1-2 Samuel Week Forty-Three: 2 Samuel 14:1-33

1 Now Joab the son of Zeruiah perceived that the king’s heart was inclined toward Absalom. ² So Joab sent to Tekoa and brought a wise woman from there and said to her, “Please pretend to be a mourner, and put on mourning garments now, and do not anoint yourself with oil, but be like a woman who has been mourning for the dead many days; ³ then go to the king and speak to him in this manner.” So Joab put the words in her mouth.

⁴ Now when the woman of Tekoa spoke to the king, she fell on her face to the ground and prostrated herself and said, “Help, O king.” ⁵ The king said to her, “What is your trouble?” And she answered, “Truly I am a widow, for my husband is dead. ⁶ Your maidservant had two sons, but the two of them struggled together in the field, and there was no one to separate them, so one struck the other and killed him. ⁷ Now behold, the whole family has risen against your maidservant, and they say, ‘Hand over the one who struck his brother, that we may put him to death for the life of his brother whom he killed, and destroy the heir also.’ Thus they will extinguish my coal which is left, so as to leave my husband neither name nor remnant on the face of the earth.”

⁸ Then the king said to the woman, “Go to your house, and I will give orders concerning you.” ⁹ The woman of Tekoa said to the king, “O my lord, the king, the iniquity is on me and my father’s house, but the king and his throne are guiltless.” ¹⁰ So the king said, “Whoever speaks to you, bring him to me, and he will not touch you anymore.” ¹¹ Then she said, “Please let the king remember the Lord your God, so that the avenger of blood will not continue to destroy, otherwise they will destroy my son.” And he said, “As the Lord lives, not one hair of your son shall fall to the ground.”

¹² Then the woman said, “Please let your maidservant speak a word to my lord the king.” And he said, “Speak.” ¹³ The woman said, “Why then have you planned such a thing against the people of God? For in speaking this word the king is as one who is guilty, in that the king does not bring back his banished one. ¹⁴ For we will surely die and are like water spilled on the ground which cannot be gathered up again. Yet God does not take away life, but plans ways so that the banished one will not be cast out from him. ¹⁵ Now the reason I have come to speak this word to my lord the king is that the people have made me afraid; so your maidservant said, ‘Let me now speak to the king, perhaps the king will perform the request of his maidservant. ¹⁶ For the king will hear and deliver his maidservant from the hand of the man who would destroy both me and my son from the inheritance of God.’ ¹⁷ Then your maidservant said, ‘Please let the word of my lord the king be comforting, for as the angel of God, so is my lord the king to discern good and evil. And may the Lord your God be with you.’”

¹⁸ Then the king answered and said to the woman, “Please do not hide anything from me that I am about to ask you.” And the woman said, “Let my lord the king please speak.” ¹⁹ So the king said, “Is the hand of Joab with you in all this?” And the woman replied, “As your soul lives, my lord the king, no one can turn to the right or to the left from anything that my lord the king has spoken. Indeed, it was your servant Joab who commanded me, and it was he who put all these words in the mouth of your maidservant; ²⁰ in order to change the appearance of things your servant Joab has done this thing. But my lord is wise, like the wisdom of the angel of God, to know all that is in the earth.”

²¹ Then the king said to Joab, “Behold now, I will surely do this thing; go therefore, bring back the young man Absalom.” ²² Joab fell on his face to the ground, prostrated himself and blessed the king; then Joab said, “Today your servant knows that I have found favor in your sight, O my lord, the king, in that the king has performed the request of his servant.” ²³ So Joab arose and went to Geshur and brought Absalom to Jerusalem. ²⁴ However the king said, “Let him turn to his own house, and let him not see my face.” So Absalom turned to his own house and did not see the king’s face.

²⁵ Now in all Israel was no one as handsome as Absalom, so highly praised; from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head there was no defect in him. ²⁶ When he cut the hair of his head (and it was at the end of every year that he cut it, for it was heavy on him so he cut it), he weighed the hair of his head at 200 shekels by the king’s weight. ²⁷ To Absalom there were born three sons, and one daughter whose name was Tamar; she was a woman of beautiful appearance.

²⁸ Now Absalom lived two full years in Jerusalem, and did not see the king’s face. ²⁹ Then Absalom sent for Joab, to send him to the king, but he would not come to him. So he sent again a second time, but he would not come. ³⁰ Therefore he said to his servants, “See, Joab’s field is next to mine, and he has barley there; go and set it on fire.” So Absalom’s servants set the field on fire. ³¹ Then Joab arose, came to Absalom at his house and said to him, “Why have your servants set my field on fire?” ³² Absalom answered Joab, “Behold, I sent for you, saying, ‘Come here, that I may send you to the king, to say, “Why have I come from Geshur? It would be better for me still to be there.”’ Now therefore, let me see the king’s face, and if there is iniquity in me, let him put me to death.” ³³ So when Joab came to the king and told him, he called for Absalom. Thus he came to the king and prostrated himself on his face to the ground before the king, and the king kissed Absalom.

—2 Samuel 14:1-33

Sermon Outline

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References

Weekly Study Guide

Who was your favorite Bible character growing up? For me, it was clearly Daniel (and his three brave friends). When it comes to fearless trust, you just can’t beat the stories of the lion’s den and the fiery furnace. I also loved hearing about the incredible adventures of Moses, Samson, and Jonah. And without a doubt, the life of David was at the top of this list. I don’t know about you, but I’ve spent countless hours walking with David through his exploits. David is, without a doubt, a favorite Bible character for many believers. There are so many well-known episodes in his life: David and Goliath, David and Bathsheba, and David bringing the Ark of God up to Jerusalem and making it the new capital city of Israel. Amidst these other more spectacular events, this story of David wanting to build a house for God sometimes doesn’t get as much attention. But it is in this story we learn of the monumentally important Davidic Covenant.

Without having the context that reveals why it is so important, this mention in 2 Samuel 7 of God promising to build David a house might slip past us uncelebrated. However, through this exploration we have been on together, we can now perhaps more clearly understand why the Davidic Covenant is such a big deal. It is here in this covenant that we begin seeing some clarity about the promised Messiah and learn what the coming Kingdom will look like. So far, in the flow of salvation history, we have not yet been given much—if any—information regarding the coming Messiah—really, only a handful of hints. This covenant is the mechanism through which God reveals elements of His plan for restoring the Kingdom back to planet Earth. We learn not only the broad strokes of salvation history, but in addition, many of the important details begin to come into focus.

We have covered how, in this covenant with David, God promised four things: an eternal house (or dynasty), an eternal throne, an eternal Kingdom, and an eternal descendant. We also learned the shocking reality that this tiny, seemingly insignificant nation is going to rule the world. We have also seen how scripture demonstrates that Jesus is qualified to sit on David’s throne. Yet, several additional questions arise when exploring the Davidic Covenant. The first question is: should we even take this promise of a coming Kingdom literally? In other words, was God promising an actual, physical, political Kingdom? The second question is: has this Kingdom happened yet in history? That is, did Jesus ever actually sit on David’s throne? And lastly, what is this Kingdom we’ve been discussing really all about? What is it, and what is it not? We will take these questions one at a time and spend time unpacking their significance.

One very important aspect of the promises of the Davidic Covenant is the eternality of this promise. God promised David that He would establish the throne of his kingdom forever. But when we look at Israel, we see no king. We see no throne. In fact, prior to 1948, we saw no Israel. It has been over 2,600 years since we have seen a Davidic king sitting on the throne of Israel. On the surface, this seems to be a legitimate question. How can we take this promise literally, and even seriously, when all the evidence seems to point to the contrary? Because of these challenges, some people have tried to argue that Kingdom doesn’t really mean Kingdom—that it can be allegorized to mean something completely different. Perhaps God didn’t really mean what He said to David in 2 Samuel 7, where we read:

The LORD also declares to you that the LORD will make a house for you. When your days are finished and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your descendant after you, who will come from you, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for My name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever … Your house and your kingdom shall endure before Me forever; your throne shall be established forever (emphasis added).

So, the first question we will address is: should we understand this promise of a Kingdom to be taken as literal?

That people would even think to ask that question reveals the extent to which we have been brainwashed by allegorical hermeneutics. Why would we ever think to “spiritualize” a clear promise of God? This would be like asking, “Does the return of Christ in the second coming need to be literal?” Well, of course it does! Jesus said He is coming back. We impugn His character if we believe otherwise. Some people would have us believe that Christ already returned in a spiritual sense and is merely “ruling and reigning in our hearts”. Pardon me, but that’s nonsense. Did Jesus come literally the first time? Then Jesus will come again literally the second time (Acts 1:11). Just because someone tells you it’s ok to read scripture in a less-than-straightforward way doesn’t mean it’s a correct, or even acceptable, way to read it. That way of trying to get around the literal understanding of the text completely empties the text of its intended meaning. Yes, there will be a literal return of Jesus Christ to this earth to rule and reign on David’s throne—from Jerusalem—for 1,000 years. And in the same way, the Kingdom that God promised to Israel will be fulfilled with Israel. You cannot make a promise to someone and then redefine the terms later on. Nor can you make a promise to one person and fulfill it with someone else.

These teachers would have us believe that although God made these promises to Israel, instead of fulfilling them with Israel, He is fulfilling them with the church. No, that would simply be a broken promise. Again, this all goes back to the presuppositions we covered many weeks ago. These presuppositions that argue that God is finished with Israel because of its sin ultimately flow from a pagan, Platonic worldview that sees matter as evil and spirit as good. According to this thinking, a literal, physical Kingdom centered in a restored literal, physical Israel could not be what God meant. Thus, in their minds, “Kingdom” must be reinterpreted, and “Israel” must no longer mean Israel.

The early church fathers who created this idea out of whole cloth were operating under these faulty assumptions. No, the reality is, matter is not evil. God created the physical universe and called it very good. He entered this realm physically and lived and died physically. To say otherwise is nothing short of heresy. This desire to rob Israel of the promises of God is ultimately anti-Semitic. It is a ploy of Satan to attack the revealed plan of God—which is centers on, and which is intricately tied to, the people of Israel. As mentioned several times, both the first and second comings of Messiah are dependent upon Israel being God’s people. So, if Satan can stop Israel, he thinks he can defeat God.

We will go into this in more detail coming up, but in Daniel chapter two, this coming Messianic Kingdom is pictured by God as a “stone cut without hands”, a supernatural kingdom coming in from outside human history to destroy—and then replace—all previous world-ruling empires. The Kingdom is not the church. It is not the result of the efforts of the worldwide missionary movement. It is God intervening in a radical, violent way, completely destroying the manmade, idolatrous systems we have created in our attempt to build our own towers of Babel and make a name for ourselves. It is God setting Messiah up on David’s throne in Jerusalem where He will rule and reign for a thousand years.

This question of whether or not we should permit ourselves to think of the Kingdom as something other than literal and physical touches on the promise-keeping nature of God. This is why we have hit this topic of God’s promises so hard. The covenants in scripture are promises. Our God is a promise-making, promise-keeping God. If He does not fulfill His promises then He is not trustworthy. God has to fulfill the promises He has made to Israel, or else He is not God.

The great prophecy scholar John Walvoord explained, concerning the Davidic Covenant:

“The covenant with David is not only given twice in its major content, namely 2 Samuel 7 and 1 Chronicles 17, but it’s also confirmed in Psalm 89. In this and other Old Testament references there is no allusion anywhere to the idea that these promises are to be understood in a spiritualized sense as referring to the church or to a reign of God in heaven. Rather, it is linked to the earth and to the seed of Israel and to the land. There is no indication that the Kingdom extended to a spiritual entity such as the church, nor that the throne in view is the throne of God in heaven rather than the throne of David on earth.”

Those who support an allegorical interpretation ignore the clear teaching of the text and have to resort to arguing that Jesus is ruling and reigning right now on David’s throne in Heaven. They claim we are in the Millennium right now. Yet, among the numerous passages in the Old Testament that discuss the coming Kingdom, none of them place this Kingdom in Heaven. Every passage we have looked at deals with the physical city of Jerusalem and the physical land of Israel on earth. They have nothing to do with Heaven.

God did not tell David that he would sit on a throne in Heaven. No, David’s throne was on earth, and this earthly throne is the throne that Jesus will sit on. You would have to rewrite all the promises of God to make it sound like we’re in the Kingdom now. In truth, we are awaiting the future, coming Kingdom, a Kingdom that accompanies the return of Messiah. In that Kingdom, the curse will be reversed, the wolf will lay down with the lamb, and Satan will be bound for a thousand years. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but Satan is alive and well, and extremely active today. If what we see now is “Satan bound”, then his leash is too long! It’s crucial to see that the attempt to say the throne of David is not earthly is an attack on the veracity of scripture, an attack on Israel, and an attack on how God has chosen to reveal His plan.

I understand that these might be new ideas to some who are studying this topic. And I also understand that the energy with which I am describing these attacks may rub some people the wrong way. But if you discard or ignore everything else in these study guides, and take away only one thing, let it be this: that God is a promise-making, promise-keeping God, and when we “spiritualize” the clear promises of God in scripture, we are emptying those promises of any power or meaning. When we allow ourselves to read scripture allegorically, and give ourselves permission to reinterpret God’s promises, we are setting ourselves up as the arbiters of truth and are in actuality redefining the clear teachings of scripture, and that is something we cannot do. We absolutely must commit ourselves to reading scripture in a straightforward, literal way.

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Discussion Questions

1. What kinds of stories/movies tend to play on your emotions (Hallmark movies, rom-coms, stories of reconciliation or healing)? (MULTILINE)
2. Why do you think Joab decided to trick David in this way? How might the earlier episode where Nathan confronted David have influenced Joab? Why do you think David was susceptible to this kind of influence? In what ways does this woman’s story reflect David’s situation with Absalom? Why do you think David refused to see Absalom when he returned? What would this have accomplished? (MULTILINE)
3. How does David respond to the woman’s story? How impactful do you think this ruse was in David’s ultimate decision regarding Absalom? How would you evaluate the issue of David forgiving Absalom in v. 33? Was he right or wrong to do so? Did he forgive too late, or too soon? What do you think God’s heart would be on this question? If David had actually sought the Lord in this issue, what do you think He would have told David? (MULTILINE)
4. Why do you think Absalom’s physical appearance is mentioned in this story? How might this have impacted the favor Absalom curried with the people? How does this tendency reflect the earlier choice of Saul as king? Why will Absalom’s popularity become important in upcoming events in David’s life? Why do you think physical appearance is such a factor in how people judge one another? In other words, why do you think people have an unhealthy tendency to elevate beautiful people, regardless of their character? What does this say about us? (MULTILINE)
5. What can we learn from how David dealt with Absalom? How would you have handled this situation if you were in David’s shoes? What was David’s responsibility in initiating reconciliation? How do you typically respond when you are alienated from someone else? In what ways have you felt alienated from God? What is one area this week in which you will apply the lessons of this story to your own life? (MULTILINE)

Going Deeper

1. In the woman’s story, she referenced the “avenger of blood.” Read Numbers 35:9-34. What was the job of the avenger of blood? How did the cities of refuge work? What did this provision in the Law of Moses accomplish? How does it reveal God’s heart on the issue of vengeance? (MULTILINE)
2. How has God brought His banished children back to Himself? How do you see the gospel message in this Old Testament story? How does God satisfy justice without ignoring justice? In other words, how does God mete out what justice demands, while still being the gracious God that He is? How does David’s version of forgiveness contrast with God’s version of forgiveness? (MULTILINE)

Transformational Activity

Prayer

This story offers us opportunities for multiple points of reflection. Spend some time in prayer this week asking God for wisdom and revelation in how you are dealing with these issues. What steps do you take when you are alienated from others? Do you tend to look at the appearance rather than the heart? In what areas do you need to show forgiveness to those who have wronged you? What is your motivation in holding grudges? How might God want you to trust Him and His timing more fully? Come back next time and share what work God did on your heart.