2 Samuel 13
WE come now, to the beginning of David’s reaping as he had sowed. The sorrows of his later years would never have been felt, had he kept before himself that standard of conduct which is set before the Christian in Colossians 3:1-17.
Nor would Jacob have gone through the character of trial he endured, we may conclude, if he had not first deceived his father (Gen. 27).
God has laid it down as a principle of His dealings with mankind (Gal 6:7, 8) that the sower must reap what he sowed, and David who smothered the protest of his conscience to take the wife of Uriah, and afterward to have Uriah exposed to certain death, must learn by example what he would not learn by precept, that is, from the word of God.
When Jacob’s father-in-law, and his sons deceived him, do you not suppose that his thoughts ran quickly back to the time when he had stood before his aged father, pretending to be Esau, that he might get the blessing of the heir? And similarly when David’s eldest son, Amnon, brought the shame and dishonor of the thirteenth chapter upon his father, and presently the third son. Absalom became guilty of the murder of Amnon, was there no voice within that spoke to the king of Israel of his own sin? Assuredly there was. God is not mocked.
While David was a shepherd boy, and fought the giant Goliath, and when a fugitive, his home the cave of Adullam, he was near to God: but once on the throne there was quickly a change, as we have seen in chapter 11. His eight wives, Michal, Ahinoam, Abigail. Maacah, Haggith, Abital, Eglah. Bathsheba, contrast with the one wife of earlier men of God, and they gave him but one son of whom David could think well, (Solomon, the youngest); three sons met violent deaths, and as to the other six the Scriptures are silent. Is it not likely that if they had been godly, we should have been told it in the inspired record?
When Absalom murdered his brother Amnon, he escaped to his grandfather’s home (see chapter 3:3), and David instead of demanding his return that punishment might be meted out according to the divine command (Exo. 21:12; Deut. 19:11-13), forgave the murderer and longed after him.
We turn with relief from the sad details of this chapter to consider the Perfect One, the Lord Jesus, of Whom a voice from heaven said, “This is My beloved Son, in Whom I am well pleased” (Matt. 3:17), of Whom the redeemed say with rapture, “The Son of God Who loved me, and gave Himself for me” Gal. 2:20.
ML 01/23/1927