2 Samuel 14

The Return of the Son

Intro

Parenting is hard, and made even harder when your the king and your son is on the lam, in exile for the murder of your other son. As a parent you want the best thing for your kids. You don’t want to see them suffer, and your natural desire is to want to remain connected with them. Even when they do stupid things. Things that are self-destructive and harmful. That is why so many parents who did not affirm LGBTQ suddenly found themselves affirming when their child comes and tells them they are gay.

David’s son Absalom murdered David’s oldest son, and potential heir to the throne, in cold blood. Absalom may have felt justified in carrying out his premeditated murder as justice served for the wrongs Amnon had done when he raped his sister Tamar. This is starting to sound like the beginning of a Jerry Springer show (if anyone even knows who that is anymore). But in reality that’s what happens to families when they depart from God’s law. In this case, David had brought this on himself when in the heat of lust he stole another man’s wife and then had him killed to cover up his adulterous affair and the child it produced.

The story left off last week with Absalom seeking refuge with his maternal grandfather in Geshur, and the heart of David going out to him, because he was comforted at the death of Amnon (13:39). Joab, ever the keen ally to David, albeit usually with his own motives, took notice of David and his desire to be reunited with Absalom. So he sets in motion a plan to bring the David’s Son back. A son he may see as having legitimate claim to the throne. But will David agree to such a plan? And if so, how would he receive this prodigal son?

In our text this evening, David must balance the desires of a father and the right response of a king. The stage will be set for the future unraveling of his kingdom based on the outcome of these events. What we find is it’s not easy to balance mercy and justice, in the end, someone must pay.

2 Samuel 14

Summary of the Text.

There are a great many parallels with other stories in scripture, did you notice any? How about the story of Cain and Able? Or closer still, how Nathan the prophet approached the king with a fictitious story when he confronted David over His sin with Bathsheba. Joab may have had both in mind when he finds a wise woman from Tekoa to bring a case Joab contrived before the king. Hopefully to convince him to let his son Absalom return home.

She comes to the king to plead for her son. For she had two sons, but they strove together in the field and one rose up and killed the other. Sounds a lot like Cain and Able. We’ll come back to this in a moment. Now the clan has sent the avenger of death to put the son that remained to death. Only if this happens the woman will be destitute for he is her only male heir since her husband is dead. David is fine granting mercy here, so he tells her to return home. But she presses him twice more, and he promises her that no one will touch her. He even agree to invoke the LORD, in a phrase that will turn out to be prophetic, “not one hair of your son shall fall to the ground.” For, as we shall see soon, Absalom would die because he is trapped in a tree by his hair. An ironic end to a man who gloried in himself.

But we are still in the world of this woman’s fictitious story. She then risks drawing the connections for David, who, up to this point, has seen no parallels between the story she has told and his own sons. She basically says, if you have extended mercy with my son, why have you not done so with your own? Only she doesn’t name Absalom, calling him only “his banished one.” She then is so bold as to claim that God provides ways to extend mercy. Then she returns quickly to her fictitious story, with the accompanying court flattery of “for my lord the king is like the angel of God to discern good and evil” (17).

Finally, David sees the connection and presses her to reveal if this is Joab’s doing. After she agrees that indeed, all the words he had placed in her mouth “in order to change the course of things” (20). Suddenly Joab is there explaining himself to David, who agrees and sends him to bring back his son. Thus, the return of the prodigal son. Only when he returns, David commands that he live in his own house and not come into the king’s presence.

We are then given some telling details about Absalom. In the line of kings in Samuel, Saul is described as tall and handsome; David is handsome and ruddy; and so it would seem was Absalom. Not one blemish in his appearance. But as we have been conditioned to see, “For the Lord sees not as man sees; man looks on the outward appearance, but the LORD looks on the heart” (1 Sam. 16:7). These surface level characteristics cannot sustain the virtue necessary to rule well. Besides this, Absalom already wears a heavy crown of glory–his hair. Which, when cut each year, weighs close to four pounds. It would seem Absalom has also been fruitful, God blessing him with three sons, and a daughter he named after his sister Tamar who is also noted for her beauty.

But things are not back to normal for the now eligible Absalom who has returned home but not to the welcome the prodigal son received when his father ran to greet him and welcome him back. So with two years petering around Jerusalem, three years, a full five years since his flight to Geshur after murdering Amnon, and seven years since the rape of Tamar, Absalom has still not seen the king. Although as a father David’s heart went out after Absalom, it would seem as king he can’t reconcile mercy and justice.

Since it was Joab who orchestrated his return, Absalom figures Joab will be able to restore him to the king’s presence. But Joab seems satisfied with leaving it alone. That is until the ever resourceful Absalom sends his messengers to burn down his barley field. Hit someone in the wallet and they’ll listen. He wants Joab to ask David why he has summoned him from exile, only to keep him from his presence? If he is guilty, let David just kill him. So Joab goes and it would seem David agrees and they meet. Absalom pays the proper respects, but in perhaps the sparsest part of the whole story, all we discover is that the king kissed Absalom. Was this the greeting the prodigal son wanted?

What’s it all about?

In one sense, this episode is here to set up the story for Absalom’s coup. How is it possible for an exiled son to return and then, in a few short years, steal the kingdom from his father? Well, it starts with the help of someone within David’s court, Joab. I think if you read the subtext behind Joab’s motives, which on the surface appear to be loyalty to David, you can see that he fashions himself something of a kingmaker. But if these events happen during the last year of David’s reign, we can see there is some confusion in court of who is the rightful heir to the throne. As the coup of Absalom unfolds next week, I will explain the timeline in more detail. But if you look closely at Joab’s behavior in 1 Kings 1 he positions Adonijah, who was the next in line after Absalom. Only not in the mind of David, or the intentions of the Lord, since the rightful heir to the throne would be Solomon, son of Bathsheba, the wife of Uriah. In the end, Joab’s kingmaking is not rewarded as David commissions Solomon to visit his iniquity on him for all the blood he shed during peace time for wartime crimes. Joab was never good at not taking things personally.

I think then Joab is acting to orchestrate the return of Absalom because he views him as the legitimate heir to David’s throne, not Solomon. Perhaps something about the whole affair with Bathsheba, and Joab’s hand in covering it by having Uriah killed, was distasteful to him. That we will never know. But we can see someone who, although he does seem to be fiercely loyal to David, also has his own ideas of how the future should unfold.

When the woman from Tekoa presents her case, David is meant to draw a parallel between her being bereft of one son, and if justice were to prevail, she would be hopeless with no one to care for her. So she reasoned, would Israel be, if now that Amnon, the rightful heir to the throne, lies dead, then if justice pursues Absalom, in her mind, Israel will be bereft of a son of David to sit on his throne. Only David, it would seem, and the Lord surely does not see it this way. For the rightful heir is Solomon, who remains in the shadows, not gaming for the throne, as his other brothers and Joab seem to do.

But this episode is not just to move the story along to the next scene. For in it we see the torn heart of David, who at the beginning is a father, longing for the return of his son. But by the end he cannot seem to balance that with his duty as king, and so he does not restore him to the place of honor in his court. At least not until pressed by Joab, and then to very little fanfare. At the end of Ch. 13 we see a father, but here in ch. 14 we see only a king. In Fact, David is not mentioned by name at all, he is only referred to as “the king.”

The truth is its hard to reconcile mercy and justice. Every king wants to be merciful but without perverting or undermining justice. Every father struggles with the same tension. It turns out this tension cannot be resolved by an ordinary king. But one day it will be and by a son of David, no less. For only in Christ can the tension of mercy and justice be met. For him to extend mercy to all the adopted sons of God he would need to take the stroke of justice on their behalf. David could never do that, but Jesus could. And he did, so that in him the God of justice, pours out his wrath on Him while extending mercy and forgiveness to you and I. His atoning sacrifice then becomes the basis for our own forgiveness and mercy.

You may think I can’t afford to be merciful, as I daresay David thought himself, but if Christ has extended mercy to you, you can’t afford not to. So in your households when you have a rebellious son (or daughter) you can take them in your arms and give them the stroke of the law, but followed immediately by the sentence of mercy, why? Because God in Christ has done so for you. You don’t need to banish the little one from your presence, but can restore them to the joy of their former glory.

Still, David must reap what he has sowed, so perhaps despite his better judgement, he allows the counsel of Joab to prevail. Setting him up for the fall that will soon come. When a fratricidal son turns on a father, hoping to add patricide to his list of woes, but will settle for making himself odious by taking his father’s concubines and going into them before all Israel, just as the Lord had promised. We’ll consider that next week, as the disorder of David’s house continue to unfold.