2 Samuel Chapter 14 - Halfway Forgiveness | Prophets of Israel Daily

[music] >> Shalom friends, welcome back to the Prophets of Israel daily. This is the book of Second Samuel, chapter 14. I'm Jeremy Kumpel, here with my dear friend and chavrusa, Ari Abramowitz. [music] This is brought to you by the Land of Israel Network at the landofisrael.com. Friends, remember where we are. The sword Nathan the prophet promised has fallen inside David's own house. In chapter 13, David's son Amnon violated his half-sister Tamar. Her brother Absalom, after 2 years of silent rage, had Amnon killed in revenge and then fled. He's been in exile in Geshur for 3 years, and chapter 14 opens up with Joab, the chief of staff of David's army, watching David's heart. Verse 1. Vayedaya Yoav ben Zeruiah ki lev haMelech al Absalom. Now, Joab, the son of Zeruiah, perceived that the king's heart was toward Absalom. Lev haMelech al Absalom, the king's heart was on Absalom. Joab, David's general, sees it. David is grieving. Part of him longs for his exiled son, but David is paralyzed. He's trapped between his love as a father and his duty as a king who can't simply pardon a murderer. So, Joab decides to force the issue. And he does it the way Nathan the prophet once did, with a story. Joab sends to Tekoa for a wise woman, dresses her up as a mourner, puts words in her mouth, tells her exactly what to say to King David. She comes before David and she tells a tale. She's a widow with two sons. They quarreled in the field. One struck and killed the other, and now the whole clan is demanding she hand over the surviving son to be executed for murder, which would leave her literally utterly alone, her husband's name extinguished without an heir, without a remnant on the face of the earth. >> Yeah, Jeremy, this is the second time in just a few chapters that someone has has come to David with a parable to get past his defenses. You know, and I don't think that's an accident. It tells us something deep about David and I think possibly about all of us. Natan, Nathan, Natan and Avi did it in chapter 12 about David's sin with Bathsheba. You remember the wealthy man and the poor man that had one sheep, that one. Now Yoav does it in chapter 14 and both times the strategy is identical. You cannot tell David the hard truth to his face. So you wrap it in a story about someone else and let his own sense of justice do the work. And it works again. David hears this widow's plight and his heart goes out to her. He rules that her surviving son will be protected, that not a hair of his head will fall. And here's the beautiful and and I think in some ways painful thing that is revealed by this because we're about to enter waters that are just filled with pain and tragedy. So let's prepare ourselves. What what is revealed here? David has an enormous, generous heart. He is instantly merciful when the case belongs to somebody else. He'll move heaven and earth to spare a stranger's son, but when it's his own son, his own family, his own his own tangled grief and guilt, he freezes. Right? He he can't act. So many of us are wise and generous and decisive about everybody else's life and completely stuck when it comes to the mess inside our own home. We give others the mercy we can't figure out how to give the people closest to us. Yoav understood that about David and he used it. >> Exactly, Ari. And the moment David commits to protecting her son, the woman springs the trap, just like Nathan the prophet did. She turns it on him. If you'd protect my son, why have you done this very thing against the people of God? Why do you leave your own banished son in exile? And then she says something extraordinary. This is verse 14. Kimot namut uh kimayim hanigarim. For we shall surely die and become like water spilled on the ground which cannot be gathered up again. We all die, she says. We're like water poured out on the ground that could never be gathered back. Life is short. And estrangement is kind it's a kind of death you inflict on the living. And you're killing your own son by sending him into exile. And then she brings David's consciousness to Hashem. And David knows that as the king of Israel, he's called to be a reflection of God's ways in the eyes of Israel. And she says, "But God does not take away life. Rather, he devises ways that the banished one not remain banished from him. God himself, she says, is in the business of bringing back the cast out. Why don't you do the same for your son? >> Right. And and Jeremy, that that verse is really really powerful. I I I think it's I think it's one of the most powerful theological statements in that I can remember. Definitely in in the in the book of Samuel. And it's spoken by an anonymous woman from a small town in Judea. And knowing the women of Judea, that doesn't shock me. But anyways, he devises ways that the banished one not remain banished. That's what she says. Right? Think about what what she's saying about the very nature of Hashem. She's telling David, "God does not give up on people. When someone is cast out, exiled by their own sin, their own failure, their own terrible choices, God doesn't leave them there. He engineers their return. He builds pathways back. Mercy isn't just something God feels. It's something Hashem is actively orchestrating. He's always working out the machinery of return for the one who's been sent away. And she's holding that up to David as a mirror. Right, David, if you want to reflect God, if you want to rule the way Hashem rules, then you become someone who devises ways to bring the banished back. Don't be the king who leaves his son in exile. Be like your God, who is always making a road home. And friends, that idea is the whole heartbeat of teshuvah, of repentance, of return. The promise that no one is ever so far gone that God has stopped building them a way back. I can't help but to feel that in these crazy times we live in, that's that's a lifeline every single one of us needs to hear. I know it's something that I feel I need to hear. >> Yeah, that's really beautiful, Ari. And David, being David, immediately sees through the performance and whose hand is behind it. He asks her point-blank, "Is the hand of Joab with you in all this?" And she admits, "Yes, it was your servant Joab who put these words in my mouth." And so David turns to Joab and says, "All right, very well. Go back and bring the young man Absalom." And what's so remarkable about David is that as soon as he's confronted with the truth, he's modeh al ha'emet. He just immediately admits his mistake and works to fix the situation. And it looks like a happy ending, but in David's eyes, Absalom's teshuvah isn't complete. So, verse 24, vayomer hamelech el Bet el Beto, ufanai lo yireh. And the king said, "Let him turn to his own house, and let him not see my face." David tells Joab, "Absalom can come home to Jerusalem, but he may not see the king's face. It's like a half return, a reconciliation that isn't one. Absalom is in the city, but banished from his father's presence. And this goes on for two full years. >> Jeremy, this is the tragic heart of the whole chapter. Really, it's tragic. It's painful because David does the hardest thing halfway. And and and I really think that in some sometimes a a half mercy can be more dangerous than no mercy at all. Look at what David's done here. He brought Absalom's body back to Jerusalem, but kept his heart locked out. He gave his son the geography of return without the relationship of return. And you can feel what that does to Absalom, festering in a house a few hundred yards away from his father, so near and yet completely shut out for 2 years. The woman of Tekoa told David that God who fully brings back the banished. He doesn't leave them stranded halfway, and David does exactly the thing she warned against. He leaves his son suspended in between, neither exiled nor embraced. And and here's I think one of the lessons that we should really take to heart. Reconciliation that stops halfway doesn't really heal the wound. It lets it rot. Even more so. I I think even more so. All that time in the cold, all that unhealed resentment is precisely what will grow in the very next chapters into Absalom's rebellion, a son who will try to tear the kingdom away from his own father. When David finally forces a meeting at the end of the chapter and kisses his son, the gesture comes too late and too superficial to undo 2 years of silence. And it makes me think about how in our own lives a grudging partial forgiveness where we technically let someone back but keep our heart guarded and cold, can do more sometimes I think to damage than than just a clean break. If you're going to bring someone home, the woman of Tekoa at least is telling David, "If you're going to bring someone home, bring them all the way home." >> Yeah, that's really true. And you just see David is so torn. And then the chapter gives us an unforgettable scene, verses 28 through 33. After 2 years unseen, Absalom is desperate to force his father's hand. I mean, you can imagine the limbo, the embarrassment, the resentment. He summons Joab, who ignores him twice. So, Absalom has his servants set Joab's barley field on fire to get his attention. And it works. Joab finally arranges the meeting, and Absalom comes before the king. The meeting after so many years is loving and distant at the same time. Absalom bows to the ground, and David kisses him. And on the surface, seems reconciled, but underneath, it's like a son who's learned that the way to get what he wants from this kingdom is to set things on fire. So, hold that thought when we're going into chapter 15. And then the Tanakh pauses right in the middle of all this to tell us something peculiar about Absalom, that in all of Israel, there was no man so praised for his beauty. From head to toe, not a blemish. And his hair, when he cut it once a year because it grew too heavy, it weighed 200 shekels. The text lingers on Absalom's glorious hair. And if you know where the story's going, that detail is striking because it's that very beautiful, done-up hair that will one day catch him in the branches of a tree and cost him his life. So, his glory becomes his snare. And friends, that's what 2 Samuel chapter 14 teaches us in two directions at the same time. First, for our own lives. This chapter is about the danger of the half return. And it speaks to the very strained relationship that we carry. Most of us know how to be merciful to strangers how and how to hold a grudge against family. I mean, David shows us the cost of both. The woman from Tekoa hands us the standard. God devises ways to bring the banished all the way back and refuses to leave anyone stranded in between. A reconciliation that keeps the door open, but the heart closed doesn't really heal anything. And it lets the wounds fester until it explodes. And if we're going to forgive, forgive completely. Bring people fully back into our warmth before the cold does its damage. And second, for Israel today. Friends, that phrase, God devises ways for the banished one not remained banished. That is a very In a very real sense, that's the story of our entire generation. For 2,000 years, the Jewish people were the banished ones, scattered, cast out, water spilled on the ground that the nations said could never be gathered up. And [snorts] yet, here we are. I mean, the we're gathered, returned, because God is exactly who the woman of Tekoa said he is. The one who never stops engineering the return of the exile, who builds a road home across two millennia, and brings his people back to these hills. I mean, we are the living proof of that verse. And our task now is to make sure the return is not a half return. Not just bodies back in the land, but our hearts still in exile, but a people who come all the way home, to the land, to each other, and to Hashem. And so, may we be the generation that finally comes all the way home. Chazak u'baruch, my friends. And before we go, if these daily journeys through the words of the prophets, if they mean something to you, and I want you to know, I'm in the United States now, it's touching a lot of people all over the world. I want to invite you to become a sponsor of the Prophets of Israel Daily. It takes a lot to bring this message to hundreds of countries every single day, keep it free and open it to all. So, help us become a part of the engine that brings these eternal [music] words to people around the world. Click on the link below and join us, and we would love to partner with you. So, shalom from Middle America. We'll see you tomorrow [music] for chapter 15.