June 19, 2024 | Be God's Light
Absalom is Killed in Battle
Scripture: 2 Samuel 18:1-18 (NIV)
1 David mustered the men who were with him and appointed over them commanders of thousands and commanders of hundreds. 2 David sent out his troops, a third under the command of Joab, a third under Joab’s brother Abishai son of Zeruiah, and a third under Ittai the Gittite. The king told the troops, “I myself will surely march out with you.”
3 But the men said, “You must not go out; if we are forced to flee, they won’t care about us. Even if half of us die, they won’t care; but you are worth ten thousand of us. It would be better now for you to give us support from the city.”
4 The king answered, “I will do whatever seems best to you.”
So the king stood beside the gate while all his men marched out in units of hundreds and of thousands. 5 The king commanded Joab, Abishai and Ittai, “Be gentle with the young man Absalom for my sake.” And all the troops heard the king giving orders concerning Absalom to each of the commanders.
6 David’s army marched out of the city to fight Israel, and the battle took place in the forest of Ephraim. 7 There Israel’s troops were routed by David’s men, and the casualties that day were great—twenty thousand men. 8 The battle spread out over the whole countryside, and the forest swallowed up more men that day than the sword.
9 Now Absalom happened to meet David’s men. He was riding his mule, and as the mule went under the thick branches of a large oak, Absalom’s hair got caught in the tree. He was left hanging in midair, while the mule he was riding kept on going.
10 When one of the men saw what had happened, he told Joab, “I just saw Absalom hanging in an oak tree.”
11 Joab said to the man who had told him this, “What! You saw him? Why didn’t you strike him to the ground right there? Then I would have had to give you ten shekels of silver and a warrior’s belt.”
12 But the man replied, “Even if a thousand shekels were weighed out into my hands, I would not lay a hand on the king’s son. In our hearing the king commanded you and Abishai and Ittai, ‘Protect the young man Absalom for my sake.’ 13 And if I had put my life in jeopardy—and nothing is hidden from the king—you would have kept your distance from me.”
14 Joab said, “I’m not going to wait like this for you.” So he took three javelins in his hand and plunged them into Absalom’s heart while Absalom was still alive in the oak tree. 15 And ten of Joab’s armor-bearers surrounded Absalom, struck him and killed him.
16 Then Joab sounded the trumpet, and the troops stopped pursuing Israel, for Joab halted them. 17 They took Absalom, threw him into a big pit in the forest and piled up a large heap of rocks over him. Meanwhile, all the Israelites fled to their homes.
18 During his lifetime Absalom had taken a pillar and erected it in the King’s Valley as a monument to himself, for he thought, “I have no son to carry on the memory of my name.” He named the pillar after himself, and it is called Absalom’s Monument to this day.
Devotional
The sad saga of David’s son Absalom came to a tragic end. Eventually, he would be undone by his greatest attribute. 2 Samuel 14:25-26 says, “In all Israel there was not a man so highly praised for his handsome appearance as Absalom. From the top of his head to the sole of his foot there was no blemish in him. Whenever he cut the hair of his head—he used to cut his hair once a year because it became too heavy for him—he would weigh it, and its weight was two hundred shekels [five pounds] by the royal standard.” If only he had been bald! But I digress.
Absalom had built a monument in his own name and to his own honor. He convinced people to join him in shouting, “Absalom is king!” He flushed his father off the throne and away from Jerusalem. Monument. Crown. Throne. He had it all. Yet today any scholar of the Bible would not name him as one of the kings of Israel. He was just an angry pretender. His name would be forgotten if not for his acts of rebellion.
It didn’t have to be this way. While he might never have become king after David’s death, he could have done so much for his father’s kingdom. Rather than leading a coup, he could have been serving in the king’s court. Instead of fighting against his father, he could have been battling for him.
The same is true for us. Jesus calls us to drop everything else in life to follow Him. But our own selfish desires too often get in the way, creating a wedge between us and our calling. Jesus put it like this in Luke 14:31-33…
“Or suppose a king is about to go to war against another king. Won’t he first sit down and consider whether he is able with ten thousand men to oppose the one coming against him with twenty thousand? If he is not able, he will send a delegation while the other is still a long way off and will ask for terms of peace. In the same way, those of you who do not give up everything you have cannot be my disciples.”
What aspects of your own self-interests stand in the way between you and God’s best for you? What would your life look like if those were eliminated? What’s keeping you from burying those in the backyard of your life?
Poem
Dear Gently, Go Softly
Deal gently, go softly
With this one—my child—
Despite his rebellion
His temperament wild
I can’t stand against him
My love can’t defile
Heart broken, for my sake,
Deal soft with my child
