absalom had not cut him off; and Absalom, if he do not die by the hand of justice, must die by the necessity of nature, and, if he be not recalled soon, may die in exile, which would undoubtedly be a great affliction both to thee, O king, and to the people of God. And thou thyself must die, and therefore art obliged to take care of the life of thy successor Absalom, and to endeavour to preserve it instead of taking it away, or exposing it to danger. For when dead, we are like water spilled on the ground which cannot be gathered up again — Amnon’s life is irrecoverable, and, therefore, it is in vain to keep Absalom in banishment on account of it: and if Absalom be cut off also, his life too will be lost, both to thee and to thy people. For God doth not respect any person — So far as to exempt him from this common lot of dying: but kings and their sons, in this respect, share the same fate with others. This, however, it must be acknowledged, was very weak reasoning; for by the same way of arguing every crime might be suffered to go unpunished. It must be observed here, that the Hebrew ?? ???? ???? , lo jissa nephesh, here rendered, doth not respect persons, is translated by Houbigant and many other learned men, according to the ancient versions, doth not take away the soul, or life. Thus understood, she argues from the sparing mercy of God, who does not immediately inflict the punishment of death when men have deserved it. And, probably, she meant this to be applied particularly to Absalom, whom God had not cut off, but suffered to live: and therefore she desires David to imitate God, and not to be inexorable to one to whom God had shown mercy. Yet doth he — Or, rather, BUT, he doth devise means that his banished be not expelled from him — She means, that God had provided many cities of refuge to which he that slew another unawares might flee; where, though he was banished from his habitation for a time, he was not quite expelled, but might return again after the death of the high-priest. From whence she argues, that kings being the images of God, nothing could more become them than clemency and mercy, in mitigating the punishment of offenders, though there should be a just cause of anger against them. But this case was still different from that of Absalom; for God was not so merciful as to provide for the safety of wilful murderers. But such specious arguments are good enough when men are willing to be persuaded. 2 Samuel 14:15 Now therefore that I am come to speak of this thing unto my lord the king, it is because the people have made me afraid: and thy handmaid said, I will now speak unto the king; it may be that the king will perform the request of his handmaid. 2 Samuel 14:15 . Now, therefore, that I am come, &c. — “But here, apprehending she might have gone too far, and made too free with majesty, in expostulating so plainly upon a point of such importance, she excused this presumption, from the force put upon her by her people; who had so severely threatened her, that, in this extremity, she plainly saw she had no resource, or hope of relief, but in laying her son’s case before the king: which she, confiding in his mercy, had, at length, adventured to do.” — Delaney. 2 Samuel 14:16 For the king will hear, to deliver his handmaid out of the hand of the man that would destroy me and my son together out of the inheritance of God. 2 Samuel 14:16 . For the king will hear — Clemency and kindness are the properties of a good king, and such a king, she insinuates, she knew David to be, who, she was persuaded, would grant her audience and acceptance. To deliver his handmaid, &c. — By granting her request concerning her son, in whose life, she intimates, her own was bound up, so that she could not outlive his death; supposing that David’s case might be similar, and therefore that this might touch him in a tender part, though it was not proper to say so expressly; and thereby suggesting, that the safety and comfort of the people of Israel depended on Absalom’s restoration. Out of the inheritance of God — That is, out of that land which God gave to his people, to be their inheritance, and in which alone he hath fixed the place of his presence and worship. Thus she artfully reminds the king how dangerous it was to let Absalom (unto whom she had ventured to apply her case) continue among idolaters, in a state of separation from God, his house, and people. 2 Samuel 14:17 Then thine handmaid said, The word of my lord the king shall now be comfortable: for as an angel of God, so is my lord the king to discern good and bad: therefore the LORD thy God will be with thee. 2 Samuel 14:17 . The word of my lord the king shall now be comfortable — Upon reflection, she grew confident that the king’s answer would be according to her heart’s desire. For as an angel of God is my lord the king — In wisdom, justice, and goodness. To discern good and bad — To distinguish between reasonable and unreasonable petitions, and to know what is good and what evil, and understand every matter that comes before him. Therefore the Lord thy God will be with thee — To direct thee to judge aright, and show mercy: or, because thou art so wise and gracious to those who in strict justice deserve punishment. God will own and stand by thee in this thy act of grace: or, God will prosper thee in thy enterprises. 2 Samuel 14:18 Then the king answered and said unto the woman, Hide not from me, I pray thee, the thing that I shall ask thee. And the woman said, Let my lord the king now speak. 2 Samuel 14:18-19 . The king said, Hide not from me, &c. — Observing the uncommon art and dexterity of her address in the management of this affair, the king immediately began to suspect it was a thing concerted between her and Joab, and asked, Is not the hand of Joab with thee in all this? — Hast thou not said and done all this by his direction? The woman said, None can turn, &c. — That is, it is even so: thou hast discovered the truth: and I will not seek by any turnings or windings, this way, or the other, to dissemble the matter, but will plainly confess it. He put these words into the mouth of thy handmaid — As to the sense and substance of them, but not as to all the expressions, for these were evidently varied as the king’s answer gave occasion. 2 Samuel 14:19 And the king said, Is not the hand of Joab with thee in all this? And the woman answered and said, As thy soul liveth, my lord the king, none can turn to the right hand or to the left from ought that my lord the king hath spoken: for thy servant Joab, he bade me, and he put all these words in the mouth of thine handmaid: 2 Samuel 14:20 To fetch about this form of speech hath thy servant Joab done this thing: and my lord is wise, according to the wisdom of an angel of God, to know all things that are in the earth. 2 Samuel 14:20 . To fetch about this form of speech — That is, to propose his and the people’s desire of Absalom’s restoration, in this parabolical manner. To know all things that are in the earth — Or, rather, in this land, in all thy kingdom; all the counsels and devices of thy subjects, and what is fit to be done in answer to their desires. She still persists in expressing her admiration of the king, that she might the more incline him to grant her request. 2 Samuel 14:21 And the king said unto Joab, Behold now, I have done this thing: go therefore, bring the young man Absalom again. 2 Samuel 14:21-22 . The king said unto Joab — Joab seems to have stood in some part of the room all the while the woman was addressing the king; who, therefore, now turned himself from her to him as the principal agent in the business, and said, Behold, now I have done this thing — That is, the thing which thou hast contrived thus to ask. Joab fell to the ground on his face — With the politeness of a courier he returned thanks to the king, in the most fervent manner, as for the greatest obligation conferred upon himself; though, in fact, he had contrived it all to oblige the king, and give him pleasure. “A refinement of flattery and address,” says Delaney, “not easily equalled! The Jews,” he adds, “are generally considered as an illiterate, barbarous people: and the charge is so far just, that they despised the learning of other nations; but this by no means infers them either ignorant or barbarous. The single design and address of this device (the above similitude) are sufficient proofs, were there no other, to evince this people to have neither been unpolite nor uninformed.” In that the king hath fulfilled the request of his servant — But was not David faulty in granting this request? Did he not, in so doing, act in direct opposition to the laws of God, which strictly command the supreme magistrate to execute justice upon all wilful murderers, without any reservation or exception? Genesis 9:6 ; Numbers 35:30 . Surely David had no power to dispense with God’s laws, or to spare any whom God commanded him to destroy: for the laws of God bound the kings and rulers, as well as the people of Israel, as is most evident from Deuteronomy 17:18-19 ; and Joshua 1:8 , and many other places. And, indeed, we may see David’s sin herein in the glass of those tremendous judgments of God which befell him by means of his indulgence to Absalom. For although God’s providential dispensations be in themselves no rule whereby to judge of the good or evil actions of men; yet where they accord with God’s word, and accomplish his threatenings, as in this case they did, they are to be considered as tokens of God’s displeasure. And how justly did God make this man, whom David had so sinfully spared, to become a scourge to him! 2 Samuel 14:22 And Joab fell to the ground on his face, and bowed himself, and thanked the king: and Joab said, To day thy servant knoweth that I have found grace in thy sight, my lord, O king, in that the king hath fulfilled the request of his servant. 2 Samuel 14:23 So Joab arose and went to Geshur, and brought Absalom to Jerusalem. 2 Samuel 14:23 . So Joab went, and brought Absalom to Jerusalem — “Well pleased, we may be assured, to be at once the messenger of his prince’s mercy to the heir apparent of his crown, and the instrument of their reconciliation: which could not fail to secure him a present fund of favour with the father, and an equal fund in reversion with the son.” — Delaney. St. Ambrose mentions this as an instance of the wonderful affection which parents have to their children, though degenerate and wicked; by which we may raise our thoughts to form some, although a very inadequate idea, of the inconceivable love of our heavenly Father toward the human race, his offspring, though fallen and depraved. 2 Samuel 14:24 And the king said, Let him turn to his own house, and let him not see my face. So Absalom returned to his own house, and saw not the king's face. 2 Samuel 14:24 . The king said, Let him turn to his own house — Although the king so far forgave Absalom as to recall him from exile, yet he forbade him to see his face. For his affection to him did not so blind his eyes but he still saw it would not be for his honour to let him come into his presence, lest while he showed some mercy to him, he should seem to approve of his sin. Likewise, he hoped that by this means Absalom might be brought to a more thorough consideration of the heinousness of his crime, and to repentance for it. Indeed, such a discountenance and rebuke as this was necessary, not only to signify the king’s abhorrence of his late cruel revenge upon his brother, but “to mortify his pride and repress his popularity; which it seems now began to blaze out upon the news of his reconciliation to his father. And this may be the reason why the sacred historian subjoins to this account of the king’s discountenance a particular description of Absalom’s beauty, which is a natural and common foundation of popularity; and then adds an account of his having three sons, and one fair daughter, (whom he named after his unhappy sister, Tamar,) which was also another fountain of pride, popularity, and presumption.” — Delaney. He saw not the king’s face — Which was some humiliation to him; for hereby he saw he had not a full pardon, not being entirely restored to the king’s favour. The people also might see by this, in part, how detestable his crime was in the king’s account, and that he would not easily pass by the like in any other person, since he could not endure the sight of a son whose hands were defiled with the blood of his brother. 2 Samuel 14:25 But in all Israel there was none to be so much praised as Absalom for his beauty: from the sole of his foot even to the crown of his head there was no blemish in him. 2 Samuel 14:25 . There was none to be so much praised as Absalom for his beauty — Which proved one occasion of his ruin; for he became proud because he was so much admired; and, forgetting his cruel murder of his brother, he began to rely on the people’s favour, and to proceed to the commission of a greater crime, even to seek the life of his father. 2 Samuel 14:26 And when he polled his head, (for it was at every year's end that he polled it : because the hair was heavy on him, therefore he polled it:) he weighed the hair of his head at two hundred shekels after the king's weight. 2 Samuel 14:26 . When he polled his head, &c. — In those days hair was accounted a great ornament, and the longer it was, the more it was esteemed. And therefore it is no wonder that Absalom, who was proud, and courted popularity, should let his grow to a great length, as this rendered him still more beautiful in the people’s eyes. It was at every year’s end that he polled it — The Hebrew here, ??? ???? ????? , mekets jamim lajamim, does not properly signify, at every year’s end, but rather, at the return of a certain season. Houbigant renders the passage, For there were certain seasons when he polled it, that he might deliver himself from the weight; and when he polled it, the weight was two hundred shekels. This weight of hair, if computed by the Jewish shekel, according to Bochart, amounts to three pounds two ounces of our weight, which certainly is prodigious, considering that only a part of it was cut off, on account of its being grown too long. Some, however, understand the expression, not of the weight, but of the price of his hair. But the remark of Bishop Patrick here seems worthy of notice: That, “when the books of Samuel were revised, after the Babylonish captivity, such weights were mentioned as were then known to them; and therefore, when the historian speaks of this weight of Absalom’s hair, he adds, by way of explanation, that it was after the king’s weight — That is, after the weight of the king of Babylon, whose shekel was only one-third of that of the Jews; and thus this large quantity of hair, which has given so much occasion to the enemies of revelation to ridicule the sacred text, is reduced so as not to seem at all enormous. Besides, we should recollect that the hair, being in those days reckoned a great ornament, was perfumed with large quantities of fragrant oils, and powdered with gold-dust, which would make it more heavy than we could otherwise imagine; and further we should remark, that it is very evident from the peculiar manner in which it is mentioned in the sacred text, that there must have been something extremely singular, even at that time, in this large quantity of Absalom’s hair.” — See Dr. Dodd, and Saurin’s 5th Dissert. 2 Samuel 14:27 And unto Absalom there were born three sons, and one daughter, whose name was Tamar: she was a woman of a fair countenance. 2 Samuel 14:28 So Absalom dwelt two full years in Jerusalem, and saw not the king's face. 2 Samuel 14:29 Therefore Absalom sent for Joab, to have sent him to the king; but he would not come to him: and when he sent again the second time, he would not come. 2 Samuel 14:29 . Absalom sent for Joab — This vain young man, whose only excellence seems to have been his singular beauty, weary with being so long detained in that confinement and obscurity, so mortifying to his pride, and so unfriendly to his popularity, sent a messenger to Joab, to desire to speak with him, in order to prevail upon him to solicit, by his intercession with the king, to be admitted to his presence. But he would not come to him — “The reader little versed in courts is apt to be surprised to see Joab so zealous to get Absalom recalled from exile, and afterward so cold and indifferent to have him re-established in his father’s favour. The truth is, when Joab had greatly gratified the king and gained credit with him, by bringing back Absalom to Jerusalem, he had little reason, as a minister, to be solicitous to bring him near the king’s person, and restore him to full favour; because, in that case, he might naturally apprehend that Absalom’s interest with his father might impair his own.” 2 Samuel 14:30 Therefore he said unto his servants, See, Joab's field is near mine, and he hath barley there; go and set it on fire. And Absalom's servants set the field on fire. 2 Samuel 14:30 . Go and set it on fire — Absalom’s ambition could but ill endure Joab’s coldness and delay, and therefore he ordered this extraordinary step to be taken that he might be set right with his father, a step which showed him determined to go any lengths, rather than fall short of his ambitious aims. For he that could order his friend’s field, and that friend so great a man as Joab, and his near kinsman, to be set on fire, barely that he might be admitted to court, would little scruple to set his country in a flame (if the expression may be allowed) to be raised to a crown. See Delaney. Absalom’s servants set the field on fire — For he had still those about him who were ready to execute any command, though ever so unjust, as his servants did when he bade them kill Amnon. 2 Samuel 14:31 Then Joab arose, and came to Absalom unto his house, and said unto him, Wherefore have thy servants set my field on fire? 2 Samuel 14:31 . Joab arose and came to Absalom — It may seem strange that so furious a man as Joab should not immediately revenge himself by ordering Absalom’s fields to be burned, or in some such way; but he was so wise as to consider, that, being the king’s son, Absalom might, some time or other, be reconciled to his father, and do him a prejudice. He therefore concealed his resentment, and only expostulated with him on the injury done him. 2 Samuel 14:32 And Absalom answered Joab, Behold, I sent unto thee, saying, Come hither, that I may send thee to the king, to say, Wherefore am I come from Geshur? it had been good for me to have been there still: now therefore let me see the king's face; and if there be any iniquity in me, let him kill me. 2 Samuel 14:32 . If there be iniquity in me — He could not but know that there was iniquity in him, heinous iniquity: but he pretends if the king would not pardon it, and admit him into his presence, he had rather die. Let him kill me — For it is better for me to die than be deprived of the sight and favour of my dear father. Thus he insinuates himself into his father’s affections, by pretending such respect and love to him. See how easily even wise parents may be imposed upon by their children, when they are blindly fond of them! 2 Samuel 14:33 So Joab came to the king, and told him: and when he had called for Absalom, he came to the king, and bowed himself on his face to the ground before the king: and the king kissed Absalom. 2 Samuel 14:33 . So Joab came to the king — Absalom’s impetuosity prevailed: these passionate expressions that he was weary of life, while he continued to be debarred his father’s presence; nay, that he desired to die so he might but see him, moved Joab to intercede with the king for him, and he was admitted into the royal presence, where he did obeisance, humbling himself before the king with his face to the ground. And the king kissed Absalom — In token of reconciliation. Josephus says, the king raised him up from the ground, and promised him an oblivion of what was past; which was a great weakness in David; for the impenitent become only more wicked by the pardon of their offences; as we find Absalom did, who, being thus received into the king’s favour, soon found means to ingratiate himself with the people, and raise a rebellion against his own father who had thus graciously pardoned him. But we may here properly ask, with Henry, “Did the bowels of a father prevail to reconcile him to an impenitent son, and shall penitent sinners question the compassion of Him who is the Father of mercy? If Ephraim bemoan himself, God soon bemoans him, with all the expressions of fatherly tenderness: He is a dear son, a pleasant child,” Jeremiah 31:20 . Benson Commentary on the Old and New Testaments Text Courtesy of BibleSupport.com . Used by Permission.

Expositor's Bible Commentary 2 Samuel 14:1 Now Joab the son of Zeruiah perceived that the king's heart was toward Absalom. 9CHAPTER XVIII. ABSALOM BANISHED AND BROUGHT BACK 2 Samuel 13:38-39 - 2 Samuel 14:1-33 . GESHUR, to which Absalom fled after the murder of Amnon, accompanied in all likelihood by the men who had slain him, was a small kingdom in Syria, lying between Mount Hermon and Damascus. Maacah, Absalom's mother, was the daughter of Talmai, king of Geshur, so that Absalom was there among his own relations. There is no reason to believe that Talmai and his people had renounced the idolatrous worship that prevailed in Syria. For David to ally himself in marriage with an idolatrous people was not in accordance with the law. In law, Absalom must have been a Hebrew, circumcised the eighth day; but in spirit he would probably have no little sympathy with his mother's religion. His utter alienation in heart from his father; the unconcern with which he sought to drive from the throne the man who had been so solemnly called to it by God; the vow which he pretended to have taken, when away in Syria, that if he were invited back to Jerusalem he would "serve the Lord," all point to a man infected in no small degree with the spirit, if not addicted to the practice, of idolatry. And the tenor of his life, so full of cold-blooded wickedness, exemplified well the influence of idolatry, which bred neither fear of God nor love of man. We have seen that Amnon had not that profound hold on David's heart which Absalom had; and therefore it is little wonder that when time had subdued the keen sensation of horror, the king "was comforted concerning Amnon, seeing he was dead." There was no great blank left in his heart, no irrepressible craving of the soul for the return of the departed. But it was otherwise in the case of Absalom, - "the king's heart was towards him." David was in a painful dilemma, placed between two opposite impulses, the judicial and the paternal; the judicial calling for the punishment of Absalom, the paternal craving his restoration. Absalom in the most flagrant way had broken a law older even than the Sinai legislation, for it had been given to Noah after the flood - "Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed." But the deep affection of David for Absalom not only caused him to shrink from executing that law, but made him most desirous to have him near him again, pardoned, penitent as he no doubt hoped, and enjoying all the rights and privileges of the king's son. The first part of the chapter now before us records the manner in which David, hi great weakness, sacrificed the judicial to the paternal, sacrificed his judgment to his feelings, and the welfare of the kingdom for the gratification of his affection. For it was too evident that Absalom was not a fit man to succeed David on the throne. If Saul was unfit to rule over God's people, and as God's vicegerent, much more was Absalom. Not only was he not the right kind of man, but, as his actions had showed, he was the very opposite. By his own wicked deed he was now an outlaw and an exile; he was out of sight and likely to pass out of mind; and it was most undesirable that any step should be taken to bring him back among the people, and give him every chance of the succession. Yet in spite of all this the king in his secret heart desired to get Absalom back. And Joab, not studying the welfare of the kingdom, but having regard only to the strong wishes of the king and of the heir-apparent, devised a scheme for fulfilling their desire. That collision of the paternal and the judicial, which David removed by sacrificing the judicial, brings to our mind a discord of the same kind on a much greater scale, which received a solution of a very different kind. The sin of man created the same difficulty in the government of God. The judicial spirit, demanding man's punishment, came into collision with the paternal, desiring his happiness. How were they to be reconciled? This is the great question on which the priests of the world, when unacquainted with Divine revelation, have perplexed themselves since the world began. When we study the world's religions, we see very clearly that it has never been held satisfactory to solve the problem as David solved his difficulty, by simply sacrificing the judicial. The human conscience refuses to accept of such a settlement. It demands that some satisfaction shall be made to that law of which the Divine Judge is the administrator. It cannot bear to see God abandoning His judgment-seat in order that He may show indiscriminate mercy. Fantastic and foolish in the last degree, grim and repulsive too, in many cases, have been the devices by which it has been sought to supply the necessary satisfaction. The awful sacrifices of Moloch, the mutilations of Juggernaut, the penances of popery, are most repulsive solutions, while they all testify to the intuitive conviction of mankind that something in the form of atonement is indispensable. But if these solutions repel us, not less satisfactory is the opposite view, now so current, that nothing in the shape of sin-offering is necessary, that no consideration needs to be taken of the judicial, that the infinite clemency of God is adequate to deal with the case, and that a true belief in His most loving fatherhood is all that is required for the forgiveness and acceptance of His erring children. In reality this is no solution at all; it is just David's method of sacrificing the judicial; it satisfies no healthy conscience, it brings solid peace to no troubled soul. The true and only solution, by which due regard is shown both to the judicial and the paternal, is that which is so fully unfolded and enforced in the Epistles of St. Paul. "God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself, not imputing unto men their trespasses. . . . For He hath made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him." Returning to the narrative, we have next to examine the stratagem of Joab, designed to commit the king unwittingly to the recall of Absalom. The idea of the method may quite possibly have been derived from Nathan's parable of the ewe lamb. The design was to get the king to give judgment in an imaginary case, and thus commit him to a similar judgment in the case of Absalom. But there was a world-wide difference between the purpose of the parable of Nathan and that of the wise woman of Tekoah. Nathan's parable was designed to rouse the king's conscience as against his feelings; the woman of Tekoah's, as prompted by Joab, to rouse his feelings as against his conscience. Joab found a fitting tool for his purpose in a wise woman of Tekoah, a small town in the south of Judah. She was evidently an accommodating and unscrupulous person; but there is no reason to compare her to the woman of Endor, whose services Saul had resorted to. She seems to have been a woman of dramatic faculty, clever at personating another, and at acting a part. Her skill in this way becoming known to Joab, he arranged with her to go to the king with a fictitious story, and induce him now to bring back Absalom. Her story bore that she was a widow who had been left with two sons, one of whom in a quarrel killed his brother in the field. All the family were risen against her to constrain her to give up the murderer to death, but if she did so her remaining coal would be quenched, and neither name nor remainder left to her husband on the face of the earth. On hearing the case, the king seems to have been impressed in the woman's favour, and promised to give an order accordingly. Further conversation obtained clearer assurances from him that he would protect her from the avenger of blood. Then, dropping so far her disguise, she ventured to remonstrate with the king, inasmuch as he had not dealt with his own son as he was prepared to deal with hers. "Wherefore then hast thou devised such a thing against the people of God? for in speaking this word, the king is as one that is guilty, in that the king doth not fetch home again his banished one. For we must needs die, and are as water spilt upon the ground which cannot be gathered up again; neither doth God take away life, but deviseth means that he that is banished be not an outcast from Him." We cannot but be struck, though not favourably, with the pious tone which the woman here assumed to David. She represents that the continued banishment of Absalom is against the people of God, - it is not for the nation's interest that the heir-apparent should be forever banished. It is against the example of God, who, in administering His providence, does not launch His arrows at once against the destroyer of life, but rather shows him mercy, and allows him to return to his former condition. Clemency is a divine-like attribute. The king who can disentangle difficulties, and give such prominence to mercy, is like an angel of God. It is a divine-like work he undertakes when he recalls his banished. She can pray, when he is about to undertake such a business, "The Lord thy God be with thee" (R.V.). She knew that any difficulties the king might have in recalling his son would arise from his fears that he would be acting against God's will. The clever woman fills his eye with considerations on one side - the mercy and forbearance of God, the pathos of human life, the duty of not making things worse than they necessarily are. She knew he would be startled when she named Absalom. She knew that though he had given judgment on the general principle as involved in the imaginary case she had put before him, he might demur to the application of that principle to the case of Absalom. Her instructions from Joab were to get the king to sanction Absalom's return. The king has a surmise that the hand of Joab is in the whole transaction, and the woman acknowledges that it is so. After the interview with the woman, David sends for Joab, and gives him leave to fetch back Absalom. Joab goes to Geshur and brings Absalom to Jerusalem. But David's treatment of Absalom when he returns does not bear out the character for unerring wisdom which the woman had given him. The king refuses to see his son, and for two years Absalom lives in his own house, without enjoying any of the privileges of the king's son. By this means David took away all the grace of the transaction, and irritated Absalom. He was afraid to exercise his royal prerogative in pardoning him out-and-out. His conscience told him it ought not to be done. To restore at once one who had sinned so flagrantly to all his dignity and power was against the grain. Though therefore he had given his consent to Absalom returning to Jerusalem, for all practical purposes he might as well have been at Geshur. And Absalom was not the man to bear this quietly. How would his proud spirit like to hear of royal festivals at which all were present but he? How would he like to hear of distinguished visitors to the king from the surrounding countries, and he alone excluded from their society? His spirit would be chafed like that of a wild beast in its cage. Now it was, we cannot doubt, that he felt a new estrangement from his father, and conceived the project of seizing upon his throne. Now too it probably was that he began to gather around him the party that ultimately gave him his short-lived triumph. There would be sympathy for him in some quarters as an ill-used man; while there would rally to him all who were discontented with David's government, whether on personal or on public grounds. The enemies of his godliness, emboldened by his conduct towards Uriah, finding there what Daniel's enemies in a future age tried in vain to find ill his conduct, would begin to think seriously of the possibility of a change. Probably Joab began to apprehend the coming danger when he refused once and again to speak to Absalom. It seemed to be the impression both of David and of Joab that there would be danger to the state in his complete restoration. Two years of this state of things had passed, and the patience of Absalom was exhausted. He sent for Joab to negotiate for a change of arrangements. But Joab would not see him. A second time he sent, and a second time Joab declined. Joab was really in a great difficulty. He seems to have seen that he had made a mistake in bringing Absalom to Jerusalem, but it was a mistake out of which he could not extricate himself He was unwilling to go back, and he was afraid to go forward. He had not courage to undo the mistake he had made in inviting Absalom to return by banishing him again. If he should meet Absalom he knew he would be unable to meet the arguments by which he would press him to complete what he had begun when he invited him back. Therefore he studiously avoided him. But Absalom was not to be outdone in this way. He fell on a rude stratagem for bringing Joab to his presence. Their fields being adjacent to each other, Absalom sent his servants to set Joab's barley on fire. The irritation of such an unprovoked injury overcame Joab's unwillingness to meet Absalom; he went to him in a rage and demanded why this had been done. The matter of the barley would be easy to arrange; but now that lie had met Joab he showed him that there were just two modes of treatment open to David, - either really to pardon, or really to punish him. This probably was just what Joab felt. There was no good, but much harm in the half-and-half policy which the king was pursuing. If Absalom was pardoned, let him be on friendly terms with the king. If he was not pardoned, let him be put to death for the crime he had committed. Joab was unable to refute Absalom's reasoning. And when he went to the king he would press that view on him likewise. And now, after two years of a half-and-half measure, the king sees no alternative but to yield. "When he had called for Absalom, he came to the king, and bowed himself to his face on the ground before the king; and the king kissed Absalom." This was the token of reconciliation and friendship. But it would not be with a clear conscience or an easy mind that David saw the murderer of his brother in full possession of the honours of the king's son. In all this conduct of King David we can trace only the infatuation of one left to the guidance of his own mind. It is blunder after blunder. Like many good but mistaken men, he erred both in inflicting punishments and in bestowing favours. Much that ought to be punished such persons pass over; what they do select for punishment is probably something trivial; and when they punish it is in a way so injudicious as to defeat its ends. And some, like David, keep oscillating between punishment and favour so as at once to destroy the effect of the one and the grace of the other. His example may well show all of you who have to do with such things the need of great carefulness in this important matter. Penalties, to be effectual, should be for marked offences, but when incurred should be firmly maintained. Only when the purpose of the punishment is attained ought reconciliation to take place, and when that comes it should be full-hearted and complete, restoring the offender to the full benefit of his place and privilege, both in the home and in the hearts of his parents. So David lets Absalom loose, as it were, on the people of Jerusalem. He is a young man of fine appearance and fascinating manners. "In all Israel there was none to be so much praised as Absalom for his beauty; from the sole of the foot even to the crown of the head there was no blemish in him. And when he polled his head (for it was at every year's end that he polled it; because his hair was heavy on him, therefore he polled it) the weight of the hair of his head was two hundred shekels after the king's weight." No doubt this had something to do with David's great liking for him. He could not but look on him with pride, and think with pleasure how much he was admired by others. The affection which owed so much to a cause of this sort was not likely to be of the highest or purest quality. What then are we to say of David's fondness for Absalom? Was it wrong for a father to be attached to his child? Was it wrong for him to love even a wicked child? No one can for a moment think so who remembers that "God commended His love towards us, in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us." There is a sense in which loving emotions may warrantably be more powerfully excited in the breast of a godly parent toward an erring child than toward a wise and good one. The very thought that a child is in the thraldom of sin creates a feeling of almost infinite pathos with reference to his condition. The loving desire for his good and his happiness becomes more intense from the very sense of the disorder and misery in which he lies. The sheep that has strayed from the fold is the object of a more profound emotion than the ninety- and-nine that are safe within it. In this sense a parent cannot love his child, even his sinful and erring child, too well. The love that seeks another's highest good can never be too intense, for it is the very counterpart and image of God's love for sinful men. But, as far as we can gather, David's love for Absalom was not exclusively of this kind. It was a fondness that led him to wink at his faults even when they became flagrant, and that desired to see him occupying a place of honour and responsibility for which he certainly was far from qualified. This was more than the love of benevolence. The love of benevolence has, in the Christian bosom, an unlimited sphere- It may be given to the most unworthy. But the love of complacency, of delight in any one, of desire for his company, desire for close relations with him, confidence in him, as one to whom our own interests and the interests of others may be safely entrusted, is a quite different feeling. This kind of love must ever be regulated by the degree of true excellence, of genuine worth, possessed by the person loved. The fault in David's love to Absalom was not that he was too benevolait, not that he wished his son too well. It was that he had too much complacency or delight in him, delight resting on very superficial ground, and that he was too willing to have him entrusted with the most vital interests of the nation. This fondness for Absalom was a sort of infatuation, to which David never could have yielded if he had remembered the hundred and first Psalm, and if he had thought of the kind of men whom alone when he wrote that psalm he determined to promote to influence in the kingdom. And on this we found a general lesson of no small importance. Young persons, let us say emphatically young women, and perhaps Christian young women, are apt to be captivated by superficial qualities, qualities like those of Absalom, and in some cases are not only ready but eager to marry those who possess them. In their blindness they are willing to commit not only their own interests but the interests of their children, if they should have any, to men who are not Christians, perhaps barely moral, and who are therefore not worthy of their trust. Here it is that affection should be watched and restrained. Christians should never allow their affections to be engaged by any whom, on Christian grounds, they do not thoroughly esteem. All honour to those who, at great sacrifice, have honoured this rule! All honour to Christian parents who bring up their children to feel that, if they are Christians themselves, they can marry only in the Lord! Alas for those who deem accidental and superficial qualities sufficient grounds for a union which involves the deepest interests of souls for time and for eternity! In David's ill- founded complacency in Absalom, and the woeful disasters which flowed from it, let them see a beacon to warn them against any union which has not mutual esteem for its foundation, and does not recognize those higher interests in reference to which the memorable words were spoken by our Lord, "What is a man profited if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul?" The Expositor's Bible Text Courtesy of BibleSupport.com . Used by Permission.