Joab’s Plea For The Fugitive Absalom. Now Joab the son of Zeruiah knew that the king’s heart longed for Absalom. 2Sa 14:1
THE REIGN OF DAVID
INTRODUCTION
The Second Book of Samuel is devoted entirely to the reign of David. His coronation, first by Judah and then by all of the tribes, his wars and conquests, his care for the religious life of the people, his sins, and the calamities he suffered, are impartially set forth in vivid and convincing narrative.
“A very notable thing in the books of Samuel,” says James Robertson, “is the prominence given to music and song. There is in these books an unusual number of poetical pieces ascribed to this period, and all the indications put together give ample justification for the fame of David as the sweet singer of Israel, and for the ascription to him of the origin of that volume of sacred song which never ceased in Israel, and has become embodied in the Psalms.”
27. By what means did Joab secure David’s permission for Absalom’s return?
JOAB’S PLEA FOR THE FUGITIVE ABSALOM.
Now Joab the son of Zeruiah knew that the king’s heart longed for Absalom.
So Joab sent word to Tekoa and had a wise woman brought from there and told her, “Please pretend to be a mourner, and put on mourning clothes, and do not anoint yourself with oil, but act like a woman who has for many days been in mourning for the dead.
Then go to the king and speak to him in this way.” So Joab told her what to say.
When the woman of Tekoa spoke to the king, she bowed with her face to the ground and lay herself down, and said, “Help, O king.”
The king asked her, “What is the matter?” She said, “Truly I am a widow; my husband is dead.
Your maidservant had two sons, but the two of them struggled and fought in the field. There was no one to separate them, so one struck the other and killed him.
Now behold, the entire family has risen against your maidservant, and they say, ‘Hand over the one who killed his brother, so that we may put him to death [to pay] for the life of his brother whom he killed and destroy the heir also.’ By doing this they will extinguish my coal that is left, leaving my husband without a name or a remnant (heir) on the face of the earth.”
Then David said to the woman, “Go to your home, and I will give orders concerning you.”
The woman of Tekoa said to the king, “My lord, O king, the guilt is on me and on my father’s house, but the king and his throne are guiltless.”
The king said, “If anyone speaks to you [about this matter], bring him to me [for judgment], and he will not touch you again.”
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 David said, “As the LORD lives, not a single hair [from the head] of your son shall fall to the ground.”
Then the woman said, “Please let your maidservant speak one more word to my lord the king.” He said, “Speak.”
The woman said, “Now why have you planned such a thing against God’s people? For in speaking this word the king is like a guilty man, in that the king does not bring back his banished one.
For we will certainly die and are like water that is spilled on the ground and cannot be gathered up again. Yet God does not [simply] take away life, but devises plans so that the one who is banished is not driven away from Him.
Now I came to speak of this matter to my lord the king because the people have made me afraid. So your maidservant thought, ‘I will just speak to the king; perhaps the king will do what his maidservant requests.
For the king will hear and save his maidservant from the hand of the man who would destroy me and my son together from the inheritance of God.’
Then your maidservant said, ‘Please let the word of my lord the king be comforting, for my lord the king is as the angel of God to discern good and evil. May the LORD your God be with you.'”
JOAB’S PLEA FOR THE FUGITIVE ABSALOM.
Joab had ends of his own to serve in securing the return of Absalom. Were the two sworn together to hatch a great plot? Or was Absalom shrewdly using Joab to advance his own selfish interests? David hesitated. If he recalled Absalom without punishment, the foundations of law and order would be shaken throughout the kingdom. Joab saw that in some way he must satisfy this natural conflict in the royal mind; and it was for this purpose that he summoned from Tekoa, a village twelve miles south of Jerusalem, this woman of unusual intelligence. By an apt parable she showed that on occasions even murder might be condoned.
In her discourse she dropped the golden sentence that even God devises means that His banished be not expelled. Yes, God has devised means, but how much they cost! In David’s case there was no attempt to meet the demands of a broken law, but God’s means include this. In the person of the Son of His love, He has satisfied the demands of law and honored them by Jesus’ obedience unto the death of the Cross! He is just and the Justifier! Righteousness and peace kissed each other at the cross of Jesus. See Psa_85:10.
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