Perhaps
the first intimation that something was wrong in David’s family life was when
he began to multiply wives. You will recall that he bought his first wife,
Michael, Saul’s daughter with the lives of two hundred of the king’s enemies.
But in 1 Samuel 25 we find that David took to wife both Abigail (formally wife
of Nabal the Carmelite, of the family of Caleb), and Ahinoam the Jezreelite.
Now
God had distinctly warned the king that He should choose, that he should not
“multiply wives to himself, that his heart turn not away.” (Deuteronomy 15:15,17). David well knew that God had
chosen him to be king. He had anointed him king when he was still a youth and
ruddy. But in deliberate disobedience to the clear command of God, addressed
especially to himself, David began to multiply wives.
Never
can any of us ever lightly disobey the Word of God in any way, and expect not
to reap a bitter harvest from our disobedience. How little did David realize
that the evil yielding to this particular lust of the flesh would be so
greedily followed by his illustrious son, until it became the cause of his
ruin; and the loss and ruin of a large part of his kingdom. It is an evil thing
and bitter to forsake the Lord, or any of His commands. Jeremiah 2:19. Another has
pointed out that the very word “passions”, the lusts to which we so often
yield, is an eloquent word that tells of the sufferings that are sure to
follow: for one meaning of “passion” is suffering.
David’s
third son was Absalom, meaning “Father of Peace”, which tells us the longing of
David’s heart for peace, after the long weary years of war and wandering. But
who was Absalom’s mother? Maacah, the daughter of Talmai, king of Geshur. This
was worse and worse. Not only did David multiply wives, but in order to find
wives of royal birth, he turned to the heathen nations about him. This was also
in express disobedience and defiance of God’s oft-repeated command that they
were not to take wives from the heathen nations around them. How could David
expect a blessing from the offspring of such a match? It was little use giving
the son of this wife a name with such a beautiful meaning, when he was born of
a marriage made in deliberate disobedience to the clear Word of God.
Nor
did the trouble end there. Absalom was a peculiarly handsome man: “In all
Israel there was none to be so much praised for his beauty; from the sole of
his foot to the crown of his head, there was no blemish in him.” II Samuel
14:25. We can well understand such a handsome boy and young man being greatly
spoiled by such praises.
In
1 Kings 1:6 we read of Adonijah, the son of Haggith, who was next in age to
Absalom; and the Divine record of his upbringing is peculiarly sad: “His father
had not displeased him at any time in saying, Why hast thou done so?” What a
solemn and what a true, practical, demonstration of words written a little
later by one of Adonijah’s half-brothers. “He that spareth his rod hateth his
son; but he that loveth him chasteneth him betimes.” How very different might
have been the history of David and Solomon, and all that followed after, had
David’s sons had a few good spankings when they were small.
Adonijah
“also was a very godly man, and his mother bore him after Absalom.” We perhaps
are not wrong in supposing that Absalom’s upbringing was along the same lines
as that of his younger brother; so that we have an unspeakably sad picture of
these two handsome boys, much of an age, brought up without correction of any
kind, but allowed to do their own will, and go their own way, a way that led
each to an early and violent death. We call this method of upbringing
“Self-expression” in our day, and there are those who are fools enough to
advocate it; but that practical result, as told forth by the Holy Spirit,
should give to each of us such a warning that we may thankfully flee from this
wicked and senseless method of bringing up children, to that laid down in God’s
Word.
But
we must follow David further. In II Samuel 11:1 we read, “And it came to pass,
after the year was expired, at the time when kings go forth to battle, that
David sent Joab, and his servants with him, and all Israel; and they destroyed
the children of Ammon, and besieged Rabbah.” But David himself stayed at home
in his palace. Why did King David stay at home when it was “the time that kings
go forth to battle?” Was it indolence? So it would appear. Joab and his
servants and all Israel are out fighting, and David the king is in his house
idle! This is a different story to the early, or to the later years, of David’s
life. “Satan finds some mischief still for idle hands to do,” and we need not
wonder that he provided a snare into which David only too easily fell.
“It
came to pass in an evening tide that David rose from off his bed, and walked
upon the roof of the king’s house.” It all tells of self-indulgence, idleness
and indolence. And all this time Joab and his servants and all Israel were out
fighting the King’s battles. The sad story continues: “And from the rood he saw
a woman washing herself, and the woman was very beautiful.” Why, oh, why, did
not David instantly turn his eyes away? The earlier indulgence of his lust had
seared that tender conscience that is of such priceless value, and instead of
turning away his eyes, he lusted after her, and was not satisfied until he had
obtained the object of his lust.
Any
of us might have easily done the same thing had we been in David’s place. Most
of us have not been sufficiently careful to keep our own conscience entirely
tender and unsullied, or quick enough to turn our eyes from sights that stir
our passions, to be able to throw stones at David.
And
the rest of the sad and humiliation story of lying and murder, might have been
a record of writer or reader, had we been placed in the same circumstances, but
for the Grace of God. But even such a sin can be forgiven, and on the
brokenhearted cry: “I have sinned against the Lord” comes the instant
rejoinder, “The Lord also hath put away thy sin.”
But
such sowing must bring a harvest, and we see it in wave after wave of trouble
that swept over the king in his later years. The little babe, given through
this wicked act, dies; and David bows to this stroke of discipline. But there
is more. What David had done to Bathsheba, Uriah’s wife; now his eldest son, Amnon,
does to Tamar, David’s fair daughter. Sad, sad record. Little wonder when king
David heard of all these things he was very wrath (II Samuel 13:25). But did
David realize that it was he, himself, who had set the wicked example before
his eldest son of the sin that now so angered and humiliated him?
Nor
was this all. Tamar was full sister to Absalom, and Amnon’s evil deed so filled
his heart with hatred of his brother, that he does not rest until he has
murdered him. And then follows more sad reaping of bad seed sown years before.
Absalom flees the country to find refuge, instead of punishment, with his
heathen, maternal grandfather, Talmai king of Geshur. There he feels himself
safe from the vengeance that should, according to the law of God, have fallen
on him.
You
know the sad story of temporary banishment, and then a return and even a kiss
of forgiveness from his outraged father, without one single word of saying,
“Father I have sinned against Heaven and in thy sight, and am no more worthy to
be called thy son.”
Then
follows the plotting and stealing of the hearts of the men of Israel (II Samuel
15:6). The conspiracy comes to a head, and Absalom sends for Ahithophel the
Gilonite, David’s counselor. (II Samuel 15:12.) “And the counsel of Ahithophel,
which he counseled in those days, was as if a man had enquired at the oracle of
God.” (II Samuel 16:23.) How was it Absalom had the insolence to send for
David’s trusted counselor? This was another bit of sorrowful reaping of former
sin. Ahithophel appears to have been Bathsheba’s grandfather, and we can well
understand had never forgiven David for his treatment of his granddaughter.
(Compare II Samuel 11:3 and 23:34).
We
follow the sad, dark picture; brightened it is true by glimpses of devotion by
Ittai the Gittite; and others, old and young, Israelite and strangers, but all
faithful followers of a rejected king. But the picture as a whole grows darker
and sadder, until we watch the agonized grief of that noble king, as he hears
of the death of his wicked son. It is one of the very saddest sighs that God in
His wisdom shows us in all His Book. I suppose there is hardly a sadder cry
than the one which was wrung from that father’s broken heart: “O my son
Absalom, my son, my son Absalom! Would God I had died for thee, O Absalom, my
son, my son.” None but a parent can understand the awful depths of anguish
contained in that bitter, bitter cry.
Very
different was the death of the infant child of Bathsheba, as recorded in II
Samuel 12. There David could say: “I shall go to him, but he shall not return
to me.” Well did David know that the separation from his well-beloved son,
Absalom, was an eternal one. Perhaps there is nothing so sad as death without
hope. Death, the King of Terrors, and after death, the certain knowledge of
judgment; with punishment, eternal, unending punishment, beyond. May no
Christian parent know the heartbreaking grief of such a separation.
But
even this is not the end of the sad story. When Nathan came to David after his
terrible sin, and told him the story of the rich man who had taken his poor
neighbor’s one little ewe lamb, David had, in righteous indignation, sentenced
that rich man to restore him “four-fold.” (II Samuel 12:6). But the prophet had
replied: “Thou art the man;” and God permitted David’s sentence to remain
against himself. We have seen three of David’s “lambs” taken from him: but a
fourth must go; and we read the sad story of Adonijah’s death in 1 Kings,
chapters 1 and 2, especially 2:24-25. In very truth “the rich man” restored
“four-fold.”
Such
was the unspeakably bitter fruit, whose beginning was one step in disobedience
to the Word of God.
Lord, Keep us!