“The fool hath said in his heart, No God!”
David is the principal object before the mind of the Spirit of God in both the lst & the 2nd books of Samuel. In the 1st book we see him brought from obscurity into honor and praise, and there standing, by the good hand of God, in full righteousness amid the persecutions of the wicked. In the 2nd we see him descending from honor, through sin, into degradation and ruin, but there learning the rich and marvelous ways of the grace of God. It is thus the sorrow of righteousness, or “David the martyr,” that we first see; and the shame of sin, or “David the penitent,” that we next see.
And these things give us different characters in the Psalms. In some of them we hear the breathings of a convicted conscience, a heart exercised in thoughts of transgression, searching after God again, and from thence rising into a blessed sense of grace and salvation. In others we hear the sorrows of conscious righteousness suffering the reproach of the wicked, but knowing all the while its title to fullness of joy and strength in God.
These are the varied exercises known to David's soul; and in, all this he is the type of God's remnant in the latter time, who will have to pass through the shame and sorrows of afflicted and yet conscious integrity, and the shame also of convicted sin. For that remnant, though righteous in their own persons and conduct, will identify themselves with their nation in all its blood-guiltiness, and look on Him who was pierced, and mourn as though they had pierced Him themselves.
And (wonderful, and yet blessed to tell it) David would not have known all that is in God, had he not passed through the sin of the 2nd Samuel, as well as the sorrow of the 1st, for it is sin that manifests God.
And what a truth that is I learn God in the darkness of mine own iniquity. For there was in God a deeper secret than all that His hand revealed in creation. There was the treasure of His bosom. There was grace in God, love for guilty ones; and Adam's sin drew that secret out; for “the Seed of the woman shall bruise the serpent's head” at once came forth to tell him that God had something better than all the fruit of His six days' work of creation.
The direct history of Absalom may be considered as beginning with 2 Sam. 11. In the previous chapters of this book David had been advancing into power and the kingdom, approving himself to God and to the conscience of all men. In no scene in which he is called to take a part does he seek himself, or eye his own advantages. He considers the sorrows and dishonor of others rather than his own gains, and will be serving others though at his own expense. Thus he weeps over Saul and over Abner (i.-iv.), and it is his first concern, after he comes to the throne, to bring home the ark of God to Israeli and prepare it a worthy habitation; for which end he would be base in his own sight, and despise the shame of others. He sought the greatness of God's house, and not his own wealth, and the Lord prospered him withersoever he went. As David would be only a servant, the Lord would make him honorable and prosperous; and even his mistakes savor of his virtues. It is his impatience to be serving that leads to his errors touching both the carriage of the ark and the building of the house. No doubt he was to be blamed, for in those matters he had not waited on the counsel of the Lord, as he had been wont to do; but this came from his desire to be doing service for God. He thought, to be sure, that in these things he must be right. He trusted his heart in them, and therefore did foolishly (Prov. 28:2626He that trusteth in his own heart is a fool: but whoso walketh wisely, he shall be delivered. (Proverbs 28:26)); 1)14 still his errors savor of that which was characteristically “David,” being connected in his mind with desire to be in service for the Lord and His people. (v.-x.)
All this indeed is excellent; but all this does not make out a well-fought fight, and a stainless victory for David. All is not over even yet; such holy beginnings as these are not everything. The strength of the summer sun instill to try this promise of the spring. He that girdeth on his armor must not boast as he that putteth it off. “Ye have need of patience” is the word, and so we shall find it even here with David.
It was the time, we read, when kings went forth to battle. (xi. 1.) But David the king tarries at Jerusalem, and that sets him at once in the flesh. He was not where the Spirit could own him, but has chosen his own way. It may seem to be a small thing, but it is enough for the enemy of his soul. It is only, one might say, a tarrying in the city when he should have been in the field of battle. But the little foxes spoil the vines, we read, “for the vines themselves are tender;” and this beginning may account for any result. Soft relaxing habits quickly come, in, for the next moment we see him, instead of having girded the sword upon his thigh, lying on his bed at eventide. The outposts had been left unguarded, and the very citadel becomes an easy spoil for the enemy. Nothing could do for him now but to arise and shake himself, like Samson, in the strength of the Lord. But, like Samson, he appears as though he had already betrayed the secret of the Lord. And all because he got into the way of his own heart. He was drawn away by his own lusts and enticed; and lust was soon to conceive sin, and sin to bring forth death. Jerusalem, beloved, was David's place for himself, when the field of battle was God's place for him; and, little as that may seem, it is enough to lead to adultery. “Lord,” may we all say, “it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps.”
But it is not merely one lust that enters by this door and riots in David's veins, for love of his fair name in the world now proves just as much a lust in him as the desire of his eye. The one led him to adultery with Bath-sheba, the other goads him to the murder of Uriah. He had no thirst after Uriah's blood, but rather contrives expedients to preserve it, and to that end will do all but surrender his place and reputation among men. He sends to the field of battle to fetch him home to his wife, and thus to be a covert for his sin; and when that will not do, his subtle and uneasy heart devises to make Uriah drunk, that he may still accomplish his end, and use him as a veil under which to hide his own iniquity. Nor is it till all these schemes were baffled, and righteousness in Uriah refuses to be so used in the service of sin in David, that David sacrifices him to his lust. To his love of the world he sacrifices Uriah new, as he had just before sacrificed Bath-sheba to the desire of his eye. And he will sacrifice even his nation to the same. He will so order it that the army of Israel may be defeated, as well as the blood of Uriah be shed before the walls of Rabbah, rather than that his good name should be made a scandal. All must go rather than David hazard that. Just as Pilate afterward:—he was Caesar's friend, the world's friend; and, rather than hazard any breach in that friendship, Jesus must die. Sad thus to tell it, David and Pilate are found together. There was no more thirst for innocent blood in Pilate than there was in David; but there was the same love of his credit in the world in David as there was in Pilate. Pilate as well as David can try many devices to preserve the innocent blood and the world for himself at the same time; but David as well as Pilate will give up the one for the other if both cannot be retained together.
It is sad thus to class David and Pilate together. l3ut flesh is flesh in whomsoever found. But David had now to prove that “sin, when it is perfected, bringeth forth death.” And well is it for us when we prove that here through the Holy Ghost, and do not wait to prove it by the judgment of God by and by. So was it now with David. Adultery, murder, and falsehood had perfected the sin, and new came the bitterness of his soul. He takes the sentence of death in himself “His bones wax old, and his moisture is turned into the drought of summer.” (Psa. 32) Death within was consuming him as a moth fretting a garment. There was no strength of grace as yet to confess the sin; but the life within was sensitive of the wound it had received. The spirit felt the grief it had been put to, but David kept silence and did not tell out his shame as yet, for guile was still in the spirit. (Psa. 32) The voice of a prophet must call forth confession; but when it does come forth, it is indeed of a divine quality; for it is not merely the trespass against Uriah that his soul is conscious of and his lips confess, but he sees his sin in the light of God's glory. And it is there, beloved, we always see it. When we see it aright; it is there we divinely know what sin is. “I have sinned against the Lord,” said David; and with this apprehension he utters, against thee, thee only have I sinned, and done this evil in thy sight.” (Psa. 51) Before this confession the spirit had its wound within, and it was intolerable. But this confession perfects his conversion; and then he was able to teach sinners the ways of the Lord, as Peter after he was converted could strengthen his brethren. When he had learned the blessedness of grace abounding over sin, he could present himself to all other poor sinners as the warrant of their confidence in the Lord. “For this,” says he, “shall every one that is godly pray unto thee in a time when thou mayest be found.” (Psa. 32) Like Paul he is set forth a pattern of all long-suffering, and like Peter he knows the restoring of a soul that had erred from the ways of righteousness.
In the striking style of Scripture, we now read, after David had accomplished his sin, “the thing that David had done displeased the Lord.” There is no long account of God's anger, but this tells us of His mind towards the sin of His servant. But if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive them; and so we find it here. “I have sinned against the Lord” says David. “The Lord has put away thy sin,” answers the prophet. (xii.)