2 Samuel 18:9 - Meaning and Application

Here Absalom is at a loss, first in his plans and then in his life. He began the battle expecting to defeat David himself, and if he had captured him, he would not have shown mercy. But now, when he meets David’s servants, he is filled with fear, 2 Samuel 18:9. Even though they had been told not to touch him, he dares not face them. When he sees they are close, he urges his mule forward and rushes on through everything in his path, riding straight toward his own ruin. So the one who runs from danger falls into the pit, and the one who climbs out of the pit is caught in the snare, Jeremiah 48:44.

David wanted to spare him, but God’s justice passes sentence on him as a traitor and carries it out. He is to hang by the neck, be taken alive, be cut down, and have his body treated in shameful fashion. First, he is hanged by the neck. As he rides wildly, neck or nothing, under the thick branches of a large oak, one of the twisted limbs catches his head, perhaps by the neck, or, as some think, by his long hair. That hair had been his pride, and now it becomes the rope of his shame. There he hangs, so stunned that he cannot use his hands, or so tangled that his hands cannot free him. The more he struggles, the more trapped he becomes.

This makes him an easy target for David’s servants, and he must endure the terror of being exposed while unable to help himself, fight, or flee. Notice three things. First, his mule moves out from under him, as if glad to be rid of such a burden and hand him over to the humiliating tree. In this way, all creation groans under the burden of human sin, but it will soon be set free from that burden (Romans 8:21, Romans 8:22). Second, he hangs between heaven and earth, unfit for either, abandoned by both. Earth will not keep him, heaven will not receive him, and hell is therefore ready to open its mouth. Third, this was a very strange and surprising event.

It was fitting that it should be so, since his sin was so monstrous. If, while fleeing, his mule had simply thrown him and left him half dead on the ground until David’s servants came and finished him, the result would have been the same. But that would have been too ordinary a fate for such an unusual criminal. God, as in the case of the rebels Dathan and Abiram, made a new thing, so that it would be clear how deeply this man had angered the Lord (Numbers 16:29, Numbers 16:30). Absalom is thus held up as a warning, a sight meant to frighten children away from disobedience to their parents. See Proverbs 30:17.

Second, one of David’s servants catches him alive and goes at once to tell Joab where he found this archrebel, 2 Samuel 18:10. He is set up as a spectacle as well as a target, so that the righteous may see him and mock him (Psalm 52:6). He also suffers another wound in his heart, because among all the friends he had courted and trusted, none was there to free him, though he hung long enough to be rescued.

Joab blames the man for not killing him, 2 Samuel 18:11. He tells him that if he had struck that bold blow, he would have rewarded him with ten pieces of silver and a belt, likely meaning a captain’s commission, which may have been marked by giving a belt or sash, see Isaiah 22:21. But the man, though fully against Absalom, defends himself for not doing it. “Kill him?” he says, “not for anything in the world. It would have cost me my life. You yourself heard the king’s command about him, 2 Samuel 18:12, and, for all your talk, you would have been the first to accuse me if I had done it,” 2 Samuel 18:13. Those who love treason hate the traitor.

Joab cannot deny this and cannot fault the man’s caution. So he gives him no answer and breaks off the talk under the excuse that he must hurry, 2 Samuel 18:14. “I may not spend time with you.” Leaders should think carefully before they reprove others, or they may later be ashamed of their rebuke and find they cannot support it.

Third, Absalom is, as it were, cut up and destroyed like a traitor, so badly torn is his body as he hangs there. He receives his death in a way that lets him feel its pain and see its terror. Joab throws three darts into his body, which likely caused great suffering while he was still alive in the oak, 2 Samuel 18:14. I do not know whether Joab can be defended for directly disobeying his king’s order. Was this to deal gently with the young man? Would David have allowed it if he had been there? Yet it can be said for Joab that, while he broke the command of a father who had been too soft, he did real service to both king and country. Had he not done it, he would have endangered the welfare of both. The safety of the people is the highest law.

Then Joab’s ten young men strike Absalom before he is fully finished, 2 Samuel 18:15. They surround him, form a ring around him in triumph, and then strike and kill him. So let all your enemies perish, O Lord.

After this, Joab calls for the pursuit to stop, 2 Samuel 18:16. The danger is over now that Absalom is dead. The people will soon return to David’s rule, so no more blood should be shed. No prisoners are taken for trial as traitors or made examples of. Every man should go back to his tent. They are all the king’s subjects, and now they will again act as loyal subjects.

Last, his body is treated with shame, 2 Samuel 18:17, 2 Samuel 18:18. They throw it into a large pit in the wood. They will not take it to his father, because that would only deepen David’s grief. They also refuse to preserve it for burial, as his command required, and instead cast it into the nearest pit with anger. Where now is the beauty he was so proud of and that won him so much praise? Where are his proud plans and the castles he built in his imagination? His thoughts are gone, and he with them.

To show how heavily his sin lay upon him, as the prophet says (Ezekiel 32:27), they raise a great heap of stones over him, as a monument to his wickedness and as a sign that he should have been stoned as a rebellious son, Deuteronomy 21:21. Travelers say the place is still known, and that passersby often throw a stone onto the heap, saying something like, “Cursed be the memory of rebellious Absalom, and cursed forever be all wicked children who rise up against their parents.” To make the shame of Absalom’s burial even greater, the historian mentions a pillar he had set up in the Valley of Kidron, near Jerusalem, as a monument to himself and to keep his name alive, 2 Samuel 18:18. He likely meant to be buried at its base.

How foolish and small the plans of proud people can be. Many take great care over what will happen to their bodies after death, yet give no care at all to what will become of their precious souls. Absalom had three sons (2 Samuel 14:27), but now, it seems, he had none, because God had taken them away in death. It was fitting that a rebellious son should be left childless.

To make up for that loss, he set up this pillar as a memorial. Even there, however, providence crossed him, and a rough heap of stones would serve as his monument instead of a marble pillar. In this way, those who lift themselves up will be brought low. He wanted his name to be remembered, and it is remembered, but to his lasting shame.

He could not be content with the quiet place of the other sons of David, whose names are recorded but little else. He wanted fame, and for that reason he has been made famous forever in disgrace. The pillar would carry his name, but it would not bring him honor. It was meant for Absalom’s glory, but it became proof of Absalom’s folly.