40 Minutes In The Old Testament - 2 Samuel 13:23-39 (Episode 275)

Episode Date: July 19, 2021

Absalom waits two years and then puts together a plan to kill Amnon. It isn't a good plan, but it gets the job done. David is watching his house fall apart while Absalom is on the run. Chad and Daniel discuss all of this. 1517 Podcast Network Regional Event in Las Vegas 1517 YouTube Donate

Welcome to another episode of 40 Minutes in the Old Testament. 40 Minutes in the Old Testament is a 1517 Podcast Network podcast. You can go to 1517.org slash podcast and check out all the other podcasts that we've got over there. While you're over there, make sure you register for the Here We Still Stand regional event in Las Vegas, Nevada, October 15th and 16th. Only $65 to come hang out with Chad and me and a whole bunch of other people. You want to do that because that's what we're doing this year. So we did the NWA event and we're doing the Vegas event.

It's going to be a lot of fun. If you are able, come hang out with us. We're going to be talking about assurance. last week we got to end in a a real uplifting place where david's family has decided that they are going to begin the the process of destroying themselves and uh and we had amon rape his uh his half-sister and now her brother has found out about it david has found out about it and we're gonna kind of talk about some of their reactions yeah so i think we kind of left off around verse 21 of 2 Samuel 13. So this is right after Amnon speaks to his sister Tamar about what happened.

She's living, it says, a desolate woman in her brother Absalom's house. Now, verse 21 records David's reaction, which I think is interesting because when you compare and contrast this with an earlier episode all the way back in Genesis, we can kind of see how this particular moment, both in David's life and then in Jacob's life, are pivotal moments, because after this, things are very different with regard to the relationship between fathers and sons. So verse 21 says that King David heard of all these things, and he was very angry. Now, what did he do with his anger? Nothing. It just is angry.

yeah he's it says he's he's very angry okay so what did he do with this nothing so i'm assuming that you know he heard about he heard about the rape he was upset about it he was maybe even livid about it well that's one thing that's an emotional reaction okay but usually if you're angry about a crime violence done to someone you love an injustice then after that initial emotional reaction, there's something that is actually done subsequent to that to address the situation. Well, in David's case, his angry response is where everything ended as far as him actually doing something about this. What should he have done? Well, there's, of course, a number of things that he should have done. At the very least, he should have in some way

had Absalom, I mean, not Absalom, but Amnon punished, you know, whatever that would have look like, something should have been done. What he did was absolutely nothing. Now, if you go back and compare this, as we've already in the previous episode alluded several times to the connections between what happened here with Tamar being raped and what happened with Dinah back in Genesis 34 when she was raped by Shechem. So we've made several comparisons there. Now, one more comparison, and that is the response of the fathers in each of these situations. So David is angry, does nothing else. If you go back to Genesis 34, after Dinah is raped, and this is verse 5, Genesis 34, 5.

So Jacob hears, just like David heard, he heard that his daughter Dinah had been defiled, had been raped. And we're told that Jacob kept silent about it. doesn't even say there's no emotional reaction recorded for jacob just says he kept silent and in fact if you read through the rest of genesis 34 jacob maintains his silence all the way to the very end and the only thing that jacob actually says is to his sons after they themselves have have sought well not justice but revenge uh they you know went in and massacred all the men of all the men of of the city so jacob is angry at his sons for what they did but the only thing that he says is to them there's there's no absolutely no words of rebuke or threat or anything against

those who have raped his daughter and then after that this is i think the most interesting part And so if you compare the reaction of these two fathers, of Jacob and then later of David, the reason this is a pivotal moment for them is after Jacob's non-reaction to the rape of his daughter, he fades into the background and his sons take center stage through the whole rest of the book of Genesis. so it's a pivotal moment in the sense that his ability to lead his ability to influence the actions of his sons fades precipitously after that and what we're going to see in the case of david is a repetition of that because what happens after david's non-reaction after his emotional reaction followed by a non-reaction what happens after this same thing david is gradually fading into the background, and what happens instead is his sons, in particular his son Absalom, is going to come to the front and center, and he's going to take up a whole huge swath of the

narrative after this. And in fact, even after the death of Absalom and the coup that he staged, David is still kind of in the background, and he will remain that way up until his death at the situations, you've got this parallel, kind of these parallel repercussions, we might say, happening because of the unwillingness of the father to act to redress the violence that was done to his daughter. Yeah, it's weird that in Jacob's case, he actually carries this sort of all the way out and denies a blessing, right? So this isn't something that later on he sort of realize his like well not that his sons were in the right like you said i mean this is a act of revenge they were angry and did something with that anger uh but it wasn't as though jacob

came to a place where he understood that his inaction is the reason that his sons felt like they had to go do something no he he holds on to this to the end and uh and says uh no like no blessing for you because uh you you are the instigator in the in the killing of all these all these guys and so never really never he never even comes to uh a place of acknowledging that like his inaction was in defense of his daughter was probably not a good thing yeah it's a it's a strange sequence of events after that as you say i mean up till genesis 49 he used he never acknowledges that his unwillingness to do something caused or at least allowed all of those terrible events to to happen to happen afterward now in uh in david's case we really kind of had the same

situation because there's never any acknowledgement uh that he failed to do something when his own daughter was was raped by by amnon but as we'll see as we'll see very quickly in fact uh someone in this case tamar's brother absalom he is not only angry but he is actually going to do something about this. Now, what he's going to do is going to just, you know, snowball into greater and greater acts of evil and a fracturing of the kingdom and lots of other bad things that's going to happen to Israel. So it just, if nothing else, it's a case of where when true justice isn't served and it's followed by vigilante justice, you can just see how everything is made worse by the actions of those who are seeking revenge. Yeah, and Absalom is a little more patient, it seems,

than the sons of Jacob. So he's going to—this is going to be—I mean, in the text it happens right away, but he waits a significantly longer period of time than Dinah's brothers do. Yeah, Absalom is like the true embodiment of revenge's best dish, best served cold. He chills. He lets it chill for two full years before he actually acts. We're told in verse 22 that Absalom didn't say anything to his brother, good or bad. Just kind of gave him the cold shoulder, ignored him, maybe stayed away from him. And the reason why we're told is because Absalom hated Amnon.

Because, of course, he had raped his sister Tamar. so verse 23 begins the the next section of this chapter after two full years so i'm guessing absalom during these two years is waiting for an opportunity to do what he has what he has planned so two full years pass and absalom has a bunch of flocks at a place called baal hazor and he has his sheep shearers there. This is a place near Ephraim. So Absalom invites all the king's sons. Now that particular phrase, all the king's son, is going to be significant because it occurs repeatedly in the rest of the chapter. So he invites all the king's sons. Verse 27 mentions all the king's sons again. Verse 30, we're going to hear about this rumor, it's not true, we're going to hear about

this rumor that Absalom has struck down all the king's sons. And then two more times we're going to have this particular phrase occurring. I think that one of the reasons this occurs so many times is because it underscores David's greatest fear that basically his whole progeny has been wiped out. That he who had been promised that his sons would sit on his throne in 2 Samuel 7 now has no more sons like they've all been they've all been murdered but as we'll see of course that isn't actually what happens but this repetition of this phrase does become a theme that's repeated in multiple times in these these ensuing verses yeah and it's interesting this all the king's sons too is the we don't really know how many sons that is uh probably a bunch a lot of wives

a lot of uh a lot of concubines i mean i don't know if this is just anyone who could possibly call David dad is there or what but uh that's what it seems like like they're having like a you know Absalom's having like a boys retreat and he's having you know all 70 of his brothers there or whatever yeah yeah it's a big frat party literally got a big fraternity going on here with uh all these all these sons of David so Absalom invites everybody there we've seen before that in this in the ancient Near East when there was a sheep shearing this was a big event so it was a lot of work to be done but also was kind of a party time feasting time uh i guess you know we might could compare it to uh you know at the end of harvest maybe if uh if you're a farmer

it's a time to rejoice and and and have a party because all the work has now been accomplished so that's what's going to happen and so absalom very slyly he's very he's a he's quite a quite of character here. He knows what he's up to. He goes to the king and he says, look, your servant has sheep shears, so let the king and his servants go with your servant. So he's just inviting David and all of David's servants to go with him to this feast, this party when the sheep are sheared. So the king, verse 25, David says back to Absalom, he says, no, my son, let us not all go lest we be burdensome to you. So Absalom is going to press him further. It presses him, but he would not go. But instead, David gives him a blessing. So I'm thinking that Absalom assumed this was going to

be David's response. As we'll see as the story develops, of course, he didn't want David there because of what he had planned. So probably Absalom knows his dad at this point. David has become very sedentary. We saw him staying home at the beginning of the whole Uriah Bathsheba debacle. He stayed home instead of going out to fight. And so David being advanced in years and maybe becoming lazy, he's just not really wanting to go anywhere. And Absalom, of course, realizes this. So before he goes in and invites David to come to this sheep shearing feast, he knows ahead of time, it ain't going to happen. So here's where he's going to follow up with this. So after David gives him his blessing, then Absalom says, I tell you what, you know, if you can't go,

please let my brother Amnon go with us. And David says back to him, and you can tell there's uh just some suspicion here he says why should he go that's a weird request yeah david david's like wait are you guys talking again yeah yeah i mean you guys like kind of work for things out here i mean but you can tell this response like uh why would amnon why would you ask for amnon why should he go that seems like a real downer for your party yeah the one guy you wouldn't want at your party So again, Absalom pressed him until he finally let Amnon and all the king's sons go with him. So, of course, this is the goal all along. David wants to get Amnon to this particular party because of what he has planned next, which we will hear about.

By the way, just a reminder, Amnon is David's firstborn. so presumably he's kind of a stand-in for the king we might say so if david can't make it then the firstborn would make it yeah that seems like the pitch that absalom would have to make here is like well if you can't go then uh you know let the big bro go yeah yeah this you know if you can't bring then you know kind of let your your stand in let your let the oldest brother let him come and if you're and if you're eminem you have to be like i mean we don't have this in the text But there had to have been some sort of Hey man, it's been a long time

We haven't been hanging out You should come to the party All the brothers are going to be there We're family after all So you need to come I can't imagine there's any other way To have him come and not be like What's going on here

Yeah, yeah Well Absalom is evidently pretty persuasive So maybe he inherited his father's Ability to convince anyone of anything yeah david does david does have that ability you know and in a in a in a darkly ironic sort of way notice what just happened too so earlier amnon used his dad to get tamar to come to him so that he could so that he could rape her yeah so he used his own father to get his half sister there so that he could do to her what he wished and now like i say in a darkly ironic sort of way

this is exactly what absalom is doing absalom is using his dad in order to get his brother half-brother amnon to go to to this feast so in both cases david kind of comes across as a uh as somebody who well he's not like the david we've known before the david before was you know he smart guy you know he was he caught on to things pretty quickly he he was able to figure things out a very good kind of emotional reader of reader of people's emotions and reactions and all that and at this point david just seems to be like able to be convinced of anything this reminds me of a conversation i had with um my my mother where you know we were sitting around all those kids and we were talking about all the things that we did that they didn't know about you know all the sneaking

out of the house in the middle of the night and all that kind of stuff you know nothing crazy but you know stuff that kids do uh teenagers do and i said this is this is a while ago and i i was like that that stuff will not happen to me that i'm way famous last words i was like i am i am on it uh i you guys were naive you guys were too easily convinced of all kinds of things that's not going to happen to me and my mom said oh you just wait till you get older you just get tired she's like you just you just get tired and uh and i think that that's what you got with david here is david's kids are just pulling it over on him and he's probably just like i don't know man i got i'm tired yeah that probably is the case yeah i mean especially if you look back everything

has happened to david he probably is he just he's worn out and so he just he's not he's not at the top of his game any anymore at all i'm sure you felt that way like i'm way too smart to have a teenager ever pull anything over on me oh yeah yeah i mean i i think every parent has has been there yeah and my well my youngest my son is the youngest he's 20 now so they're getting to the point now or at least in the next few years they'll probably start telling me stuff like hey dad i never told you but yeah this happened yeah uh so that's that's that's uh in a much more of course serious situation that's what's going on here with david so what's amnon's plan verse 28 tells us absalom commanded his servants mark so pay attention when amnon's heart is merry with

with wine. So in other words, pay attention. And when Amnon gets drunk, when I say to you, strike Amnon, then kill him. And then he goes on, because I'm sure his servants will look at him like, are you nuts? He goes on to say, don't be afraid. Have I not commanded you? In other words, you're not going to be just acting kind of willy nilly. You're not going to be just doing this on your own i'm the one who's telling you to do this so be be courageous and be valiant now okay yeah if you're going to say this you're like okay when this guy gets drunk i'm going to say the code word the code word is strike amnon this is not very subtle by the way this is the this is what i'm going to say it's not like hey there's a full moon yeah or what i yeah yeah what i say what i

neutral hey is anyone find the big dipper that's when you know to do it like it's not anything like that i'm gonna say this and oh yeah i'm sure that they're like what like you do realize that's david's oldest son we're talking about this is the heir apparent to the throne yeah and then if you if there's any uh texts that i've seen recently where someone like has a god complex i mean i understand absalom being upset and being angry and even wanting to do this but does it like As a good Israelite, as David's son, how does this not read or sound in the ears of an Israelite like God, like something straight out of Joshua, have I not commanded you, be courageous and valiant?

That sounds like something like Joshua would say on behalf of God, or God would say to Joshua or something. I mean, he is, it might not sound that way to us, but there's no way that doesn't sound that way to them. That is funny you say that, because in honesty, when I was reading, about to read that verse, When I came to the part that said, be courageous and be valiant, what almost came out of my mouth was, be strong and courageous. Yes. Because that's precisely the language of Joshua.

Yeah. So, yeah, this is definitely a God complex. Yeah, and this have I not commanded you thing is like, well, yeah, I mean, yeah, I know I'm your servant, but there is a hierarchy. There are people above you, one of which you just told me to kill. Yeah, this would have been a great opportunity for the apostolic response. We shall be God rather than men. Yes. We're not going to be fulfilling your revengeful murderous purposes here.

And speaking of which, what's up with Absalom? Why is he getting somebody else to do his dirty work? Yeah. Why isn't he just, I mean, if he's wanting revenge against his brother, why doesn't he challenge him to a fight? Why doesn't he stab him himself? Even if he's going to do it in a cowardly sort of way, why does he enlist the help of his servants to do this

instead of doing it himself? it's it's a it's a strange plan anyway i mean it of course it works but it's a it's an odd plan considering the other options that were there there's got to be like a little bit of even though it's been two years some of this must be some blind rage absolutely obviously it's not it's not a stupid man but this seems a little bit foolish of a way like are you sure you don't want to get him drunk and then go up to the highest point and go look at the stars and then shove him off a cliff and then come back and say, oh, father, your firstborn son got drunk and fell. Is this not a better idea? I just came up with that just now. I mean, I haven't been thinking

about this for two years. Right. Yeah, it's an odd choice of tactics that Absalom uses to do this in a very public sort of way and to use his servants to carry it out when there are a thousand other possibilities. But that's what he chooses, so that's exactly what happens. Verse 29 says, So the servants of Absalom did to Amnon as Absalom had commanded. And then after they do this, there was evidently just kind of a, everyone freaked out because all the king's sons arose,

each mounted his mule and fled the scene so this is uh by the way just a kind of footnote here with this is another case where we've noted these oftentimes where regal figures ride mules so we uh we've seen that multiple times in the past you see it in the future with uh with other regal figures as well of course this is all kind of palm sunny background but all the king sons in other words are riding on their their mules and then each flees the scene which isn't which by the way is a little bit of a comical thing because mules are not horses we have a thing i know this is going to sound like the most southern thing you've ever heard of but uh where i live we have an annual mule jump it's a big deal a mule jump mule jump yeah so what we do is there's like this

there's there's like a it's almost like a rodeo kind of thing but it's just mules and it's a big big ordeal and there's all you know they have all the fair food there and then people come from all over the country with their best mule and they see which mule can jump the highest it's like the the opposite of limbo with mules they're like jumping over obstacles yeah yeah like a mule obstacle course and see if you how high your mule can jump well let me tell you a mule is not as sort of regal uh as a horse it's not no it's not and it's not it doesn't look majestic as it as it gallops through the fields or anything like that so all these sons are getting freaked out and mounting these mules and trying to get out of there as fast as they can i mean i got the mule

jump in my head right now and it's it's a little bit of a funny scene what's going on it's not funny but that's that strikes me as a as a humorous line but also what this i mean this obviously was done right in front of everybody yeah like i don't know what happened i mean we don't have all the details but it seems that absalom gave the word and they just killed this guy right in the middle of the of the party and everyone just freaks out this seems like an insane idea yeah that's that's part of the plan that doesn't make any sense to me is why i do this in front of everybody everybody sees it yeah and uh and everybody probably is thinking am i next you know is absalom going to stage a coup right here and wipe us all out i mean he's going to

pull an abimelech from the book of judges and kill all his brothers and then try and take the throne away from us who knows if they even had a chance to think rationally i suspect amnon wasn't the only one who had been consuming some spirits so probably these guys were uh you know either drunk all the way or at least halfway there so they're probably just panicking jumping on their mules and drunk guys on mules trying to get those trying to get those things moving as fast as you can quite quite the image yeah and i would second what you say about the the guys on mules not uh yeah it's it's a pretty humorous scene when when uh when i was growing up my my dad was a steer roper and so we were at the arena all the time and and there was one guy out there

Everybody else had horses, of course, which used rope steers. But there was one guy out there, for some reason, that had a mule. And it was the funniest thing to watch him, this mule, in the midst of all these horses. I can't remember if he's a header or a healer, but riding down the arena on this mule. It seemed so clownish. It seemed so out of place to have this guy mounted on a mule doing that.

So there was no jumping involved. So we didn't have that. You'd be surprised how high these things can jump when they've been trained to jump. I bet, yeah. Okay, so that's the scene. Now the rumors get started, right? I mean, so people start talking. Oh, yeah.

Yeah, if you think, like, exaggerated rumors are a new thing, no. Listen to what happens next. So they're on the way, and news came to David. I don't know how. I suppose maybe some servants. Someone had a horse. Somebody had a horse, outran the mules. while they were on the way so this news comes to david and here's the news

absalom has struck down all the king's sons and not one of them is left so there you go there's your first uh exaggerated there's your first news headline uh an exaggerated report of exactly what happened so all the king's sons again that's that same phrase that i mentioned earlier absalom has struck down he's killed everybody everybody's dead nobody made it except him. So what does David do? David gets up, tears his garments, lays on the earth. This is, of course, typical grieving posture for the biblical time. Tears his clothes, lays down. It's kind of the same thing he was doing when his son, his first son with Bathsheba, was mortally ill. And all his servants kind of follow suit. All his servants are standing by while they tear their

garments as well. Everybody's in shock and grief and whatnot. And then lo and behold, who shows up to set the record straight? The guy that we met earlier in this story, a guy named Jonadab, the son of Shimea, David's brother. Now this is the guy, remember him, this is the guy who counseled amnon to on how to lure tamar into his into his bedroom so this this guy talking about an oily character he is uh uh he is extremely unlikable so here's here's his report of the events i don't i don't know how he knows this i mean was he was he kind of was he in on this somehow did he hear a rumor i i don't know but this is what he says to david He says, oh, don't let my lord suppose they have killed, notice they, they have killed all the young men, the king's sons, for Amnon alone is dead.

For by the command of Absalom, this has been determined from the day he violated his sister Tamar. Now, whose idea was that? Now, therefore, let not my lord, the king, so take it to heart as to suppose that all the king's sons are dead, for Amnon alone is dead. now he makes that report with such i don't know what the word is he seems completely distanced from it completely objective like oh no listen don't be so upset amnon is the only one who's dead and and the reason he did it is because you you remember what amnon did two years ago how he he violated tamar all the while of course concealing the fact that it was his idea he said he said all this up he told Amnon hey pretend you're sick the king's going to come to

you you say yeah I want you to send my sister Tamar to to take care of me this was all Jonadab's evil plan from the beginning and now he shows up at the end to basically point a finger at Absalom and to remind the king of what Amnon did of course completely deleting the fact that he was the one who came up with the idea to begin with. Yeah, it seems that this guy was kind of buttering up to the king's oldest son, trying to be a right-hand guy of the man next in line for the throne. Well, that's over now.

And so what's he going to go do? Go be chummy with Absalom? He probably didn't want to do that, lest Absalom find out what role he played in this whole thing. And so he's going to go and try to comfort David. He'll go to the man with the power and try to comfort him. Yeah, just complete self-interest on his part. He's a, yeah, the more I dwell on him, the more unlikable he becomes.

So what does Absalom do? Verse 34 tells us that Absalom took off, he fled too. And we'll find out more about him in just a second. The young man who kept the watch lifted up his eyes and saw and looked. many people were coming from the road behind him by the side of the mountain. And then Jonadab, that's our guy again, Jonadab said to the king, look, the king's sons have come. As I said, as your servant said, in other words, look, you should listen to me, right? I know what's going on here. This is what's happened. And no sooner had he finished speaking when the king's sons came

and they lifted up their voices and wept. The king also and all his servants wept very bitterly. It's weird. It's weird. Jonadab here, when he says,

behold, the king's sons have come, as your servant said, so it has come about. You know, he's almost implying that he's some sort of prophet or at least he, you know, you should really consider having me around.

Just as I have foretold. So it is. This guy is something else, man. Yeah, this guy's, man, makes my skin crawl. Yeah, he's just trying to get as close to the king as possible after what he's done. It's just unthinkable. So everybody's upset, weeping bitterly. Absalom, where does he go? Well, he goes to granddaddy's place.

so he goes to a guy named talmai who's the son of amihub the king of geshur the back end i believe it was second samuel chapter three we're told that david married a gal who was the daughter of talmai and so so of course she's not an israelite and then that girl that david married she is the mom of Absalom so Absalom goes back to to his roots we might say he flees to to granddaddy's place up to the north and as we'll see he's going to stay there for a while David mourned for his son day after day that son he's mourning for is not Absalom his son he's mourning for is Amnon his firstborn Absalom flees he goes to Geshur he was there for three years. So quite a bit of time has passed, two years between the rape and the revenge. Now three

more years have passed. Now the closing verse of this chapter is a bit hard to translate because there's just multiple questions, both with regard to the Hebrew that's there, as well as some other Hebrew textual readings that we have from the Dead Sea Scrolls. In other words, there's a variety of textual variants in this particular verse so esv has this the spirit of the king longed to go out to absalom because he was comforted about amnon since he was dead now the last part of that there's no trouble with that he was comforted about amnon that is to say after i suppose a period of time had passed after the death of amnon he had he had uh gone through the grieving process i suppose is what that is saying but the first part of this is what is up

for up for debate uh esv has the spirit of the king longed to go out to absalom that could also be depending on the the hebrew tradition you're looking at here also be translated that the king after a while decided not to pursue absalom like pursue militarily um or it could be translated the the king just kind of stopped desiring to see absalom there's it's in other words it's just a number of different different variants in there so it's a little bit difficult to to translate now how we translate it it does seem judging from david's reaction we're going to see in chapter 14 that david is not really excited about seeing absalom again. I mean, he's upset with him, mad at him. Even after, as we'll see, even after Absalom

comes back from this exile, David won't see him for quite a while. Yeah, I mean, it does seem that David doesn't have an initial response to go hunt him down and kill him. He does stay in this place for three years. It doesn't seem as though he's being necessarily pursued. That makes sense, too i mean david just lost a son i mean like he might be extremely angry and uh he might never want to see him again even that does not necessarily mean that david would like to bury two sons right yeah yeah and we'll see i mean this is this whole story this whole absalom story is is uh is odd in many ways because i mean if you know the ending after uh after i guess we're not you know we're not stealing our own thunder here because you can read it yourself but eventually

absalom will be killed and one of the most moving scenes in all of scripture is when david receives word that absalom is has been killed on the battlefield i mean he just like it's hard to read even uh even you know all these millennia afterward you you read david just crying out his son's name absalom absalom absalom it's just uh it's heart-wrenching to to read through that and you compare that with kind of where he's at now and then his initial pretty cold reaction upon absalom's absalom's return it's it's a it's a strange uh kind of parent child relationship i guess is the best way to say it you know he kind of waffles back and forth as to how he how he should react to react to this betrayal on the part of his son because it's his son right i mean

absalom is still his son and yet this son has killed another son and uh he comes back and david doesn't want him dead but that's what ends up happening so and you know you look at this from david's perspective especially what was told him by by nathan after the absolution when when nathan told him hey a lot of bad stuff's gonna happen your family you get you gotta wonder kind of what's going on in David's head too. Like he's, he's probably, he's probably just trying to grapple with all of this. You know, I'm forgiven. Nathan has told me that the Lord has taken away my sin. I shall not die. But he's also told me, Hey, all this, all this horrible stuff is going to happen. And so you're David and you're watching all this transpire in front of you.

And it's probably very difficult to, to think your way through, to, to wrap your mind around everything that this going on because you realize on the one hand that this stuff is bad and evil and wrong and you also realize on the other hand that all this stuff is kind of the the you're the you're reaping what had been sown earlier yeah i mean and a big takeaway from you know this entire story is that you know david didn't do anything and then a bunch of stuff was done right and so Uh, David's inaction, uh, resulted in Absalom taking an action, which was not good. Uh, you know, as you said, I mean, this is not, this is not, this is just sin compounding on top of sin, uh, and that's not going to stop.

And, and this is how this works a lot of the time when we, when we decide that we are going to, uh, exact vengeance ourselves that we almost always do it wrong. Yeah. Yeah. and you know and you look at this in the in the in the big narrative of scripture too uh in a in a kind of unexpected sort of way i suppose this all does prepare us for where the story ends i mean you go back to genesis you look you look at genesis three and four so you have the the advent of of sin and evil and death in the world via adam and eve's rebellion and then what

happens immediately after a brother kills a brother and then you go forward a few chapters you see what happens after the flood with with noah and his sons and there's kind of a brother against brother situation there and then he goes so further and you hear in the story of david and you have david's genesis 3 kind of moment with uriah and bathsheba this you know horrific fall and what happens immediately afterward you have a brother killing a brother yeah i mean it's i mean I mean, this sort of family strife is just littered throughout the Bible. I mean, you have Jacob and Esau. You have Joseph and his brothers.

I mean, there's almost no story in the Old Testament that is of any length or significance that doesn't have that in it. Even Isaac has to deal with his half-brother and all these people being brothers. I mean, we have this in the church where we still sort of fight brother against brother and are unable to resolve things or handle sin. I mean, what it all comes down to is that we are just ill-equipped to handle the fact that we sin against one another well. Yeah, yeah. And all this means that it's no surprise at all when, who is it that ends up betraying

uh jesus one of his one of the guys closest to him right a brother basically i mean it's judas if there's if there were anybody who was close to to date to jesus like a brother it was his his disciples and yet here we go judas iscariot is the one who who betrays him uh you gotta be close to somebody to betray him with a kiss yes yeah you do yeah so in a you know as you're as We're pondering all of the kind of the bad, dark things that are happening here. And if you look at, you know, the rest of the scriptures as well, keep in mind that all of this is, these are small pieces that are part of the bigger picture that is, that's leading to the true David, to the son of David, where there's going to be sort of a repetition of many of these things, where you can have brother betraying brother, Judas betraying Jesus. however all of this is going to lead not to the things we have happening in david's house but it's going to finally lead to the resolution of all this sin the conclusion of all of this evil

when jesus takes it all into himself like this cosmic sponge soaking in all of the world's evil so that he can deal with it decisively in a to tell us die sort of way in an it is finished sort way once and once for all yeah in christ uh you have justice and so you can put an end to vengeance yes amen yeah all right that's it uh we will uh pick the story back up next week when uh absalom decides to return to jerusalem chad i'll see you then see you then I'll see you next time.