Week 82, Day 3: Absalom is killed
Today’s Reading: 2 Samuel 18:1-33
Some thoughts from today’s reading…
We are not told how many men Absalom had in his army verses how many men David had in his. Absalom’s army is defeated and flees before David’s. We are told that the forest where they fought devoured more men than did the sword. This is interesting to me because I wonder what about the forest killed the men. Wild beast had been sent against God’s enemies before and will be in the future. Perhaps something abou the terrain inside the forest was so dangerous as well. 20,000 fell of Absalom’s army. So this was a pretty large battle.
We had been told in chapter 14 about Absalom’s hair. He cut his hair once a year because it had grown so much as to be heavy on him. This information now bears more in our understanding for we see Absalom getting caught in a tree. I can imagine him riding quickly to try to escape the slaughter and going through a thick part of the forest. And then he finds himself in a most embarrasing situation. Here is the man who was trying to be king, stuck in a tree by his hair. I have wondered at times whether Absalom didn’t carry some kind of weapon to try and cut himself free. But this situation becomes his doom as Joab kills him there.
Question: Was Joab right by disobeying the king and going ahead and killing Absalom?
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Week 82, Day 2: God overthrows Absalom’s counsel
Today’s Reading: 2 Samuel 17:1-29
Some thoughts from today’s reading…
David’s hastily made plans enacted when he was fleeing Jerusalem have now begun to bear fruit. David had told one of his counselors named Hushai to remain behind in Jerusalem. This man was in a position to be able to thwart the good advice from Absalom’s counselor. We are told that this was the work of the Lord (vs. 14). Here we have a glimpse that God is working to help David even in the midst of punishing David. God caused evil to come against David from within his own household as the prophet Nathan had told him. God was limiting what calamity was befalling David. Clearly God was keeping David from being killed. From David’s standpoint he would not have known to what extent this punishment would go or how long things would last. But God was good to David and allowed him to return later.
Question: When we are beset by hardships, what attitude should we have regarding our outlook and devotion to God?
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Week 82, Day 5: Absalom takes over
Today’s Reading: 2 Samuel 15:1-37
Some thoughts from today’s reading…
Absalom has displayed that he is a calculating man. It was two years before he executed his plan to kill Amnon. Now it has been four years since he returned and he has slowly been turning the hearts of the people to him. He stole away the hearts of the people and made his coup strong. In an instance David is forced to flee for his life. It is impressive to think that a son would seek to slay his own father. Perhaps it was David’s lack of guidance and control in his own house. He had not done anything apparently about Amnon’s wicked actions and now he seems to have left Absalom to stew on things for years. How sad that a man so dedicated to God (David) could handle his own house so poorly. Sadly it is something that has been repeated many times over the years.
David’s plight though is a direct result of his sin with Bathsheba. Let us not deceive ourselves into thinking that sin will not cost us anything. No matter how “small” the sin may appear or how enticing the action is (David commited adultery secretly – not many knew about it) we need to remember that our sin is before God and we will have to answer for our actions. Sin will find us out and we can be forgiven by God’s great mercy, but there are often unavoidable consequences that follow sin.
Question: How well did David handle things as he was fleeing? Do you think he could have done anything differently?
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Week 82, Day 4: Joab’s plan
Today’s Reading: 2 Samuel 14:1-33
Some thoughts from today’s reading…
Joab recognized that David longed for his son Absalom and so he devises a plan to get David to bring back Absalom. Joab doesn’t just go and talk to David. For some reason he sets about getting this elaborate plan together on how to move David emotionally to see the need to bring Absalom back. I wonder if this plan was enacted because Joab knew David so well that he understood that David would not bring him back without a special kind of nudge. The widow’s story appears to be designed to pull at David’s heart strings and get him to think with his emotions. But David perceives that something else is going on with the widow’s story and is able to guess that Joab is behind it. We will see times later where Joab appears to speak very frankly with David. For example, when David mourns for the loss of his son Absalom after the rebellion was put down. Joab confronts David about his weeping and rebukes him for not showing thanks towards his fighting men. This was a bold step for Joab to do and appears to show how close a relationship he shared with David to be able to approach him in such ways.
So many times people will do like Joab and try to use emotions to get someone to act in a certain manner. In this case I am not sure why Joab took it upon himself to spur David to action. Why was Joab worried about it? Perhaps it was simply that he wanted to see David happy and not sitting around missing his son.
Question: How can acting out of emotions be a bad thing? What problems can result from just following our emotions?
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