David, “On the Run”
2 Samuel 18:1–33
Vs. 1-18 Hung by pride
Vs. 19-33 A message without words
Intro
We come now to the tragic end of Absalom and David hearing of his death. Absalom has been in a hurry to become king, and he didn’t care what he had to do to get there. Again, it is a character issue and the lack of interest in developing a heart for God that causes him to get “hung up on his pride.” Oswald Chambers wrote, “There is only one relationship that really matters, and that is your personal relationship to your personal Redeemer and Lord. If you maintain that at all costs, letting everything else go, God will fulfill His purpose through your life. One individual life may be of priceless value to God’s purposes, and yours may be that life.” When it is all said and done, we will be either running from God or running to Him!
Hung by pride
Vs. 1-4 Knowing that Absalom’s attack was imminent, David arranged his army into three groups under three commanders, Joab, Abishai, and Ittai the Gittite. The dividing of the troops into three companies was to ensure that whatever approach Absalom and his army took, they would be met with force. Further, David’s supporters (based upon verse three) had grown to more than 10,000. Joab and Abishai are brothers, but Ittai was the fellow who, in chapter 15, had only come to Jerusalem the day prior to David’s departure. Apparently, his actions towards David matched his words in 15:21 when he said to David, “As the LORD lives, and as my lord the king lives, surely in whatever place my lord the king shall be, whether in death or life, even there also your servant will be.”
Hey saints, Ittai was willing to walk with David no matter what, and so now he is giving David the opportunity to work for him. Note that Christian, as it is always the pattern God uses to those He calls, as Jesus said in Matt. 4:19, “Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men.” Far too many folks get a hankering for being fishers of men, but they neglect the greater part, which is “following Jesus.” Now how do we know if a person has succumbed to this? Well, they cease to be teachable; they desire to teach more than they are open to learning. Look at David, as no man had greater authority in the nation, perhaps in the world at that time, than did David, and yet he is a man who will submit when he is wrong as he desires to learn more than he does teach.
Now David felt that he belonged out in the battle; perhaps he was thinking of 11 years ago in chapter 11:1, where we were told that, “in the spring of the year, at the time when kings go out to battle… David remained in Jerusalem.” The people around David gave three reasons why they felt that David ought not to go out with them into battle:
- “You shall not go out!” They understood that it would be hard for David to fight against his own son, Absalom.
- “For if we flee away, they will not care about us; nor if half of us die, will they care about us? But you are worth ten thousand of us now.” His life was more valuable; that is, Absalom was more interested in defeating his father than he was winning the battle.
- “For you are now more help to us in the city”: David was over 60 now, but he could still manage the war by bringing reserves and supplies if needed.
David may not have wanted to repeat the mistake of 11 years ago, but neither was he unteachable, as he responds with a humble heart towards those that he was over. Even though David was a seasoned commander, he was not insistent upon having things his way; he had good wise men around him, so he listened to what they had said. So as David observed the troops upon their departure, he himself stayed behind. What a humbling thing for David as thousands of men went out to battle against their friends, brothers, and family members who were willing to sacrifice their lives all because of David’s own failure.
Vs. 5-8 David’s final instructions were towards his sinful, rebellious son that he wanted to make sure he was taken alive. “Deal gently for my sake with the young man Absalom.” In chapter 15, Absalom had stood by the gate and put down his father to steal the hearts of the people, and here we see David standing by the gate of the city, protecting the life of this same son.
Hey saints Isn’t that the heart of our Lord towards those who do battle against Him? His desire is to take those who are dead and make them alive. In Matt 18:12-13 Jesus said, “If a man has a hundred sheep, and one of them goes astray, does he not leave the ninety-nine and go to the mountains to seek the one that is straying? And if he should find it, assuredly, I say to you, he rejoices more over that sheep than over the ninety-nine that did not go astray.” Peter reminds us in 2 Peter 3:9 that God is “not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.”
Apparently David wanted the battle to be in the “woods of Ephraim,” which according to history was seen as quite secure from opposing armies due to the density of the forests. God didn’t need a sword to stop Abbas. He used trees and bushes as the location of the battle proved to be a greater opponent to Israel than did David’s army, as more were devoured by the trees and bushes than by the swords. Now no doubt, the experience of David’s men played a part in this, as they were accustomed to this fighting style. God has His own ways to raise people and set people down. He who has to silence the rocks, lest they cry out (Luke 19:40), and silence the storms has little trouble having a tree or a shrub reach and put down man’s pride. No wonder we have tree huggers; maybe they have read this passage and are trying to make friends?
Vs. 9-18 Upon finding Absalom dangling in a tree, the soldiers obey David’s wishes but not Joab. Absalom had rejected Ahithophel’s counsel to kill only the king, but Joab thought it a good idea and put three spears into Absalom. Remember that it was Hushai’s counsel that obliged Absalom’s vanity, placing him in this battle. Josephus tells us that it was the hair of Absalom that got hung up on the tree, so the Lord many years earlier caused a tree to grow up in this area so that one day it would be used to judge Absalom. It appears as though Absalom goes out galloping on his Mule, and with the thick brush and trees, he is left dangling by what his pride and glory was in, his good looks and long flowing hair. Both Absalom and Ahithophel die hanging on a tree. That is not interesting in light of both Deut. 21:23, “His body shall not remain overnight on the tree…for he who is hanged is accursed of God,” and Gal. 3:13, “Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree.” The Jews have seen this as a curse. Ah, but Jesus died on a tree; our curse was placed upon Him.
Absalom, whose hair was a source of pride, got his hair hung up in a tree. Now listen up; there are a great number of people who, because of their pride, get hung up on THE TREE, speaking of the cross. Paul wrote of them in 1 Cor. 1:23: “We preach Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness.” Notice that he is hanging between heaven and earth (verse 9) because he felt he was elevated above his peers but clearly not fit for heaven. Hey saints, that is what pride is like, as it causes us to think we are better than everybody else, but it also keeps us from being in the Lord’s presence.
The soldier that had heard the heart of David for his son came back and told Joab, who wanted to know why he didn’t kill him as there was a bounty on his head. Now I kind of like the way the King James version puts the offer of Joab to this fellow, as it says that Joab, “would have given thee ten shekels of silver and a girdle.”
Hey folks, there are some people who can be bought to be unfaithful and disobedient to the Lord. Is there a price that someone can offer us to not obey God’s word or be faithful to Him? Don’t dismiss this too quickly, as I’m afraid at times the price of unfaithfulness and disobedience is nothing more than the price of comfort.
David has lost the ability to correct Joab, as he was in on the murder of Uriah, and he was the one that orchestrated bringing Absalom back into Jerusalem, and now he is the very one who takes the initiative to kill the very man at one time he had backed. In verse 14, you can tell that Joab is convicted by the obedience of these soldiers to keep his king’s words, so he keeps the bounty and the belt for himself and gives three spears to the heart of Absalom as change. Joab offered justice instead of mercy, and he did so for the best interest of the nation if not for David, and Absalom’s death was what he should have gotten long ago for murdering his brother, but it was Joab who had suggested that he should be pardoned.
The irony of the story is that Joab gave Absalom justice, and according to 1 Kings 2:5-6, at David’s final words to Salomon, he said, “Joab the son of Zeruiah did to me, and what he did to the two commanders of the armies of Israel, to Abner the son of Ner and Amasa the son of Jether, whom he killed. And he shed the blood of war in peacetime and put the blood of war on his belt that was around his waist and on his sandals that were on his feet. Therefore, do according to your wisdom, and do not let his gray hair go down to the grave in peace.” Apparently three spears in the heart weren’t enough to kill Absalom, so the 10 men who bore his armor surrounded him and did him in. Pride is a tough thing to kill in the human heart, isn’t it? Three spears aren’t enough. You see, in an interesting twist, according to chapter 16:21, Absalom had gone and raped his father’s 10 concubines out in the open, so too now he is killed by his 10 servants out in the open.
Absalom was a self-centered and self-promoting kind of guy, so he made sure that people would remember his life. When you go to Israel in the Kidron Valley southwest of the temple mount, you will see all of these tombs carved into the sandstone, and you will see this pillar, which the Jews to this day call Absalom’s pillar, as it is what he wanted to be remembered, but his memory is not a good one, and the pillar just stands to the height of his arrogance and pride. Joab wanted to make sure that Absalom’s body was not memorialized, so he put him into a pit and heaped stones upon him. The truth is that people will remember our lives; the only question is, how will they remember them? I personally would rather be remembered for my name being written in the book of life. It has been said that “man’s life is made up of 20 years of his mother asking him where he is going, 40 years of his wife asking him where he has been, and one hour at his funeral when everyone wonders where he is gone.”
Hey, pay attention to Absalom’s story, Christians, as he was a man who once stole the hearts of the nation in 15:6, and now has his heart stilled and ends up in a pit. This fellow who thought so much of himself that he erected a pillar in his own honor ends up in a pit. Do you get it? Absalom had stacked stones upon each other to impress folks with how great a man he was, but in the end he was thrown into a pit with stones stacked over his dead body in a forest where no one would remember him. Now that reminds me of the words of Jesus in Luke 20:17–18, where he said of Himself, “The stone which the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone, Whoever falls on that stone will be broken; but on whomever it falls, it will grind him to powder.” Remember, friend, that you can fall on the chief cornerstone and be broken of your pride, or it will fall upon you and grind you to powder, as in Absalom’s case.
A message without words
Vs. 19-32 The war was over, Absalom is dead, and now all that remains is to notify David, but Joab knew that there would be no celebration as the enemy was from David’s own son. Apparently Joab wanted to spare Ahimaaz, the son of Zadok the priest, the burden of being the messenger of bad news, even though Ahimaaz was faster than the Cushite. Yet Ahimaaz was so eager he volunteered to run even though he didn’t have all the information as Joab questions him in verse 22: “Why will you run, my son, since you have no news ready?” Ahimaaz reminds us of that verse in Rom. 10:2, having “zeal but not according to knowledge.” We can’t be sure, but it seems as though Ahimaaz wanted to seem important even though he hadn’t anything to say, so he ran anyway.
Hey, there is a lesson in this for you and me as well. You see, far too many people are like Ahimaaz, who are so eager to go that not only did he outrun everyone else, they outran the message they are supposed to bring. Consider the paths the two took, as they were very different. The Cushite (dark-skinned man) took the more difficult route while Ahimaaz took the plain. Again, there are a great many who want to “run ahead” of the Lord, and though they arrive faster and with more style, they lack the content. The moral of the story? Well, the job of a messenger is not to be found in the delivery but in what you are delivering! In too many cases, the person who arrived first has nothing to say when they get there. That is why Paul wrote to Timothy in 2 Tim 2:15, saying, “Study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.” The Lord told Habakkuk in 2:2 to “Write the vision and make it plain on tablets, that he may run who reads it.”
Vs. 33 Seeing one man running is usually good news, but if you see the army running, it wouldn’t be a very good sign. Ahimaaz called out, saying, “All is well,” but didn’t want to say anything negative about Absalom’s death. The cushite had tact in giving bad news, but nonetheless, it still broke David’s heart. It is always wiser to sympathize as far as we can than to sit in judgment over a case that has never been ours. David’s only concern was for his son, not for the nation, and such is the heart of a parent. We won, we won was all Ahimaaz had to say, but all David wanted to know was: Is Absalom safe?
The thing that David desired but could not do was that he could not die in Absalom’s stead, but that is exactly what God did for us, in that Jesus died in our stead in order to redeem us unto God. David was willing to overlook all Absalom’s faults; he wanted to forgive him even though it was Absalom’s desire to kill his father. Spurgeon said, “Our children may plunge into the worst of sins, but they are our children still. They may scoff at our God; they may tear our heart to pieces with their wickedness; we cannot take complacency in them, but at the same time we cannot unchild them nor erase their image from our hearts.” In David’s morning for Absalom, he calls him his son five times because in Absalom he saw his own failures and foibles. “My son,” cried David. “Your weakness is my weakness; your fleshly pursuits are my fleshly pursuits, and your destruction is my failure; if only I could die in your place.” And the son in the cry of David is the heart of God the Father who gave His only son to die in our place!
So why didn’t David weep for his son in 12:23 after the baby died, and yet he does here? The words of the Cushite broke the heart of David for two reasons:
- He bore part of the responsibility.
- He knew his son Absalom would not be in heaven
As David had said of the dead child of Bathsheba, “I shall go to him, but he shall not return to me.” You see, David knew the little child would be in the presence of the Lord, and he knew that Absalom wouldn’t be there, and it broke his heart. Now this ought to cause us to be brokenhearted for those who, right now, if they were to die, would find themselves apart for eternity from God’s love.