40 Minutes In The Old Testament - 2 Samuel 14:1-24 (Episode 276)

Episode Date: July 27, 2021

Joab puts together a plan to trap David in his words and bring Absalom home. A wise and courageous woman tells David a very Cain and Able story and asked David to do something contrary to the law. It's no parable of the prodigal son, but the gospel is in the mouth of an unlikely massager. Chad and Daniel discuss all of this. 1517 Podcast Network Regional Event in Las Vegas 1517 YouTube Donate

Most Christians know that Jesus told us that all the Old Testament testifies of Him. The challenge we face is knowing how. How are the stories in Genesis about Jesus? How are we supposed to find Christ in the dark and bloody book of Judges or the wisdom sayings of Proverbs? To answer all these questions and provide a guide for readers of the Old Testament who are looking for Jesus, I wrote The Christ Key. I'm Chad Bird, and for over three decades, I've been studying and teaching the Old Testament.

I wrote The Christ Key for you, so you could unlock all the doors in the Old Testament, step inside, and say to each of them, Show me Jesus. Visit ChristKeyBook.org to learn more. 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. Check out all the other podcasts that are living over there.

And while you're over there, make sure you go to the events page and sign up for the event in Las Vegas, Nevada. That's going to be October 15th and 16th. August 16th, you want to come hang out with Chad and me and a whole bunch of other people. It's only $65 to come hang out with us. It includes your lunch on Saturday. So make sure you get that, especially if you're within driving distance. I mean, if you're out there in the Southwest, you've got to come hang out in Vegas with us in October.

It's going to be a good time. We're going to be talking about assurance. I mean, you can't afford not to have more assurance, and we're going to try to help you out with that today. not the day that this releases that you're listening to it but the day that we're recording it is a big day because it's the birthday of chad bird's new book the christ key that is available definitely when you're listening to this everywhere not for pre-order for like buy it have amazon get it in your mailbox a couple days later kind of buy it so if you've been waiting because you're one of those people are like i don't pre-order books i don't do that like i wait till it's i

want it i don't need to pre-order it i just wait till it's out and then i order it well now's your time your moment has arrived it's time to get it if you're a fan of this podcast there's zero chance that you don't like this book this is true this is true yeah if you've been listening to 40 minutes of the old testament then uh you're gonna be reading this book and saying a lot of amens yeah i remember like that point being made somewhere along the way so yeah i mean i i've told people that a long time ago i mean we're talking like two decades ago i wrote a longer version of this book that is still on my computer and i'm so glad i think every author has like one book on their computer that will never be published so that's that's mine it's like

600 pages long and it's like this massive work that i did and i am so glad that that never got published because what i did is i took all of that material and i uh i improved it i streamlined it i made it much more accessible and much more usable and then i put it together in a 200 page book so i'm glad that uh that that uh became the krisky yeah i mean one thing that when i was reading through this book i was thinking was you know if you like the podcast then you should buy this book if you like the podcast and there's somebody in your life who you would love to listen to the podcast but they don't listen to podcasts this happens to me like so i have people i recommend a podcast to someone and discover that that podcasting is not something they do

there's still those people out there that don't listen to podcasts but they do read books so if the podcast is something that you like and you have friends or family that they don't listen to podcasts but you wish there was a way for you to kind of give them the same thing that you're getting from the podcast and they read books well this is this is the way to do that so if you if there's somebody i don't know maybe they're older they don't do podcasts you got a mom or a dad or a brother or uncle or whatever it is uh and they're like man i'm really learning a lot from the podcast i'd love for so-and-so to you know be they would really like this stuff but they don't they don't do podcasts this is the answer uh you order them a copy of this book

while you're ordering yourself a copy of this book and uh they're going to get the same sort of hermeneutic that you're getting as you've been listening to the podcast so so do that uh make sure that you know you order chad's book because you know we all love chad so you also you gotta support chad so just make sure you do it all right well uh we are in a still a very unpleasant part of second samuel we've been making episodes that we don't really want to make for a couple weeks now it's not quite as uncomfortable and gross as as some stuff we've had to deal with recently but it's not good no it's not good this is not a feel-good chapter this as is a whole lot of the second half of second samuel uh this one yeah it's just a we were talking before we started

recording that uh this this to me is kind of the antithesis to the parable of the prodigal son kind of chapter so it's kind of like if you took the parable of prodigal son and you kind of tore it up and then you pasted it back together in a real ugly sort of way that would be this chapter because we've got we've got a son who uh has gone to a a distant land we got uh two brothers who are part of the story we've got a dad david who is not with his son and then we have the return of the son and where you have a coming together of the father and the son of david and absalom but there's no like dad running out there and throwing his arms around him and saying hey we're gonna have a party because my son was dead now he's alive so you've got kind of all the

elements of the parable of prodigal son without any of the mercy and the true reconciliation that you have in the in the gospel of luke yeah you don't have anything about absalom being gone and then coming to the you know coming to the end of himself oh you don't you don't have any of this so it seems like he seems to be quite full of himself yes repentance seems to be the the key missing thing here yeah yeah the absalom we're going to see at the end of the chapter is like so narcissistic and full of himself that he's like like his annual haircut is this great ordeal where he's going to weigh his hair i mean anyway it's some weird some weird narcissistic stuff going on yeah and the prodigal son you have a a guy coming back that's like maybe my father will allow me to

be a servant that's like the opposite of what absalom's thinking when he comes home he's not thinking that maybe just maybe his dad will let him work for him uh he's coming back thinking maybe just maybe i could just have my dad's job yeah yeah precisely so when we left off last time uh in the last chapter toward the end of the last chapter of course we have the the murder of amnon by absalom at least he he orchestrated the whole event and and had his brother killed because of course his brother had raped his sister his full sister so you've got the family disintegrating chapter by chapter david's family's just kind of falling apart just like had been had been prophesied so what happened with absalom well absalom after he arranged the killing of his

brother he takes off he goes to a place where his grandfather was king to the north of israel it's a place called geshur and uh he's staying there he's he's there for for quite a while and we're told at the end of chapter 13 that well i think we talked about this there's some ambiguity so david is uh well one translation has he's longing to go out to absalom that's not really a good reflection of what the hebrew has there the hebrew is ambiguous like we know David is thinking about Absalom, but what is he thinking? Is he thinking positively? Is he thinking negatively? So we really have to look at this contextually. So based upon what we're going to see in David's actions, if his actions are a true representation of where he's at emotionally

with regard to Absalom, then actually it's pretty negative. It's pretty cold. So that's the way 13 ends, 14 ends. Similarly, it says, Joab, the son of Zeruiah, knew, I'm reading the ESV here, knew that the king's heart went out to Absalom. Well, no, not really. There is in the Hebrew a tiny word, and it can be translated a multitude of different ways. So, was the heart of the king upon Absalom? Was it going out to Absalom? Was it contrary to Absalom? We really don't know. I mean, how you translate that one little preposition cannot be determined from this singular verse. You've got to look at the entire context to decide exactly what the heart of the king is doing when it thinks about Absalom. And everything that is indicated, at least from

my perspective, is that, yeah, David was thinking about Absalom. His heart was pondering Absalom, but not really in any kind of paternal, merciful way where he was just, you know, just kind of craving to have Absalom back. There's nothing really in the story that indicates that David wanted Absalom back. In fact, as we'll see, Joab has to arrange this kind of crazy scenario to make sure that David is tricked more or less into bringing Absalom back. So he's thinking about Joab perceives that the heart of the king is thinking about Absalom, but we're not really told more than that. So what does Joab do? Well, Joab is a pretty interesting character here. We're going to see him becoming more and more kind of a, if not the central character,

certainly a central character in the rest of the story, because he's going to be behind a lot of what happens with the rest of David's life. And Joab decides, he comes up with a plan. So he goes, he sends a message to a little city south of Bethlehem called Tekoa. If Tekoa is familiar to you, it's because that is where the prophet Amos is from. So if you have heard of Tekoa before, it's probably because you're familiar with the book of Amos. And Amos was a shepherd who was from Tekoa. So he goes to Tekoa or he sends a message to Tekoa to get a woman from there who's called a wise woman i'm thinking this is probably in some of the commentaries that i have consulted uh agree that this is probably almost sort of a an official title like this

wasn't just a smart lady he's it wasn't like joe i've thought you know what there's this real smart gal down in takoa i'm gonna get her this was probably almost an official or unofficial title for this particular woman. She's a wise woman. And he says to her, Joab says to this wise woman, here's what I want you to do. I want you to pretend to be a mourner and put on your garments of mourning, whatever those would have looked like. Don't anoint yourself with oil, but behave like a woman who's been mourning many days for the dead. And I want you to go to the king and I want you to speak thus to him. And then we're told at the end of verse three that Joab put the words in her mouth. So Joab gets her, he tells her what to say, even though he can't, I mean, he can't like

put a whole speech in her mouth because she's going to be engaging in a dialogue with the king. So he tells her more or less the story that he wants her to tell to the king, but she also needs to be quick on her feet, because she's going to have to respond to the king in a way that is going to lead him, by means of this fictional story, to say what Joab wants him to say. So this is a pretty obvious parallel to what we encountered earlier when Nathan came to David and told him the story of the rich man and the poor man, and the poor man having this dear lamb that the rich man took away. So this is going to be a somewhat of a repeat of this, even though this is much more elaborate. This is much more kind of an indirect sort of fictional story that David is going to

have to be drawn into to elicit the kind of response from him that Joab wants him to have. But certainly the stories are, the occasions are parallel. David is going to have to be basically be tricked into becoming his own judge and jury. So he's going to have to be able to be drawn in by means of this fictional story, this parable, if you will, to say the words that he would not say on his own, and these words are going to be an indictment of himself, so that by means of this he's going to be brought to actually bring Absalom back home. There must be a certain softness that lives in David that people that are close to him know about and maybe this is you know maybe this is part of like the being a man after God's own heart part of David but these stories will

always involve like desperation and injustice and all this kind of stuff and like you're pleading with David to have compassion and then to have a compassion that actually acts and does something to to help you to save you right uh to vindicate you whatever it is and this seems to work well with david yeah yeah yeah both times he really like falls right into the trap he's a he's sort of a yeah he's he's kind of a sucker is probably not the best word to use but he's sort of a sucker for one of these stories it just kind of grabs a hold of you you know and you've got uh uh you got somebody who's who's suffering they're kind of at the end of the rope they're desperate and it's like david can't help but respond to that you know he he certainly is going to identify with

the man who lost his his precious lamb you know being a shepherd in the past himself now this particular case is going to have the the story that she's about to tell has these kind of these these this biblical resonance too because it's going to be almost kind of like genesis 4 retold by cain and abel so part of what's going on here too is that it's almost like she or Joab, through her, expects David also to be a kind of a biblical interpreter, if you will. Like, okay, the story she's telling sounds an awful lot like Genesis 4 and Cain and Abel. And what happened there? How did God, in other words, react to Cain after he killed Abel? Well, he put a mark on him, a gracious, protective mark.

And so maybe I should act similarly. I mean, that's kind of implicit here. It's like they're expecting David to put two and two together and to act in accordance with biblical precedent. Yeah. Okay. So let's get to it. We've kind of been jumping ahead, but here's what happens. So the woman comes to the king. She prostrates herself to the ground, pays homage to him, which is probably just kind of typical court behavior when you appeared before the king. She starts out by saying, save me, O king. Again, probably just kind of a formal response, a formal declaration. When you come to the king and you had a problem that you wanted him to solve or to address, then this is the way you started out. so the dialogue begins she says say me oh king the king says what's your trouble and here's the story that she tells of course the story that joab has concocted she says alas

i am a widow my husband is dead and your servant had two sons and they quarreled with one another in the field of course this we're picking up on arcane and able right they same thing happened with him in the field two sons two brothers there was no one to separate them she goes on and one struck the other and killed him this is of course like cain killed abel now so that's that's she's she's without a husband all she has left are two sons one has just killed the other so now all she has is the one surviving son who has blood on his hands verse 7 presents the real issue she says now the whole clan has risen against your servant and they say give up the man who struck his brother that we may put him to death for the life of his brother whom he killed so that's what she is

reporting to david they're saying to her so give up your other son your only surviving son the the only one who's left because we need to exact blood vengeance against him this so this this guy's got no mark to protect him so i mean i mean she's literally asking david for a mark oh yeah this is exactly right yeah she's saying we need i need you david please put a mark on my son protect him that's kind of that's clearly implied here so then she goes on she says and so if they do that they would destroy the air also meaning that you know everything my husband has is now going to be lost. And she presents a beautiful metaphor here. She says, if thus they, if they do this, they would quench my coal that is left and leave to my husband neither name nor remnant on the

face of the earth. So it's this image of all she's got left. It's like at one point she had a raging fire. She had a husband. She had two sons. She is warm in the glow of this raging fire of peace and hope. Everything is just the way she wants it to be, and then all of a sudden, her husband dies, and the flame dwindles, and then her two sons quarrel. One kills the other, and the flame goes down to where all that's left is one ember, one coal that needs to be fanned into flame, but here we have this crowd, this clan who are wanting to basically take that coal and pour the water of judgment upon it and thus extinguish all hope that she might have left. So that's her case. That's her story. And we're going to see that she elaborates on this more

and more. She is a very wise woman as we go along here. But notice what happens. So the king's about to respond and and every time he responds he doesn't give her enough he'll like be kind of ambiguous and she she like a a good lawyer she keeps pressing and pressing and pressing trying to get him to say what she wants him to say so he first responds by saying go to your house and i will give orders concerning you yeah that's not gonna work i need I was like, I don't really think that's going to work. That is way too ambiguous. Go to your house and I will give orders concerning you?

What the heck does that mean? Orders could be, her son is located over here. Go kill him. I have no idea what these orders are. I will give orders concerning you. So she's thinking to herself, no, we got to have something more than that. so she responds to the king we had this back and forth back and forth on me be the guilt my lord the king and on my father's house i think what's happening here is that she is she's interpreting

david's hesitancy to mean that hey he he doesn't want the responsibility for the blood guilt to be transferred to him and to his his administration yeah david's like look i got enough blood on my hands i don't need to like be going around uh absolving people of murder i don't need to step into the middle of this so that's why she says look this is not going to be on you it's it's on me be the guilt my lord and on my father's house let the king and his throne be guiltless so she's she's uh trying to persuade him to say a little bit more so he does he goes on he responds to her. He says, if anyone says anything to you, bring him to me, and he shall never touch you again. So he's giving her a little more now. He doesn't just say, I'll give orders concerning you.

He says, I'm not going to let anybody harm you. But that's not what she wants. She's not worried about herself. She's worried about her son. So she responds to that. She says, please let the king invoke the lord your god that the avenger of blood kill no more and my son be not destroyed so here she's she's brought it to a point she's she's like okay that's very nice of you to say what you've said oh king but here's here's really what i'm asking from you i want you to bring the lord's name into this and to swear on the name of the lord that my son will not be harmed and that's precisely what he does she she finally elicits from david the response that she and of course joab through her wanted david says as yahweh lives as the lord lives not one hair of

your son shall fall to the ground it's a pretty good promise that's pretty good it's pretty good i mean it's pretty hard to improve upon that if the king the ultimate authority in the land says not one hair of your son shall fall to the ground then you have you have got probably actually more than you than you were hoping to get that's quite a promise from from the king not one hair of you of your son shall fall to the ground same language by the way your same image that was used way back in first samuel 14 i think when you remember when saul made this this uh ridiculous uh prohibition where none of the warriors were supposed to eat on the day of battle, and Jonathan did.

And then Saul at first was going to be like, well, I guess I'm going to have to execute my son. All the people were like, nope, that's not happening. Not one hair of your son shall fall to the ground. So this was a repeat of that same image. This is one of the more impressive things about this. I don't know where Joab found this woman. I mean, I know it says that he found a wise woman.

He also found a very courageous woman because i mean i don't know how you talk someone into this be like because it's not just like okay here's what i'm going to do like maybe you got a little maybe a little sack of gold coins i don't know what you got but you're like here's what i'm gonna need you to do i need you to go tell this story to the king and and try to get elicit this reaction from him okay maybe it doesn't work and you come back and be like well it didn't go it didn't go well but nothing terrible is probably going to happen you know from you doing that you doing this next part though like if the plan is like and once you get him to make you a promise here's what you do dude like oh bold yeah very

i'm not signing up for this yeah yeah she uh yeah wise woman for sure courageous woman definitely i mean imagine you're like i mean someone's like okay here's what you need to do you're gonna you're gonna we're gonna set you an appointment with the president you're gonna go in tell them your circumstances you're gonna get these guarantees from him then you're just gonna flip that script on him about his own family you gotta be like no freaking way yeah go go talk to the next candidate for this uh this suicide mission yeah so okay she's she's got him where she wants him not one hair your son should fall to the ground i mean this is so she now is the same place that Nathan was earlier when David pronounced this judgment against this fictitious

rich guy who had taken the lamb away. So David has just pronounced basically that same kind of judgment. So the woman gets what she wants, just like Nathan got what she wants. Now she's turning the tables. So Nathan said, you are the man. And now the woman says in a much more humble, but also very direct sort of way. She says, please let your servant speak a word to my Lord, the King. And he says, speak. And there she goes.

She says, why then? So having said all that, that you said, David, why then have you planned such a thing against the people of God? It's at this point where David realizes, oh man, again, I've just been tricked again. why then have you planned such a thing it's a bold way to start man

this isn't sort of like okay let me just say this think about it this way this story is a little similar to something that you have going on in your own family this is just bringing the hammer down yeah she decides she's going to lead with the

sharpest instrument that she has why then have you plan such a thing against the people of God. For in giving this decision, in other words, in saying what you just said about this story that I've told you about my fictitious two sons, the king convicts himself in as much as the king does not bring his banished one home again. So now, of course, in David's mind, everything is becoming crystal clear. now 14 and 15 she goes on and some of this is perhaps at least to me it's not immediately clear and she kind of she's the woman seems to kind of go back and forth between addressing

the reality of david and then almost also living in this fictitious story that she came up with but anyway i'll just read it we'll unpack it verse 14 we must all die we are like water spilled on the ground which cannot be gathered up again beautiful beautiful metaphor by the way we're all going to die we're all like this water spilled on the ground can't be gathered up again but god will not take away life and he devises means so that the banished one will not remain an outcast so i i think what she's saying here is listen and some of this is is is is indirect but at least my reading of this is she's saying listen uh your son amnon is dead just like we all have to die you know it's you can't if you spill spill water on the ground you can't somehow gather it up

again you can't bring amnon back no matter what you do so if you think that you're doing the right thing by keeping absalom away thinking that this is sort of somehow kind of the virtuous thing to do it it's not doing any good you're not bringing him back to life again so do the right thing Actually, the virtuous thing to do, the good thing to do, would actually to bring the banished one home again, whom she never names, by the way. She doesn't say Absalom. She just says the banished one.

So bring him home again so that he won't remain an outcast. That's the way that I hear this. And this is an interesting thing to say because, you know, I mean, according to the law, Absalom should die for this. Yeah, he not only should be, he shouldn't have just been banished. He should have been put to death. And even in the story that she tells, she's asking him to do something contrary to law. She's asking for protection from the law.

And what she appeals to is this gospel message, which is wrapped up in sort of these words. So she's saying, like, look, everyone's going to die. You can't fix what's wrong by just inserting the law. so applying the law to this situation the sinful situation doesn't fix it it doesn't make it better it doesn't help you so instead she's like do something different do something that's completely different than the law in fact it's completely opposite of what the law would say do that instead and i think this line is just wonderful sort of gospel and and what she thinks god is like which is different than what the law would say which is god will not take away life

what yeah he's like like since when that's a resting line right there like that's that's wild so she says god will not take away life and he devises means so he he comes up with a way he invents a way so that the banished one will not remain an outcast now that's just the gospel i'm sorry that's just the gospel there's a sermon right there yeah dude this is a you could just grab that text and preach a sermon on that like so she's asking david to do the jesus thing here but this is a statement about actually how god is going to deal with people who deserve death and that god is instead going to be like you know what i'm not going to just kill everyone the way the law demands.

Instead, I'm going to devise a way, I'm going to plot and come up with a way that all of the banished ones don't have to remain outside. They can all come back. That's wild. It is wild, yeah. Whether intended or not,

this woman has just proclaimed a universal truth about the way that God deals with fallen humanity. Yes. Which is completely contrary to everything that David is told in the law to do in these circumstances yeah yeah so it's kind of a do a genesis four kind of thing put a put a mark on him that is act in mercy don't act in injustice act in mercy because it so happens that we have a god who devises means so that the banished one will not remain an outcast that's universally

applicable statement of mercy right there yep fantastic then she goes on this is verse 15 Now, I have come to say this to my lord the king, because the people have made me afraid. I'm not sure who she's talking about here, unless this is an allusion to Joab. And your servant thought, I will speak to the king. It may be that the king will perform the request of his servant. But the king will hear and deliver his servant from the hand of the man who would destroy me and my son together from the heritage of God. Now, this is where it's almost like she's slipping back into her fictitious story. you know like she's worried about this son that she's just kind of come up with uh but anyway

that's that's what she says to the king and then she goes on and your servant that is she thought the word of my lord the king will set me at rest for my lord the king is like the angel of god to discern good and evil the lord your god be with you so she is uh she's speaking very highly of david here now from our perspective david's not very angelic he's she she says oh you're like the angel of god to discern good and evil well i i think she she's being very flattering to the king but uh we know otherwise david is no angel everything that's kind of been happening here is because david actually was was not like the angel of god to discern good and evil he was actually doing a lot of evil on his own and then she ends it by saying the lord your god be with

you so at this point uh a lot of things could happen right i mean uh he could be angry right david could uh david could be angry because he's been deceived i mean he's only been lied to by by this woman or he could do the opposite of that and we'll see here what he chooses to do this is verse 18 so the king answers the woman don't hide from me anything i ask you and the woman says let my lord the king speak this seems like he's like okay let's put the story aside yeah can we stop the fiction like let's stop like moving in and out of the story like you got me so like let's just have like a a real conversation now yeah yeah let's drop all the let's drop all the pretend and tell me in verse 19 is the hand of joab with you in all this

there you go the words listen is job the one behind all this come on let me know just come clean let me know and the woman to her credit answers truthfully she says as surely as you live my lord the king one can't turn to the right hand or to the left from anything that my lord the king has said in other words yeah yeah you you're you're right it was your servant joab who commanded me she goes on it was he who put all these words in the mouth of your servant i think she's being a little bit humble there because i guarantee you she was improvising she had to there's no way that joab could have said okay i want you to say this and this is what david's gonna say then once you say this and then this is what david's gonna say unless joab knows david better than anyone's ever

known anyone yeah joe would have to be a prophet to be able to give her all the words so uh so anyway that that's what what she says yeah it was it was he's the one who did it uh verse 20 tells us tells us why it says in order to change the course of things so to alter the course of events your servant joab did this but my lord has wisdom like the wisdom of the angel of god to know all things that are on the earth there she is flattering the flattering the king again now why did joe we i guess we didn't talk about that uh and part of the reason is because we don't know the answer why is joab doing these things it's kind of a it's kind of an open question i mean so why did why does joe i want him back because because there's all kind of

speculation out there if you read the commentary so is is joab kind of pro-absolute well there's really no indication as to why he would be, unless, and he's, my suspicion, this is just my suspicion, is that Joab is actually worried that unless there's a reconciliation between David and Absalom, that Absalom is one of these days going to become a real, a real threat to the kingdom. Now, of course, he doesn't know that actually that's what's going to happen anyway, but I think Joab is afraid that with Absalom not reconciled to his father, that there's going to be war. And so he's trying to bring peace to a very difficult situation here. He's trying to bring Absalom home so that the king and his son can be reconciled and there's going to be peace in the kingdom.

Of course, Joab is a military commander. He's always kind of thinking, you know, what might happen with regard to wars and how can we create peace? And so from my perspective, that's his motivation here. He's trying to avoid what could be a national catastrophe. I think that that's probably right. I think that also there's a very human element to this, and that's that Joab knows what it is to do a revenge killing and to be sort of outcast and shamed for it. I think there's probably a real sympathy that Joab has for Absalom understanding why he did what he did. I mean, this is exactly the sort of thing that Joab did, and Joab had to sort of endure the shame of that. One thing that's sort of true about sinners, when you've sinned in some specific way, it's easier for you to have sympathy for those who sin in that way as well.

Yeah. And so I make sense, complete sense to me that Joab would be the guy that would say, you know, not say that what Absalom did was good or right, but there's definitely, Joab understands it. Yeah, that's a great point. That's a great point. And we saw how David treated Joab afterward. I mean, he basically publicly humiliated him. and so joab knowing what he went through uh and understanding probably better than anybody why absalom did what he did yeah he has yeah he's got he's got sympathy he's got compassion for him and keep in mind too these guys are all family right so joab isn't someone who's just you know somebody that kind of rose through the ranks he's david's nephew so he's he's also of course related to to Absalom so this is a it's a national concern it's a compassionate concern it's a family concern all these all these together so how does David finally respond to everything he says to

Joab verse 21 he says look I grant this go bring back the young man Absalom and when David says that I'm thinking oh thank God you know this is this is going to be this is going to be great David has finally been brought to his senses, been brought to realize this is the good and gracious and merciful thing to do. I do think it's interesting, though. I think there's a little bit of a tell here. David says, okay, fine. He doesn't say, bring back my son, Absalom. He says, bring back the young man, Absalom. And I think there's a hint there that David's going to go along with this. He got caught up in his own words, and he's going to go ahead and do it. but there's there's still something there uh because he doesn't say that david started weeping

and said bring my son home or something like this he just says bring the young man absalom back doesn't even say home he just says bring him back you know and so it's uh yeah i definitely think that there's something there if you're reading carefully where you're like you can you could get caught up like all right good like this is good there's gonna be all this forgiveness and reconciliation but there's there's something in there that tells you like ah this is not quite as pure as the prodigal son yeah and we're gonna see we're gonna see more of that in just a second as we wrap up this so joe i was overjoyed i mean verse 22 he he falls just like the the wise woman from takoa did he falls on his face to the ground he pays homage he blesses the king and he says

today your servant knows that i have found favor in your sight my lord the king and that the king has granted the request of his servant so joe i was happy this is this is exactly what he had hoped he would achieve through this in a pretty elaborate uh scenario that he set up with this with this woman so joab uh we get the impression like he he runs out gets a chariot or gets his uh saddles his horse or a mule or whatever he takes off he he arises and goes to gashur and brought absalom back to jerusalem and then i hate to end on a sour note but uh we're told the king said verse 24 let him that is absalom let him dwell apart in his own house he is not to come into my presence so absalom lived apart in his own house and did not come into the king's presence yeah so there

there that you get a you get a hint and you get the uh the whole thing rather quickly yeah so this is uh i mean we're not at the end of the chapter we have more that we'll get to in the next episode But you're you already can tell this is this is not the Old Testament version of the parable of the prodigal son, because David doesn't. It's not like when, you know, Absalom is the edge of Jerusalem out of the palace, runs King David with his robes flapping in the wind. And he throws his arms around Absalom and kisses him and tells the servants to bring the ring and the sandals and the best robe and to to kill the fatted calf because his son is home again. And he's like, I won't even see you. You're not living under my roof. You're going to stay in your own house.

And as we'll see in the rest of the chapter, this continues for quite a while. So what's going to be the resolution of all this? Is there going to be any kind of final coming together of father and son? What's that going to look like? Well, we'll find that out in the next episode after we hear about Absalom. little bit more, and how much he likes his hair, and all that good stuff. Yeah, this is, what you have here is Joab trying to put together an Old Testament prodigal son story, and what you find out is that while David is a type of Christ, he is not Christ. Amen to that. And so the story

doesn't work. The story does not work. No, we're gonna have to wait for the Gospel Luke to get the real parallel product of some that's it all right guys well that's it for this episode make sure that you go out there and order uh chad's new book the christ key i'll put a link in the show notes so you can just click on that and uh and order that and uh we'll see you next week see you I'll see you next time.