"Never morning wore

To evening, but some heart did break."Grief is a leveller, even as death is. It ignores distinctions, and makes great and small bold to ask of the other its cause, and proffer such aid as may be. So this pathetic lament from the chamber over the gate of Mahanaim impels us to inquire who the mourner is, and for whom or what does he weep. After the Ruler, the Father issues his orders. He would slay the treachery, but spare the traitor. While every retainer might be put to the sword or flight, and every weapon be struck from his hand, the king gives all the captains charge to "deal gently for my sake with the young man, even with Absalom." It were to him no victory if the dead body of his son be brought back in triumph; it were utter defeat. Such commission always hampers. A faint stroke, the world has seen, prolongs the struggle, and imperils the end sought. Rebellion must be stamped out of hand and heart, or, like the hydra's heads, its shoots forth again as often as cut off. "You say you are praying," writes Abraham Lincoln, "for the war to end. So am I, but I want it to end right. God only knows how anxious I am to see these rivers of blood cease to flow; but they must flow until treason hides its head." While the opposing forces have met in the woody, tangled mountain passes, the eager king and father takes his seat between the city gates to wait for tidings. The hours drag wearily away. His fortunes are perhaps already determined, or may be at. the moment wavering in the balance. One word from him, one swing of his sword, one leap from the crag, might decide them, were he only at hand. How ready are we to say, "there was a great tumult, but I knew not what it was." The blow must not fall in all its stunning power at once. Let the victim, at least, have time to kneel to receive it. And so as he stood aside, the blunt and careless Ethiopian comes up and confirms the first announcement, and exults over the slaughter of the foe and son alike. It is the one dreaded word, converting the brief joy into a volume of sorrow. Thus it ever is. What the friend is studying to soften, and by hints prepare the bereft to imagine, the telegraph, the paper, some stranger or little child declares, in its plain and overwhelming measure. There is no averting of facts nor any defence against their meaning. What we have loved and trusted, when taken away, can neither be made to appear as though it still is ours, nor the loss be breathed in modified degree. No generous nature can interpose to break the shock. When it comes, it is with full force, as the cyclone bursts upon the town. We may be given grace and patience, but not exemption from grief. To such trial every life is subject. From such distress none can always escape. Some day it must be told David, "Absalom is dead." And who can bear to look upon that stricken father, or listen to his agonising cries, or hear that convulsive utterance, "O Absalom, my son, my son!" Around the wall, and near the gateway at Mahanaim, the people clustered, gazing up at the window whence the sounds of anguish came. With low voices they talked together of the singular conduct of the king. Would he rather have had his armies routed and at this moment be preparing for a siege? Would he have chosen that the infidel son should madly and successfully assault himself and blot out what remained of his realm? Was not the issue the very best possible for the nation? Ought they not all to sing psalms of thanksgiving unto the Most High, "whose right hand had found out all his enemies and swallowed them up in His wrath." Yes! but there is a secret which these observers have not discovered, and it is buried deep m that father's heart. Now and then he had almost disclosed it in these days of adversity. Zadok might have divined it, when he answered, "If He thus say, I have no delight in thee; behold, here I am, let Him do to me as seemeth good unto Him." Aishai, burning with indignation at the imprecations upon his master, might have suspected it, when David replied: "Let him curse, for the Lord hath bidden him." And these friends might have found that their ruler was under just condemnation of heaven. He was but paying, in some form, the heavy penalty for his sins.

(Monday Club Sermons.)

I. THERE WAS THE LOSS OF HIS SON, of whom he could say that, with all his faults, he loved him still. A dear object had been plucked from his heart, and left it sick, vacant, desolate. A face he had often gazed on with delight lay cold in death. An infinite pathos, in a father's experience, surrounds a young man's death. The regret, the longing, the conflict with the inevitable, seem to drain him of all energy, and leave him helpless in his sorrow.

II. ABSALOM HAD DIED IN REBELLION, without expressing one word of regret, without one request for forgiveness, without one act or word that it would be pleasant to recall in time to come, as a foil to the bitterness caused by his unnatural rebellion.

III. In this rebellious condition he had passed to the judgment of God. What hope could there be for such a man, living and dying as he had done?

IV. Two remarks.(1) With reference to grief from bereavements in general, it is to be observed that they will prove either a blessing or an evil according to the use to which they are turned. All grief in itself is a weakening thing — weakening both to the body and the mind, and it were a great error to suppose that it must do good in the end. Not only does it depress the mourner himself, and unfit him for his duties to the living, but it depresses those that come in contact with him, and makes them think of him with a measure of impatience. It is not right to obtrude our grief overmuch on others, especially if we are in a public position. Let us take example in this respect from our blessed Lord. Was any sorrow like unto His sorrow? Yet how little did He obtrude it even on the notice of His disciples! And how many things are there to a Christian mind fitted to abate the first sharpness even of a great bereavement. Is it not the doing of a Father, infinitely kind? Is it not the doing of Him "who spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all?" Hear Him saying, "What I do, thou knowest not now, but thou shalt know hereafter."(2) Grief that may arise to Christians in connection with the spiritual condition of departed, children. When the parent is either in doubt as to the happiness of a beloved one, or has cause to apprehend that the portion of that child, is with the unbelievers, the pang which he experiences is one of the most acute which the human heart can know.

(W. G. Blaikie, D. D.)

I. IN THIS CRY OF ANGUISH THERE WAS THE TORTURE OF SELF-ACCUSATION. The sting of death is sin. The sting of that death to David was Absalom's sin, and alas! his own sin too. We never know What the end of a sin may be. We never know how far the consequences will reach, or whom they will affect. We cannot whitewash the black pages by repenting of the deeds. David had repented in sackcloth and ashes. He had been forgiven. But there in his children were the deadly fruits, and he would rather have laid down his life than brought this evil upon them. There are things which God forgives us, but which we can never forgive ourselves. There is no misfortune that is crushing unless some memory of guilt is behind it. The poet says, "A sorrow's crown of sorrow is remembering happier things." Nothing of the kind. A sorrow's crown of sorrow is the feeling that we have brought it on ourselves.

II. WE MAY TAKE IT AS A TYPE OF THE DIVINE FATHERHOOD AND OF ITS UNLIMITED FORGIVENESS. David is called the man after God's own heart, and that word staggers us when we remember some of his doings. But the word does not come amiss here. We feel that it is true in such scenes as this. Kneeling in his chamber and uttering that impassioned cry of pity, burning love, and forgiveness, we can see indeed something of God's own heart. In this great tribulation he is as one washed and made white, and his face is like the tearful Christ's, Godlike. His love for this guilty, iron-hearted son was passing strange; it was almost more than human. It was a love which gave a kiss for every blow, turned a forgiving face to every insult and stripe, and prayed for the criminal who was crucifying it. All this is what we rightly call Divine. It is a broken light of God. It is the image of His Fatherhood. And through Jesus we preach to everyone a fatherly God, a tearful God, a cross-bearing God, a God whose pity is beyond all our measurement, whoso forgiveness is greater than man's greatest sin.

(J. G. Greenhough, M. A.)

II. THAT GOD'S BEST CHILDREN ARE APT TO GRIEVE TOO MUCH AND TO EXCEED IN PASSION FOR OUTWARD THINGS: as in mirth, when once we are in, we are apt to forget ourselves; so in sorrow, when once we yield unto it, we are in danger of surfeting upon it.

1. Now, this being so, that the best of us all are subject to immoderate sorrow for outward things, we must not only learn to bear with one another in this our common frailty, but further, every one for himself must fence and mound his heart against, these absurd passions and excessive griefs.

2. Do God's best children exceed sometimes in sorrow for outward things? Then must we not be altogether discouraged, though we find our worldly grief more than our spiritual sorrow; for this is a thing that may befall the best; they may be immoderate in the one, when they are boo short in the other: the best have many tears to bestow upon some outward things, when they cannot without much travail weep for their many sins.

III. THAT GOD'S CHILDREN, WHO BEAR SOME CROSSES WITH GREAT WISDOM AND MODERATION, ARE SOMETIMES FOILED IN OTHER SOME, AND FAIL IN HEALTH. Who could behave himself better than David in the matter of Shimei? Who worse, in the case of Nabal? How sweet his carriage in many passages between Saul and him? How admirable his behaviour in one child's death? How absurd in others? Nay, how diversely affected with the cause of one and the same Absalom? What gracious speeches did he once utter when he fled from Absalom? What a bead-roll have we here at his death? Who could more forget himself than here he doth, thus to take on at such a time, in such a place, on such an occasion? How far was this from policy? How far unlike his carriage in other places?

1. What might be the cause that these so worthy champions are thus sometimes foiled. First, it pleaseth God sometimes to set on a cross, and make it stick by a man, either because the same party would look besides former crosses, or kick them off too lightly; or else because he would let him see himself, and know what he is of himself.

2. Sometimes we have not denied ourselves in some particular last, and then if a cross light there it soon enters and hats deep, because we ourselves do give a sting unto it.

1. Let us not suffer it to pass without some use, though we be briefer. Learn hence at least a double point of wisdom: the first respects our brethren; them we must too lightly censure for their weakness and tenderness in some crosses, though light; sith that cannot be light, which God will make heavy; such that may be light to one which is a mountain to another; sith those our brethren may manfully bear far sorer crosses than ourselves, though humbled in some particular.

IV. WHAT THOUGH ABSALOM CAN FORGET DAVID, YET DAVID CANNOT FORGET HIM. What though he be a very ungracious imp? Yet he is my child.

1. Do kind and godly parents so love their children that you may sooner find too much carnal than too little natural affection in them? Then shall they never make it good to their own or other's souls, that there is any goodness in them who bear no affection to their own children.

2. Here is somewhat for children also. Is the affection of godly parents such that they cannot chose but love their children; and out .of their love grieve at their unkindness, weep for their impiety, mourn for their sorrows, and take to heart their follies?

3. Here is a word of instruction and consolation for all sorts, both parents and children, high and low: Is the love of an earthly father (if godly) so great? Does he take so much to heart the unkindness of his children? Is he so sensible of their griefs? So wounded with their sorrows? What, then, is the affection of our heavenly Father towards us? How tenderly doth he take disobedience at our hands? and therefore how great should our mourning be for our great and many contempts? How ought we to pour forth ourselves in tears, and to lament with a great lamentation.

(R. Harris, D. D.)

II. IT IS BETTER TO LIVE HONESTLY FOR ONE'S CHILDREN THAN JUST TO WISH TO DIE FOR THEM WHEN THEIR RETRIBUTION COMES. The fact is, we miss the proper feelings of the occasion here in David's form of expression. His language is extravagant; it was very rough to tell those soldiers, who had imperilled their lives again and again that clay to sustain his kingdom, that he wished a gracious providence had taken his life instead of that of the chief rebel they had fought. Think how almost brutal it was to say that he would have died happy if only Absalom were alive again! With that creature for a king, what would have become of the kingdom? A mere sense of personal bereavement moved him. He became unmanly, unknightly, and inconsiderate. But our main trouble must be found with the absence of every sort and measure of self-examination in David; he sends not one glance of his eye backwards over those vast mistakes of the past which he had committed in rearing that child. He makes no allusion to an offended God, except to point his reckless asseveration with the mention of his name. One would think that the king must have had, even in these successes, some misgiving now and then; something like those thoughtful acknowledgments which history records in the dying utterance of William the Conqueror: "Although human ambition rejoices in such triumphs, I am nevertheless seized with an unquiet terror when I think that, in all these actions of mine, cruelty marched with boldness." We wish David had lived always for Absalom's instruction and mourned a little less for his defeat.

III. PUBLIC DUTIES SHOULD CHECK THE INDULGENCE OF NOISY PERSONAL GRIEFS. We all admit that the human feeling of the king in an instance so severe is pathetic and poetic. But at that time an awful field of blood was wild with cries of desperate pain from the dying and around the dead. Twenty thousand of Israel's loyal soldiers lay on the plain of battle; and all that David seemed to care about it was that his boy Absalom was killed likewise. Once we saw in the palace at Amsterdam a bas-relief representing the sternness of the ancient Brutus. Everybody recalls the classic story of the Roman ruler whose two sons, Titus and Tiberius, were among the conspirators that planned the overturning of the government. He sat in judgment upon the enemies that had threatened the realm; or did he hesitate to do the justice they deserved upon all alike. He caused those two sons "to be scourged with rods, in accordance with the law, and then beheaded by the lictors in the forum, and he neither turned aside his eyes nor shed any tears over them, for they had been false unto their country and had offended against the law." And then the well-known dictum of his was pronounced, which these patriotic Dutchmen have perpetuated in their king's judgment hall: "A man may have many more children, but never can have but one country, even that which gave him birth." David certainly had very little of that firm justice which made Lucius Junius Brutus historic.

IV. THE DEATH OF AN INFANT CHILD MAY QUITE POSSIBLY BECOME A GREATER COMFORT TO ITS PARENTS THAN THE REBELLIOUS LIFE OF ANOTHER CHILD WHO GROWS UP TO BE A PAIN AND A SHAME FOR EVER. The counsel was long ago given to bereaved Christians by one who understood what it was to be in mourning: "Do not ask that the enveloping cloud be ever entirely taken up from your home; it never will be; but it may become so luminously transparent that you can see bright stars through it." When David's little child in earlier times was stricken with death, he fell down heavily sorrowing over the affliction before the Lord; but he said, in wise and strong confidence of a submissive faith, "I shall go to him, but he will not return to me." But now he could only pour out hopeless wails of grief; for Absalom appeared to have no future in which he could expect or in which he wished to share. Many of us have seen in Westminster Abbey a beautiful alabaster cradle, with an infant's face just showing itself from beneath a coverlet wrought in delicate stone apparently spread over the figure. It is the tomb, as the inscription relates, of Sophia, daughter of James I., who died when only three days old, in 1607, and to that brief record is added this verse for an epitaph:

"When the archangel's trump shall blow, and souls to bodies join,

Millions will wish their lives below had been as short as thine."

V. THERE IS A SAD MEANING IN THE WORDS "TOO LATE." Most of us wish we could live parts of our lives over again, to make some corrections. Especially we think of the example we set or the words we speak or the deeds we do in the presence of our intimates, perhaps even of our children. David does not help the case much with any behaviour of his in this story. But we begin to feel, I am sure, that his wrong-doing had something to do in the formation of Absalom's character and in the fixing of Absalom's doom. For we carry in mind the truth of the old couplet:

"Who saws thro' a trunk, the' he leaves the tree up in the forest.

When the wind casts it down, is not his the hand that smote it?"

But there comes a moment in which one feels that all regrets arrive too late for any good to come forth from them: no hope now!

(C. S. Robinson, D. D.)

1. The corrupt character of Absalom. In the short, strange life of Absalom, we discover several most depraved and morally repulsive attributes of character. There is revenge (see 2 Samuel 13:28, 29); there is vanity (2 Samuel 15:1); there is ambition (2 Samuel 15:4); there is meanness (2 Samuel 15.5); hypocrisy (2 Samuel 15:7, 8). There is a tendency in such attributes as these to destroy all love for their possessor. Depravity in a wife is adapted to quench the love of a husband; depravity in a monarch is adapted to quench the love of his people; depravity in a son is adapted to destroy the love of the father. Yet David's love was too strong for this — it clung to the monster.

2. The filial rebellion of Absalom. He was not only corrupt in his character, but he was a malignant opponent to his father, the man whom he ought to have loved and obeyed. He had pledged himself to his father's ruin. His last purpose was n purpose to deprive his sire of his throne, his happiness, his life. David had no greater enemy in Israel than Absalom. This force of parental love indicates two things: —(1) That there is still something Divine in man. Love is from God; and man, amidst all his depravities, still retains some small portion of this sacred thing. This strength of parental love indicates(2) the love of the Infinite Father towards sinners.

II. THE BITTERNESS OF PARENTAL LOVE. What bitterness is in this cry, "O Absalom, my son!" etc. Two things would give bitterness to David's feelings now.

1. The memory of his own domestic sins. The carnality, the favouritism, the false tenderness, the want of thorough discipline, which he displayed in his own family, were in themselves heinous vices, and prolific sources of domestic misery.

2. His fear as to his future state. Of where is my son Absalom. Can it be that my son is added to the number of the accursed? From this subject we learn:(1) That good men may have most wicked children. Goodness is not hereditary.(2) These good may, nevertheless, be responsible for the wickedness of their children. Home may be neglected, etc.(3) That good men who neglect their children will one day, most likely, have to repent their conduct, etc.

(Homilist.)

(Alex. Whyte, D. D.)

(Knight's Eng.)

I. DAVID'S AFFLICTIONS. In the ills of poverty, the loss of children, the death of old friends, the numerous infirmities of age, troubles often gather around the prosperous in the decline of life, like clouds about a setting sun. Happy for them if these are sanctified. Alas for David! his home was the scene of his most painful trials. Who can fancy David's feelings when he looked on Tamar's tears, and listened, with grief and consternation on his countenance, to a story that filled the whole land with horror? But hardly has that earthquake-shock passed away when another follows. Tragedy on tragedy! The crime a father allowed to go unpunished her brother avenges. Biding his time, and when suspicion is lulled, drawing Amnon, the perpetrator of that monstrous wickedness, into his toils, Absalom gives the signal, and, smitten by his servants, his brother dies. He has to drink still deeper "of the wine of astonishment." Hardly has time, the great healer, closed that wound, when Absalom, his favourite son, whom he had forgiven, inflicts a deeper one; commits a crime of yet darker dye. In reading how the Pope's soldiers, to obtain speedy possession of their jewels, were wont to sever the fingers of Huguenot ladies from their bleeding hands, I have wondered at the savage cruelty; but what cruelty, or crime, to be compared with his who, to possess himself the sooner of his father's crown, sought to sweep off his father's head? We have. seen many a sad sight; but none to be compared to this aged monarch, full of honours and of years, worthy of all filial love and public veneration, who had no subject but should have fought, nor child but should have died for him, flying with a few followers, under the cloud of night, to escape the sword of his own son. And when tidings came of Absalom's death, how terrible his grief!

II. THE CAUSE OF HIS AFFLICTIONS. It may seem a great mystery to some how so good a man should have been so sorely tried. But it is no mystery. He reaped as he had sowed. This retribution was still more painfully, and not less plainly exemplified in the unnatural and monstrous rebellion of Absalom. It may be traced to his sin in the matter of Bathsheba: It appears from one genealogy that Bathsheba was the daughter of Eliam, and from another that her father Eliam was the son of Ahithophel, the Gilonite, David's counsellor. This near relationship between Bathsheba and Ahithophel throws a flood of light on Absalom's rebellion; for what more likely than that through means of that, Ahithophel sought vengeance for the wrongs which, in the double crime of adultery and murder, the king had committed against him and his house? Revenge is a strong passion in all, but especially in the bosom of eastern nations. If, like David, we are compelled to trace our sufferings to our sins, what a weight does that add to the load l Let us pray God that, while He forgives their iniquity for Christ's sake, and takes away their guilt through his blood, he would not visit us for our sins. If we are to suffer, may it not be for sins, but for righteousness' sake! A light load that — a fortune we should neither greatly dread nor deprecate.

III. THE USE AND PROFIT OF HIS AFFLICTIONS. When Queen Mary, by her marriage, was about to plunge herself and the kingdom of Scotland into dark and bloody troubles, Knox publicly condemned the step. For this she summoned the bold Reformer to her presence, complained bitterly of his conduct, and saying, "I vow to God I shall be revenged," burst into a flood of tears. Waiting till she had composed herself, he proceeded calmly to make his defence: It was triumphant; but produced no other effect on Mary than to exasperate her passions. Again she began to sob, and weep with great bitterness. While Erskine, the friend of both, and a man of mild and gentle spirit, tried to mitigate her grief and resentment by praising her beauty and accomplishments, Knox continued silent — waiting with unaltered countenance till the queen had given vent to her feelings. Then explaining how he was constrained to sustain her tears rather than hurt his conscience, and by his silence betray the commonwealth, he protested that he never took delight in the distress of any creature; and that so far from rejoicing in her majesty's tears, it was with great difficulty he could see his own boys weep when he corrected them for their faults. In this beautiful expression we see the feelings of every father; and in these a faithful, though feeble, reflection of the kind heart of God. In no case does He afflict His people willingly; and always for their good. And how His gracious purpose was accomplished in the Psalmist's afflictions may be seen, for instance, in the sorrow, and even horror, with which he regarded his saddest fall. His bitterest enemies could not have exposed, nor his dearest friends lamented, it more than he did himself. Cast me not sway from Thy presence, and take not Thy Holy Spirit from me. Deliver me from blood-guiltiness, O God, thou God of my salvation!" The greatest of all afflictions is an unblessed affliction. On the other hand, let the Holy Spirit, in answer to prayer, turn them into the means of our sanctification, and there are no greater mercies. How many, when they became poor in this world, have grown rich toward God! How many have found life in the death of dear ones! How many, by being brought to weep over a broken cistern, have turned their trembling steps to the fountain of living water! and when God sent storms to wreck their earthly happiness, how many "on the broken pieces of the ship" have reached the shore in safety!

(T. Guthrie, D. D.).

     5198   weeping
     5419   mourning
     5553   stairways
     5567   suffering, emotional
     5666   children, needs
     5796   bereavement, experience
     5844   emotions
     5895   intimacy
     5901   loneliness
     6227   regret

2 Samuel 18:28-33

     5087   David, reign of

2 Samuel 18:31-33

     5681   family, nature of

2 Samuel 18:32-33

     5088   David, character

The Church and the Young Man.
A Sermon Delivered on Sabbath Morning, November 4, 1866, In The First Presbyterian Church, Troy, At The Request of The Young Men's Christian Association. 2 Sam. xviii, 5. "And the king commanded Joab and Abishai and Ittai saying, deal gently for my sake with the young man, even with Absalom." There are few passages of Holy writ more beautiful or suggestive than this. Notwithstanding the astounding character of Absalom's rebellion; though the mind of the sovereign and father of his people is …
Rev. Marvin R. Vincent.—Amusement: A Force in Christian Training

Samuel
Alike from the literary and the historical point of view, the book[1] of Samuel stands midway between the book of Judges and the book of Kings. As we have already seen, the Deuteronomic book of Judges in all probability ran into Samuel and ended in ch. xii.; while the story of David, begun in Samuel, embraces the first two chapters of the first book of Kings. The book of Samuel is not very happily named, as much of it is devoted to Saul and the greater part to David; yet it is not altogether inappropriate, …
John Edgar McFadyen—Introduction to the Old Testament