The Death of Absalom
9Absalom happened to meet David’s servants. Absalom was riding on his mule, and the mule went under the thick boughs of a great oak, and his head caught hold of the oak, and he was taken up between the sky and earth; and the mule that was under him went on. 10A certain man saw it, and told Joab, and said, “Behold, I saw Absalom hanging in an oak.” 11Joab said to the man who told him, “Behold, you saw it, and why didn’t you strike him there to the ground? I would have given you ten pieces of silver, and a sash.” 12The man said to Joab, “Though I should receive a thousand pieces of silver in my hand, I still wouldn’t stretch out my hand against the king’s son; for in our hearing the king commanded you and Abishai and Ittai, saying, ‘Beware that no one touch the young man Absalom.’ 13Otherwise if I had dealt falsely against his life (and there is no matter hidden from the king), then you yourself would have set yourself against me.” 14Then Joab said, “I’m not going to wait like this with you.” He took three darts in his hand, and thrust them through the heart of Absalom, while he was yet alive in the middle of the oak. 15Ten young men who bore Joab’s armor surrounded and struck Absalom, and killed him. 16Joab blew the trumpet, and the people returned from pursuing after Israel; for Joab held the people back. 17They took Absalom and cast him into the great pit in the forest, and raised over him a very great heap of stones. Then all Israel fled, each to his own tent. 18Now Absalom in his lifetime had taken and reared up for himself the pillar which is in the king’s valley, for he said, “I have no son to keep my name in memory.” He called the pillar after his own name. It is called Absalom’s monument, to this day.
The name Absalom means “God the Father is peace.” Yet for all that his name promised, he could not live at peace with God or with his father. His father chose the name with a deep longing that his son would become someone who brought peace to others within grace, but Absalom never lived up to it.
I too have named more than ten babies. I prayed through the night over each one, choosing the name with all my heart, longing for those children to be loved by God and by people all their lives. As I watched them grow, I prayed with an even heavier heart when they were sick, and when they smiled with happiness I rejoiced as though something good had happened to me.
That David named his son “God the Father is peace” shows how much he loved him. He must have given him the name Absalom in the hope that his son would always walk with God and live in peace.
From the sole of his foot to the crown of his head there was no blemish in Absalom. David was likely grieved to watch so handsome a son, gripped by vengeance and greed, turn against his own father. Had this specially loved son trusted his father a little more and talked things over with him, David would gladly have helped. But Absalom only sat in judgment on his father; he never once consulted him about anything.
Every one of us comes, sooner or later, to a crossroads where we must choose between good and evil. May you have the wisdom to discern what is good, ready for those moments in life when a choice cannot be avoided.
Until his half-brother Amnon raped his sister Tamar, Absalom had lived in comfort. But when he met a trouble too heavy to bear, he failed to handle it wisely, and in a single moment he fell under the sway of an evil spirit. Anyone would be angry to see a sister so cruelly broken and weeping. Yet if he had calmed himself a little and entrusted the matter to God, or talked it over with his father, he would have found a better way to resolve it. Instead he could not master his feelings. Once he was bound by the thought that he must take revenge with his own hands, he slowly lost his judgment and began to dream of rebellion. No one is ruined in an instant, and so when the heart is slowly growing dark we must seek God, and seek him again, if we are to come out into the light.
When the people in Hebron blew trumpets and cheered that Absalom had become king, he was in no state to tell good from evil, and because of that he crossed a river from which there was no return. Perhaps, as he lay with his father’s concubines, Absalom told himself that this was the surest way to drive his father out once and for all. When people lose their good sense, this is how all power to restrain themselves slips away. While he honored and followed his father, Absalom could never have imagined such an evil as violating his father’s concubines. Yet even after committing, on wicked Ahithophel’s counsel, a sin no human being should ever commit, he would have reasoned that it could not be helped if he was to be king. The sin he had committed finally left him unable to be at peace with God, and he could never return to his father David. Having built a high wall between himself and God, Absalom left the palace to attack David, and that journey became his last. He had meant to flaunt his strength before the people of Israel, but he would soon learn that he could never defeat David, who relied on God. And only at the very last moment did he learn how terrible is the judgment of wrath that falls when peace with God is broken. If Absalom had poured out his hurt to God, he would not have become a tool of Satan, who seizes on our wounded feelings to drag a life down to the very bottom.
David was a great king and a man of faith, but he certainly had his failings too. Absalom, though, had met God and learned of him through his father’s life; with that behind him, had he covered his father’s weaknesses with love, his story would have ended far better, and he would not have suffered the misfortune of losing his life. Absalom attacked the father who had loved him so dearly, and at the last he died without even time to repent. This is the wrath of God. Because those who betray and refuse to turn back come under a heavy rebuke with no further chance to turn, you must be especially on your guard.
2 Samuel 18:5
5The king commanded Joab and Abishai and Ittai, saying, “Deal gently for my sake with the young man, even with Absalom.” All the people heard when the king commanded all the captains concerning Absalom.
As Joab, Abishai, and Ittai marched out, David asked them to spare Absalom for his sake, wrong as the young man had been. A war between a son bent on killing his father and a father who had already forgiven that son was decided before it began.
We hear these days of parents who harm their children, but no ordinary parent does everything in their power to kill a child. Even while David was doing all he could to save Absalom, we see the wickedness of Joab, who never missed a chance to kill. Joab had not raised an army against David as Absalom had, but he was always watching for an opportunity to torment him. He knew what was in David’s heart when the king pleaded for Absalom’s life. Yet once he decided there was little in it for himself, he turned his back on that heartfelt plea and killed Absalom.
In this way the Bible tells the truth, again and again, about the good and the evil in people, and it gives us the chance to understand God’s will and make good choices. As David’s son, Absalom had more chances than anyone to turn back, yet time after time he chose the path of evil. If he had so much as imitated his father’s faith, he would not have come to so dreadful an end.
We are free to choose good or evil, but because we must also answer for the consequences of our choice, we need to weigh our decisions with care.
Absalom was already bound by hot temper, by the will to kill his own father, by rebellion and greed. His heart had grown dark and his ears were shut, so whoever counseled him, it was too late for him to turn back. David meant to go out to the battlefield himself, but when his commanders pleaded with him not to, he divided the troops into three and set Joab, Abishai, and Ittai over them. He earnestly begged these three to spare his son. The people, who heard that plea along with the commanders, likely understood the heart of a king forced to go to war against his own son. The commanders were to bring Absalom back to David alive, but Joab took matters into his own hands and killed him.
2 Samuel 18:8
8For the battle was there spread over the surface of all the country, and the forest devoured more people that day than the sword devoured.
The two armies fought near the forest of Ephraim. The men of Israel did not know the ground, and about twenty thousand of them died in the forest without ever coming to blows. When the Bible says the forest devoured more than the sword, it means that many of Absalom’s soldiers, fleeing from David’s men, failed to see the pits and cliffs hidden among the trees and perished. Had those twenty thousand met David’s soldiers head-on, David would have suffered a heavy defeat. But God used the pits and cliffs of the forest as his means of making David victorious. That is how David came through the crisis. This is God’s strategy for guarding David’s life.
When Absalom ran into David’s soldiers, he took fright and fled on his mule, and as he went, his hair, always his pride, caught in an oak. The mule ran off and left him hanging in midair, and he faced the greatest crisis of his life. Absalom could no longer protect himself. He had dared to try to kill his father, a man of faith; now he dangled from a tree, a frail creature who could do nothing for himself. Had he met such suffering while working for God, God would have sent someone to help him and saved his life. For when someone who relies on God comes to a place where they can do nothing at all, God himself steps in and acts.
One of Joab’s men saw Absalom hanging in the oak and went straight to Joab with the news. Though David had pleaded with all his heart, Joab heard the report and roared at the young soldier, demanding to know why he had not struck Absalom down on the spot. The young soldier answered that even if Joab gave him a thousand pieces of silver, he would not defy the king’s command or lay a hand on the king’s son. He served under Joab, but he believed the king’s command came first. The way he weighed the matter and decided is something God’s people need to learn. Because for us the word of God always comes before any human command, we must set our priorities well and act on them.
Even when an order comes from someone who holds worldly power and honor, if it strays from the word of God, we must never carry it out. If our faith is to grow sturdier, we must know the truth more surely than such people do, and only a life of obedience to the word will give us discernment. Only then can we tell false pastors and heretics for what they are, and receive God’s absolute help.
When the young soldier refused to kill Absalom, Joab wasted no time. He took darts in his hand, went, and thrust them into Absalom’s heart. An opportunist, Joab had once threatened David and brought Absalom back to Jerusalem himself, when he reckoned that Absalom had the strength to become king of Israel. Now Absalom hung from an oak and was of no use to him whatever, so Joab killed him without a moment’s hesitation. He had enjoyed many favors from David, yet he betrayed David. He had hoped to win great power through Absalom, and when things did not go as he planned, he discarded him. Selfish people like this act only for themselves. They may sometimes seem to prosper in the world, but because every choice they make is evil, their end is misery.
David had asked that Absalom be spared, and there was no reason to kill a man who had already lost all his strength and hung helpless in a tree. Joab had no need to step in himself and kill Absalom, defying the king’s command to do it, and such conduct in the end brings God’s rebuke. Whether Absalom lived or died was for God, the Lord of life, to decide, and for David to settle as king. Even so, Joab killed Absalom as he hung there defenseless. And if Joab had spared him and brought him to David, Absalom still could not have lived, for he was a traitor. Had Joab left him to David instead of insisting on killing him, he would not have sinned against God, and the people would have honored him for serving David well. Out of his own greed, Joab threw away his chance to turn back. By deciding and acting ahead of God in what was God’s to do, he shut off the opportunity to show the people how great God’s glory and mercy are.
Believers make the same mistake. There is what God will do and there is what we are to do, yet they confuse their own ideas with the will of God and fall into sin as a result. If, like Joab, we decide for ourselves and commit sins no different from the world’s, God will never forgive us.
Even after Joab had pierced him, Absalom was still breathing, so Joab ordered his men to strike him and made them partners in this sin. We must keep in mind that many people can commit the same sin depending on how the one at the front behaves, and we must always be careful. Presidents and those who govern, pastors and heads of households—what they decide can lead the people around them to bear good fruit or to join in sin. Those who lead must therefore always set an example of faith.
2 Samuel 18:18
18Now Absalom in his lifetime had taken and reared up for himself the pillar which is in the king’s valley, for he said, “I have no son to keep my name in memory.” He called the pillar after his own name. It is called Absalom’s monument, to this day.
Absalom had three sons, and it is not clear whether they had all died young or whether he said he had no son because none of them was as outstanding as he was. Whatever the reason, wanting his name passed down to later generations, he set up a pillar for himself. The pillar he raised to make his name known has now become a shameful marker of his death, one that lays his sin bare. Unable to let go of his excessive desire to display his own honor, Absalom drove himself into a failed life. He drove out his father and violated his concubines, and all the while he had already set up a monument to make his name known. That alone shows he had no fear of God at all.
No human being has ever challenged death and won. Build up honor, gather wealth, hold power the whole world fears—still, in the end, every life bows its knee before death.
Death is what shows that no human being can overcome God. It is the law God has set; everyone must therefore leave this world at the time appointed by God, the Lord of life. People seek out whatever is said to be good for their health, hoping to beat death by their own strength, but when God takes that life back, every such effort is in vain. Countless people have tried every means they could find not to die, yet not one of them has survived to this day.
The wisest thing is to know who it is that conquered death and rose again. And the way to overcome eternal death is to believe in Christ, who triumphed over death and was raised. Like Absalom, people buy wide plots of land so their graves will be grand after they die; they adorn them with costly marble and plant grass for passersby to admire. What good is that? What use is a gravestone of gold set up after we are gone? And if, like Absalom, we carve inflated accounts of our achievements on a stone for later generations, how will that help us?
One thing is certain: we must prepare for death. Whether it is the death of the body or the second death, we must be ready. More important still, what awaits us after death is decided by the faith we are living by now. Birds sitting side by side on a power line can never meet again once they fly off in different directions. In the same way, while we sit on the power line of life we all look alike, yet around Christ we are parted, some toward heaven and some toward hell. This world is a pilgrim road we travel for a little while on the way to our true home. If a craving for power rises in you as it did in Absalom, I hope you will think of the death you will meet at the end of life and lay that passing greed down, because it would be a grievous thing to miss heaven for greed’s sake.
Leaving behind his father’s tears, Absalom left everything in this world—his beautiful body, his empty greed, the hours of laughter and weeping, the people who followed him and all he owned—and returned to the dust. Those who never grasp how fleeting life is will sink into eternal death along with Absalom. As David’s one concern was Absalom’s life, the Lord’s only concern is your life, the life that must be saved. That we are alive means there is still a chance. The chance to turn back, the chance to be restored, the chance to forgive and be forgiven—all of these still remain to us.
David strove to save Absalom, but Absalom had wandered too far from the good path to come back. Absalom, who betrayed his father, and Joab, who seized his opportunity to commit murder, both missed their chance to turn back and fell into eternal death. Now only David is left, mourning his son. We can imagine him blaming himself, thinking that Amnon and Absalom had died because he had lived wrongly. Perhaps he wept, thinking he could have saved his children if he had held them closer. Absalom and Joab committed great sins, but David too was at fault. Had he not taken Bathsheba, had he not left Tamar alone in Amnon’s room, had he rebuked Amnon so that Absalom would not nurse a sense of injustice, the great disaster could to some degree have been prevented. If David had paid Absalom just a little more attention, Absalom would not have been deceived by Ahithophel, and the worst of all, his violating his father’s concubines, could have been averted.
Do you see how much it matters to live this one day by faith? When David sinned and drifted from faith, he grew distant from God, a sorrowful thing; Joab despised him all the more, and Satan wrecked his household at will. In that short while away from God, his sons were driven to their deaths and his daughter was brought to misery. David saw his wrong and turned back, but the marks of sin tormented him for the rest of his life.
Is your home under the grace of God? Have you entrusted your anger and hot temper, your life and your future, to the Holy Spirit, and are you at peace? I hope you will know that your faith today will decide your own future and the future of your descendants, and live in obedience to the word. May you, mindful of the God you will meet after death, keep an upright and true faith through this day and live as his holy people.