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618 THE KING’S touching as the sight where he sits watch ing between the two gates, waiting for tid ings, dreading tidings of defeat, but quite likely more dreading tidings that his son had been slain, the tidings that would break his heart. It was a day of great anxiety for David; for whichever way the battle turned it would bring him sorrow. He was paying dear for his sinful pleasure. Every man has to pay dear sooner or later for every sinful pleasure, and the longer the payment is postponed .the bigger will be the interest. Poor David! He is a s tr ik in g illustration of how awfully costly sin is. v. S. “And the king commanded Joab and Abishai and Ittai, saying, Deal gently for my sake with the young man, even with Absalom." David’s chief concern was about Absalom and not about himself nor his army. His parting word to his generals was not about victory but about dealing gently with the foe, his beloved son. David purposely gave the command to his general to deal gently with Absalom in such a loud voice that all the people could hear, for he wished them all to understand that at any cost they must spare his son’s life. v. 7. "The people of Israel were slain before the servants of David, and there was a great slaughter that day of twenty thou sand men.” Thq overwhelming victory here described is a type of the overwhelming and final victory that shall end our David’s conflict with his foes (Rev. 19:11, 21; 2 Thess._2:8). v. 8. “For the battle was there scattered over the face of all the'country: and the wood devoured more people that day than the sword devoured." Fortunately for David’s cause, by God’s arrangement, the battle was in the forest, where a smaller ,force would stand a good chance against an overwhelming foe. More people of David’s enemies were devoured by the hand of God in this battle than were destroyed by David’s soldiers (cf. Judges 5:20-21). It was a bloody battle and judgment came upon not less than 20,000 men. They had brought that doom upon themselves by be ing disloyal to God’s chosen king, and those
BUSINESS who are disloyal today to God’s chosen king, that is, Jesus (Acts 2:36), will bring swift and utter destruction upon their own heads. v. 9. “And Absalom chanced to meet the servants of David.” It was really not. so much “chance" as God’s arrangement. There is really no such thing as chance even in the minutest details of our lives. What we regard as chance is always God’s arrangement Absalom had longed to meet the servants of David in the past, but when he actually did meet them it was to his dismay. “And Absalom rode upon a mule.” Ab salom was no longer riding in a chariot with horses and fifty men to run before him (cf. Ch. 15:1), but upon a mule with his men running away from him. “His head caught hold on the oak, and he was taken up between the heaven and the earth, and the mule that was under him went away." We now see Absalom getting his just deserts, hanged in a tree, j We all de serve to. be hanged as for that matter (Gal. 3:10). The only thing that saves anyone of us from being hanged is, another was hanged in our place (Gal. 3:13), At last Absalom was deserted by all, even “the mule that was under him went away.” v, 14. "Then . . . Joab . . .to o k three darts in his hand, and thrust them through the heart of Absalom, while he was yet alive in the midst of the oak.” Absalom had done Joab an ungrateful injustice at an earlier date (Ch. 14:29-30) and he paid dearly for that injustice now. We always pay sooner or later for every act of injus tice or ungratefulness done another. Joab, who through his entire life was an exceed ingly vengeful man, had been waiting all these years to get even, and he not only pays the old score, but pays it with com pound interest. All our mistreatment of Others is likely to come back upon our own heads, with compound .interest before we get through. It was a moment of supreme malicious joyfulness for Joab when he thrust the three darts through Absalom’s heart, as he hung alive in the midst of the
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