The heart of God in its love towards sinners, is sometimes shown in the Old Testament through incidents connected with the person (David especially) who sat on Israel’s throne. Because the person who sat there, might be said during that time of a theocracy, to represent God, and therefore to exhibit His ways. We are told in the opening of our chapter, that “Joab perceived that the king’s heart was towards Absalom.” This Joab was a famous general, and a kind of prime-minister of David. His affection for David, and as a statesman, his sense of the dignity of the throne were qualities about evenly balanced in his character. Eventually he failed in the matter of Adonijah’s rebellion, but that is not our point just now.
On the present occasion the sorrow that he saw on David’s countenance 37, 39) determined him to attempt a re-conciliation for Absalom, without a due equivalent for his sin; that is, without the death of a victim, and by his artifice he committed David to a great mistake; nevertheless the account itself claims our notice, for whilst wanting in some of the truths for a sinner’s salvation, it brings out, in illustration, in a very marked way, the concern of God, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, about our miserable condition at a distance from Him, as Absalom was from David. Absalom had murdered his brother Amnon (although under some provocation) in cold blood, and on that account had tied his country. Whilst thus banished, the heart of him that was on the throne yearned for him; and Joab was able, through the means of the woman of Tekoah, to draw out his thoughts, and eventually to carry out his will towards his banished one. It was he who had to go down to the very place of Absalom’s abode, in order to bring him back.
Joab induces a wise woman of Tekoah—a town perhaps famous for producing a class of mourners who wailed at funerals, (Jer. 9:1717Thus saith the Lord of hosts, Consider ye, and call for the mourning women, that they may come; and send for cunning women, that they may come: (Jeremiah 9:17)) to feign herself to be one, and by a supposed case of her own misery, to bring out the fullness of David’s heart. First, she puts the quarrel (vv. 5, 6, 7,) between her two sons in language so equivocal, that you could not say which of them was the aggressor, so as to remind David in the mildest form of the quarrel between Absalom and Amnon; and she gets him so far to betray his feelings, as to give a reply rather in her favor, “ Go to thine house and I will give charge concerning thee,” (v. 8.) As instructed by Joab, this uncertain answer will not suffice, so she at once takes the daring course of seeming to wish that the dignity of the throne in the punishment of an offender should be more thought of than her distress. “O King,” she says, “the iniquity be on me and on my father’s house, (v. 9) and the king and his throne be guiltless.” She succeeds so perfectly, that she draws out an answer entirely in her favor, “The king said whosoever saith ought unto thee, bring him to me, and he shall not touch thee anymore.” Emboldened now, she alludes to that dread law in Israel, whereby the revenger of blood might destroy a murderer wherever he was found, save in a city of refuge, (Num. 35:99And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, (Numbers 35:9).) “Let the king remember the Lord thy God, (notice, it was after the death of Uriah) that thou wouldst not suffer the revengers of blood to destroy any more, lest they destroy my son,” to which speech she gets the immediate answer, “As the Lord liveth there shall not one hair of thy son fall to the earth.” Thus cunningly had she committed the king, and now it was easy for her to bring the case of Absalom before him; but not before David had discovered that the hand of Joab had been in it all. So we see how the three minds fitted in together, Joab’s with the woman of Tekoah’s; the woman of Tekoah’s with David’s; and David’s again with Joab’s; all were in accord to bring this rebel back. It was in the counsel of the three that he should be restored; but one in particular had to go down, “Go therefore,” said David to Joab, “bring the young man Absalom again.” “So Joab arose and went to Geshur,” out of his own country into another, “and brought Absalom to Jerusalem.”
Dear reader, do you perceive in this history, that you are the Absalom—the sinner—in rebellion against God, dwelling a long way off in a land of darkness and the shadow of death. You are, alas I that I should have to tell you so, nothing less than a murderer in God’s estimate. Is it not written that “Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer,” and have you never given hatred a place in your heart? what does He say about your inner man, whose eyes are “As a flame of fire,” and who is going to judge “The secrets of men by Jesus Christ”? (Rom. 2) But more than this, this world is yet held guilty of the death of Christ; The men that sentenced that “Just one” are called “Betrayers and murderers,” and it is just your natural heart, dear reader, which is, like the Jews in Christ’s time, averse to, everything that speaks of God, and afraid of coming to the light, because its deeds are evil. Yes, an unbeliever is guilty of the blood of God’s own Son, and will yet have to answer for it. He is convicted of sin because he does not believe on Jesus. (John 16:99Of sin, because they believe not on me; (John 16:9).)
Do you know, dear reader, that notwithstanding this, these are plans and counsels for your benefit, which only want your assent. Did Absalom refuse to be reconciled? Was he not glad to return to Jerusalem? The Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are concerned for you. The heart of the Father is in your favor; the Holy Ghost is the Exponent of His will; and the Son efficiently carries it out. But this Old Testament picture gives but a feeble idea of the present aspect of things. Joab on this occasion could not bring Absalom beyond his own house. (v. 24.) There was after all uneasiness in David’s mind—he could not fall upon his son’s neck and kiss him—could bring forth no best robe, nor sit down with him to the fatted calf. The reconciliation too, such as it was, wrought no improvement in Absalom’s mind, for he set on fire his benefactor’s field of barley. (v. 30.) It was reconciliation without blood, which neither suited the throne nor changed the heart of the one brought back after such sort. Absalom was not altered in character or demeanor by such a reconciliation. But now the entire mystery has been cleared up—the Son of God has become Man, and died. The atonement is made, and sinners brought back by. Him, in His resurrection, come right up to the Father’s, house; nay, are accepted in His acceptance (Eph. 1.), and with Him have access to the Father. Christ met the sinner’s case where he was, in the place of death and in His own resurrection brings him up to the throne.
The woman of Tekoah, who disappears from the scene when she had elicited the condition of David’s heart, towards his banished one, for she had no direct intercourse with Absalom, re-appears in Luke 15, still under the figure of a woman picking up the piece of silver, having the image and superscription of its heavenly origin and precious to its owner, though lost in the dust and dirt of the world. It was a parable of the time of Christ’s incarnation, and beautiful as it is still needed that blessed word “Without shedding of blood there is no remission.” It is that “Spirit of God,” who at the first “moved upon the face of the waters.” One of those who said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness,” and who, dimly seen in the Old Testament, now shines brightly forth in full relief as the revealer of God’s full salvation to us, and the revelation of His counsels from all eternity on our behalf. Faintly traceable in His ways to us in the Old Testament, He has now, since the ascension of Christ, come down to make good the full revelation of the Father by the Son. He is down here as the revealer of the Father’s will to us, and dweller in the Church forever!
Oh, dear reader, is not this wonderful! How can you reject the message, brought down by the Holy Ghost, of a full salvation? He did not come down from heaven till Christ’s arrival there with the marks of redemption on His hands and His side. Reader! it is a salvation for you! Your condemnation will be sealed upon the rejection of it. “How shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation.”
W. W.